By Orel Rhodes, Maddie Luster, Lauren Champion, Griffin Moreland, Teagan Trammell, Jennifer Enloe, Jack Lefavour, Jack Callahan, Justin Bosse, Abbey Anderson, Brooke Free, Ross Jackson, Miner P. “Trey” Marchbanks III, and Elizabeth Walker*

In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we discussed the importance of emergency communication plans along with the wide array of disasters that a community can face. In this article, we will provide you with tangible steps so that your community can be prepared for an emergency.

Throughout our time in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), we gathered information through focus groups, meetings with key stakeholders, and community leaders to learn about the community, obstacles, and current emergency management methods. To best understand the problem, we needed to understand the context of the RGV, including local stories, priorities, and obstacles. From this context, we found that data-driven, low-cost solutions are obtainable with the following methods.

Focus Groups and Town Halls

These community gatherings served as essential touchpoints for listening, learning, and trust-building. They allowed our team to directly engage with critical stakeholders to collect real-time input, clarify confusion, and provide an opportunity for participants to voice localized concerns that might not appear in surveys or other forms of assessment. To ensure relevance and clarity in our findings, we categorized focus groups based on participants’ professional and community roles. Our team prioritized engaging three critical sectors:

Local Community Leaders: respected residents with established trust within neighborhoods and marginalized communities.

Nonprofit Leaders: direct service providers familiar with the on-the-ground realities of vulnerable populations.

Emergency Managers and Government Officials: key decision-makers responsible for public safety, resource allocation, and coordination.

Several focus groups were intentionally designed to work with one sector at a time, creating space for candid feedback about barriers, breakdowns, and potential solutions unique to that group’s experience. This approach helped uncover sector-specific challenges (such as nonprofits’ difficulties with interagency coordination or residents’ concerns about inconsistent messaging) while also identifying opportunities for collaboration between roles. Insights from these sessions informed targeted recommendations that respond to each sector’s unique pain points while supporting holistic, community-wide emergency preparedness.

Focus groups and town halls also presented opportunities for building cross-sectoral bonds. There are many natural obstacles that are formed during a response. One of the issues is departmental and organizational silos (fragmentation). Utilizing specific focus groups gives an open but directed conversation between organizations and departments to lay the groundwork for a longer-term partnership. The focus groups themselves cannot be the end of the conversation, although they open the door to collaborating. Many individuals met for the first time and found shared frustrations over general response procedures.

By bringing together diverse voices, these forums fostered deeper understanding, more collaborative planning, and the potential for long-term partnerships that can strengthen emergency communication efforts well beyond crisis events. More than a tool for information-gathering, it is hoped that these meetings were the first step in building foundational trust that develops when stakeholders interact consistently and transparently over time.

Community Engagement

It’s not just a supplemental aspect of emergency planning; it’s foundational. In Region 10, our team recognized early on that effective emergency communication strategies could not be developed in a vacuum. They had to be built in partnership with the people most affected by emergencies: the residents themselves. That’s why nearly all of our focus groups were conducted in person across the RGV. These face-to-face interactions were essential in building authentic relationships and gathering context-specific insight that goes far beyond what surveys or online meetings can achieve.

These in-person conversations allowed us to tap into the lived experiences of diverse residents, local leaders, and nonprofit stakeholders. They revealed not just logistical barriers to emergency response, but also emotional and cultural ones, such as a deep-seated distrust of government communication or a lack of awareness about available services.

Engaging in person, in the communities where these emergencies occur, underscored the importance of cultural competence, language accessibility, and localized trust-building. When someone shares their story in their neighborhood, surrounded by familiar faces, they are more likely to open up and offer honest feedback. This made our data more accurate and our recommendations more grounded.

Importantly, this approach highlighted the community’s capacity for resilience. We found that many residents, while under-resourced, were deeply committed to protecting their families and neighbors. They were not passive recipients of aid; they were willing collaborators, eager to contribute to the planning process if given the opportunity. Our focus groups became a space for co-creation rather than extraction. For local governments, this model offers a powerful reminder: communities are not liabilities to manage during a crisis; they are assets to mobilize before it ever begins.

This kind of community engagement also has long-term implications. When residents are included in emergency planning discussions, they are more likely to trust the systems put in place. They are more likely to share accurate information with their neighbors, follow safety protocols, and provide grassroots support to others. And they are more likely to hold local leadership accountable for ensuring that emergency preparedness is inclusive, accessible, and well-practiced. Engaging communities from the start not only strengthens emergency response, it builds social cohesion and trust, two factors that dramatically increase a community’s ability to recover from disaster.

Leveraging Students and Volunteers

While our engagement in Region 10 did not directly involve students or volunteers in the dissemination of emergency materials, our team identified this as a promising, community-based strategy for increasing preparedness, particularly in resource-limited regions. As graduate students at the time of this project, we were immersed in our local Bryan–College Station community and saw firsthand the power of student-led initiatives in shaping public dialogue, supporting outreach, and driving civic engagement. This lived experience inspired us to explore how student energy and volunteer involvement could be applied to emergency communication efforts in places like the RGV.

We recognized that students, especially those engaged through schools, universities, or youth-serving organizations, are uniquely positioned to support public information efforts. Equipping them with accessible, bilingual emergency preparedness materials, such as pamphlets or flyers explaining what to do in various emergency scenarios, offers a cost-effective and scalable method for community education. Though the immediate goal isn’t deep subject matter expertise, this approach can foster long-term awareness. When a student takes home a flyer and discusses it with family, it initiates a cycle of informal education. Over time, these micro-interactions can collectively build a more prepared and informed community.

Moreover, students often serve as cultural and linguistic bridges in regions like the RGV, where language barriers can complicate emergency communication. Many young people act as informal translators within their households, and involving them in emergency messaging could help ensure that information reaches linguistically diverse and hard-to-reach populations. In this way, students can help break down the very barriers that often prevent equitable access to emergency preparedness information.

Volunteers, too, offer a valuable and underutilized resource. Whether through churches, local nonprofits, or neighborhood associations, volunteers can serve as trusted messengers, extending the reach of emergency communication strategies far beyond official government channels. They can assist with distributing materials, organizing preparedness events, or even supporting social media outreach during active emergencies. These efforts are particularly helpful in communities with limited technological infrastructure or public funding.

Significantly, engaging students and volunteers also cultivates a culture of civic responsibility. When young people or community members are empowered to take an active role in preparedness, they begin to view themselves not just as potential victims of disaster, but as contributors to collective resilience. This shift in perspective is vital: emergency management cannot succeed through top-down mandates alone. It must be rooted in shared responsibility.

Ultimately, while we did not implement this strategy during our fieldwork in Region 10, we strongly recommend it as a low-cost, high-impact approach for other local governments and emergency managers. By activating the social networks already present within a community, particularly those driven by student involvement and volunteerism, emergency communication can become more localized, more inclusive, and more effective

Know How to Reach Your Community

The work that we did in Region 10 was tailored to their specific needs and emergency situations. While your area may be prone to different emergency threats, many of the plans we had for Region 10 are applicable to your area as well. Focusing on clear, consistent messaging along with having an updated chain of command are just a few of the steps that can help create an emergency plan.

The first thing that all communities require in emergency planning is an updated chain of command. Emergencies are often unexpected, and ensuring all emergency officials are listed with up-to-date contact information is crucial. This should include city, county, state, and federal contacts. All emergencies are first local emergencies, but when higher levels of officials are called in, it should improve the recovery process, not eliminate the plan. In addition, round tables and mock emergencies should be executed to guarantee that the emergency plan is understood and actionable.

Emergency situations understandably cause panic for many people, even those not directly affected. Making sure those tasked with running city social media accounts, as well as those who will meet with the press, share the same message is vital. With social media and the internet being many people’s first source for news coverage during times of emergency, it is also vital to combat misinformation as much as possible so that those impacted are not misinformed, causing them further harm.

In addition to the importance of proper, clear communication, understanding how to best communicate with your community is also crucial. Not all emergencies happen out of the blue, so for those such as incoming winter storms or hurricanes, where models can project when it is set to hit, make sure to get the message out to people. This involves more than allowing for local news and city socials to post about the upcoming events in your community. It may also mean asking religious leaders to tell their congregations about an event or having a handout sent home with all kids from local schools so that families are aware. Emergency preparation information is for all people, not just those with a phone or a TV or those who speak English.

As community leaders, it is essential to know how people in your community receive information. As we previously mentioned, the importance of holding focus groups and meeting with community leaders is knowing how best to get the attention of those in the community. While in many communities having the mayor or other elected officials hold press conferences may be the best way to reach a large group of the population, in other communities it will be through the local news reporter posting about it on social media or a local religious leader reaching out. As government officials, we must realize that in emergencies, we must be willing to work with those outside of the government, as the safety of the community must be our top priority. This is not to say that the responsibility to inform the community does not also fall on those in the government, but that in these situations, no stone should be left unturned.

On behalf of the Texas A&M University Bush School Graduate Class of 2024, we would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Texas City Managers Association (TCMA) Region 10 for allowing us to collect data and conduct research within your communities. Your support has been invaluable in fostering our academic growth and equipping us with the skills necessary to make meaningful contributions to public service.

A special thank you to the late Elizabeth Walker for her outstanding contribution to our team at Texas A&M University. Her unwavering dedication to public service and mentorship has profoundly inspired us. Her support exemplifies the commitment and passion that drive impactful change within communities across Texas.

* We sincerely appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with TCMA Region 10 and look forward to applying the insights gained through this experience to serve the public good. Thank you, Elizabeth!

GRIFFIN MORELAND is assistant to the city manager, Pecos, Texas, USA.

TEAGAN TRAMMELL is management analyst II, Sugar Land, Texas, USA.

OREL RHODES is executive assistant to the general secretary/CEO, Baptist World Alliance.

JENNIFER ENLOE is captain of field operations, Texas A&M University Police.

JOHN “JACK” LEFAVOUR is executive officer, Longenecker & Associates.

JACK CALLAHAN is coal community development manager, Navajo County and Apache County, Arizona, USA.

MADELINE LUSTER is public relations, Bixby, Oklahoma, USA.

LAUREN CHAMPION is digital opportunity coordinator, Texas Broadband Development Office.

JUSTIN BOSSE is associate fleet analyst, fleet transfer – Houston.

ABBEY ANDERSON is assistant to the city administrator, Spring Valley Village, Texas, USA.

BROOKE FREE is director of sales, OsteoStrong – Houston.

ROSS JACKSON is a policy analyst, Right on Crime, Texas Public Policy Foundation.

MINER P. “TREY” MARCHBANKS III is a research scientist, The Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.

ELIZABETH WALKER served as assistant city manager, Brownsville, Texas.