Public Education on Personal Emergency Preparedness

The Community Services Committee recommends the adoption of the following report (November 16, 1999) from the Commissioner of Works and Emergency Services:

Purpose:

The purpose of this report is to provide information on options for educating the public on personal emergency preparedness.

Financial Implications and Impact Statement:

Financial implications will be as described in this report for whatever option is selected. The required funding will be included in the 2000 Operating Budget.

Recommendations:

It is recommended that:

(1) if the Community Services Committee requests that personal emergency preparedness information be distributed to all residents, then the option of the pamphlet and Canada Post be selected at a cost of approximately $91,000, or;

(2) if the Community Services Committee requests that personal emergency preparedness information be distributed, but not to all residents, then the option of the pamphlet and Toronto Hydro bills be selected at a cost of approximately $38,000, and;

(3) the media not be used as the sole or primary method of information dissemination.

Background:

At the meeting of the Community Services Committee on September 9, 1999, the Committee directed "that the Commissioner of Works and Emergency Services be requested to report to the Community Services Committee, as soon as possible, on the necessary funding required to prepare a pamphlet for distribution to all citizens in the City of Toronto respecting steps that could be taken by citizens in regard to various emergency situations". The committee also requested review and comment on the motion "that the information to citizens be disseminated through the media rather than by pamphlet".

Comments:

Fire Services division of the Works & Emergency Services department is taking the lead on personal emergency preparedness public education. It has added four pages of Toronto information to a 24-page brochure entitled Be Prepared, Not Scared: Emergency Preparedness Starts With You written by Emergency Preparedness Canada and the Canadian Red Cross. This detailed brochure suggests procedures, priorities and checklists that citizens should act on in order to be prepared for any kind of emergency. One hundred thousand of these brochures are being distributed in Toronto through local fire stations, police stations, community centres, etc. with another 100,000 printed recently.

Works and Emergency Services communications staff have prepared a synopsis of Be Prepared, Not Scared and turned it into a pamphlet. It pays particular attention to the items that residents should acquire to prepare home and vehicle emergency kits and the procedures they should follow before and during an emergency. This pamphlet has been translated into six languages (5,000 copies each of Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Tamil and Somali) and we are working with the Canadian Red Cross Society to distribute the pamphlets within the various ethno-racial communities.

There are approximately 900,000 houses and apartments in the City of Toronto. It would cost more than $200,000 to reprint enough copies of Be Prepared, Not Scared to provide one to every household, plus the cost of distribution. To print 900,000 copies of the smaller pamphlet described above would cost approximately $25,000.00.

With respect to distribution, there are a number of options available. To reach all 900,000 households in the city, a distribution company or Canada Post would have to be used. We could also insert the pamphlet into a Toronto Hydro billing, to go out in January or February 2000; however, the billing only goes to 650,000 households. (It could cost us approximately $13,000.00 for the Toronto Hydro mailing if the weight of our pamphlets causes an increase in their postal costs.)

A distribution company will charge approximately 4.5 cents per piece plus GST. It can distribute to houses, apartments and businesses; however, the carriers often cannot get into apartment building mail rooms so leave piles of material in the front lobby where they are not picked up or are thrown out by the superintendent. Distribution can take as long as four to six weeks for the whole city. While inexpensive, the service can be unreliable - on occasion stacks of materials have been found in dumpsters. To distribute to 900,000 households would cost approximately $44,000.00.

Canada Post charges 6.825 cents per piece for houses and apartments, plus GST. However, to get the above price, materials must be delivered, in the appropriate quantity, to 32 postal stations. Distribution takes approximately four days from the time the postal station receives the material. Postal workers can deliver right into apartment building mailboxes. To distribute to 900,000 households would cost approximately $66,000.00.

It must be emphasized that due to the timeframe needed for Council approval, printing and distribution, the pamphlet would not be distributed to residents until after January 1, 2000.

With respect to the request to consider disseminating the information through the media rather than by pamphlet, "through the media" can mean two things - via advertising or through reporting by journalists. Each of these possibilities is discussed below.

Paid advertising is an important part of the communications mix for many public education campaigns. It has the advantage of stating information exactly as the proponent wants but it is expensive. Another disadvantage is that, particularly when using the dailies, the information is here today, gone tomorrow. Even if cut out and kept, it soon yellows and disintegrates. For these reasons, and because of the amount of information that needs to be conveyed about emergency preparedness, advertising is not a good choice for this campaign.

Media relations, (reporting by journalists) is unquestionably an extremely important conduit for getting information to the public. On the plus side, media coverage is very inexpensive and very visible. However, it as fleeting as advertising. And there are further serious limitations to how effective the media can be.

- Selectivity - The media cannot be expected to cover something simply because the City of Toronto feels it is important. Each reporter, media outlet, editor, etc. uses different criteria to determine whether or not something is worthwhile to their readers/listeners. If they don't consider it newsworthy, they will not use it. If it doesn't fit their medium, they won't use it. (For example, if it does not have strong visuals, television will not cover it.) If the issue is not timely, or too complicated, they will not use it.

- Message - There is no guarantee that the media will cover a story from the angle that the City of Toronto wants it covered or that they will reiterate the messages that we would like. In fact, the story could be slanted in a completely different way. This could result in substantial omissions or significant misinformation in the messages going out to the public.

- Timing - If the information is released on a certain day and a significant story breaks on the same day, the story may not be used or it may be buried somewhere where it receives little exposure. We have no control over when, or if, a media outlet decides to run the information.

We recommend using the media to help us get information to our residents; however, for the above reasons, it is unwise to leave the dissemination of an important message solely to the media.

There are a number of informal distribution channels, in addition to fire and police stations that will be used to get the personal emergency preparedness information out to residents at little or no cost. Fire Services has added this information to its web site, which is accessed through the city's main web site. Fire services public education staff are also incorporating emergency preparedness information into the standard fire safety presentations that they make to the public. In addition, pamphlets will be distributed at displays, which are at venues around the city; information officers will distribute them at presentations and tours; they will be available at Civic Centres; given to the media; and distributed at special events. We would also make the information available to Councillors and provide pamphlets to community groups for their distribution.

Conclusions:

There are a number of options available to educate the public about steps they can take in regard to various emergency situations. These options vary in the number of citizens they reach, in timing and in cost. If the City wants to reach all households, then the option using a pamphlet delivered by Canada Post should be selected. If the City does not need to reach all households, then the option of a pamphlet inserted into Toronto Hydro bills should be chosen. Media relations is recommended as one of the activities that the City should undertake but the media should not be the sole or primary vehicle for information dissemination.

Contact:

Nicole Dufort

Manager, Communications

Tel: 392-2963/Fax: 392-2974

E-mail: ndufort@toronto.ca