Evaluating the crisis communications campaign during the 2020-2021 eruption of La Soufriere, St Vincent.

During the 2020-2021 eruption of La Soufriere, St. Vincent, the Seismic Research Centre at The University of the West Indies (SRC) played a major role in supporting communication of hazard and risk information to publics and stakeholders across St. Vincent. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the communications campaign was heavily reliant on social media channels and TV and radio broadcasts, rather than in-person community education and communication sessions. Although the communications approach sought to be inclusive of all members of the affected communities where possible, it was considered possible that the more vulnerable residents, such as the elderly, children, and those with low levels of literacy were excluded from the communication efforts.

In order to establish the effectiveness of the crisis communications campaign at engaging communities and stakeholders with relevant information and to identify areas for improvement, a large-scale evaluation campaign was conducted in St Vincent in August 2021. The results demonstrate that radio broadcasts are the most important communication tool for broad community reach, but that person-to-person information sharing was more important in the most exposed communities. Agencies such as the Red Cross and grassroots community disaster preparedness groups were instrumental in the spread of information to those most vulnerable within the most at-risk communities and for evacuation coordination. However, social media was also found to be highly effective at communicating information to the diaspora, which in turn was communicated to family and friends on the island through mediums such as WhatsApp.

Here we present some of the early findings of this research and provide suggestions and considerations to inform future crisis communication campaigns in St. Vincent and the wider Caribbean region.