The Challenge
Visuals Needed Fast, Tools Not Built to Share
As an operational PIO, Victorian Simmons responds alongside police and fire when an incident reaches a certain threshold, handling media staging and releasing information, photos, and video. Social media is where most residents now get their news, and posts without visuals rarely break through. On average, people spend 1.7 seconds deciding whether to pay attention to your content; but people can’t decide whether to pay attention to you from text alone. You need a visual to make them stop and decide to read further.
If it doesn’t have a picture or a video with it on social media, it will not trend.”
Victorian Simmons
Operational PIO, Town of Apex
In emergencies, misinformation spreads fast. Getting accurate, authentic visuals out before a false narrative takes root is critical. But the tools available during deployments weren’t built for it: OneDrive folders that external responders couldn’t access through IT firewalls, Google folders, and free Flickr accounts with long, unwieldy URLs.
This led to:
- Shared folders blocked for partner agencies behind IT firewalls
- Long, hard-to-share links that slowed distribution
- Platforms not designed to store, sort, and share content together
- Risk of misinformation filling the gap when visuals were slow to arrive
The Use Case
One Link, Every Responder
During Hurricane Helene, Apex’s PIO deployed to support Buncombe County, the North Carolina county with the most fatalities. Communicators from across the country were working to counter misinformation, including false claims about FEMA’s response.
When you deploy, you’re an asset and you bring your own tools with you to do the job. So I brought MediaValet with me from the Town of Apex.”
Victorian Simmons
Operation PIO, Town of Apex
From the Field to a Shareable Portal
Each day, the PIO shot 9 to 10 hours of photos and video on a Nikon D850, edited them in Lightroom after the evening debrief, and uploaded them to a MediaValet portal. Each day got its own section, labelled by date and tagged by activity, such as National Guard, MRE, or food drop.
One URL for Every Partner
The portal sat behind a short, simple Town of Apex URL. That one link went to:
- The National Guard, to show families what crews were doing on the ground
- The joint information center’s social media team, for posts on topics like potable water
- A national incident management team, which passed it to FEMA and on to the White House
“All of a sudden there were my photos and videos on national TV, showcasing FEMA boots on the ground.”
Consistency When People Rotate Out
In a long-term 24-hour response, people normally take 12-hour shifts to make sure there is 24-hour coverage and spend anywhere, on average, from 7 to 30 days in deployments. A fixed portal allows anyone to pick up the content and keep moving and supporting, while the local communicators keep final sign-off on messaging.
The Results
Built for Crisis and Blue Sky Days
Portals
Portals give partners one simple link to high-resolution content, rather than relying on AI image creation (which is not recommended), when an in-field photographer updates it daily during an incident. On everyday “blue sky” days, the same approach lets the PIO send a full album, such as retirement photos, to a chief and their family to download in high resolution after the event, if covered by a photographer who has access to MediaValet.
Advanced Search
Photos are tagged by department, subject, and location, such as police, K-9, or Halle. With Advanced Search, just typing one keyword instantly surfaces every matching photo, ready for templates and posts.
Face Recognition
Responders coming in to help don’t need to know what local officials look like; they search by name. Apex also uses name labels to protect sensitive individuals: undercover investigators are labeled “do not use,” so other departments know not to publish those images.
During incidents like a Line of Duty Death (LODD), Face Recognition combs through years and years and hundreds of thousands of photos to give you every photo ever taken of the individual within minutes to use in the ceremony or even simply to give to the family of the responder.
“No one’s exempt from an emergency, and this is a tool that you definitely need, whether you’re in a reactive or proactive position.”
Key Features
Verified Visuals at National Scale
National Reach From One Link
- One portal URL shared with the local JIC, local media, National Guard, FEMA, national media, and the White House
- Response photos and video aired on national TV
- Accurate visuals helped counter misinformation about the federal response
Content Residents Could Trust
- Locally shot images showed residents their own communities, with familiar mountains in the background
- Local communicators kept control of the final message
Lasting Value in Recovery
- The same Helene photos are still used in recovery recaps, including at the two-year anniversary
Ready for the Next Emergency
- Apex is now uploading and organizing content proactively, so outside PIOs who come to support during an emergency can work from it on day one.
I can’t say enough good things about MediaValet.”
Victorian Simmons
Operational PIO, Town of Apex
Next Steps
Interested in how a MediaValet DAM could support your government or municipality team, in a crisis and every day? Reach out to a rep today and discover why MediaValet is the best DAM on the market.