Avoid Minimizing Crisis Potential

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

When part of one floor of a parking garage in Atlanta collapsed a couple of days ago, the first statement from the construction company that supervised its erection seven years earlier included a troubling paragraph:

“To put this incident in perspective there are 1415 spaces in this deck. One section was involved, and it is estimated that approximately 35 spaces were affected.”

At the time, it was hoped, but not yet absolutely determined, there were no deaths or injuries. Just one death would’ve been tragic, making this part of the statement quite ill-advised.

(Note: the above part of the statement was expunged from a follow up statement by the company president which is on the company’s home page.)

Hardin Construction Co., the lead contractor on the project that included two office buildings had suffered an earlier crisis on another project in which one worker died and eight others were critically injured.

An elevated sidewalk at Atlanta’s Botanical Gardens collapsed last December while under construction. If injuries or deaths were later discovered at the parking garage, the minimizing part of the first company statement would’ve been especially unfortunate in this case.