AS a Government spokesman and former Royal Gazette journalist, he is already well-known to the local media. However, as it was his voice on the airwaves that carried many through the darkness and winds last Friday night, the Mid-Ocean News thought it was time to introduce the public to the man behind the voice: John Burchall.

Growing up in the City of Hamilton and St. George's, Mr. Burchall attended Bermuda Institute and Saltus Grammar School. He spent his university years in the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he completed a degree in political science and philosophy at Dalhousie University and then a master's degree in journalism from King's College.

On returning to Bermuda, he began work as a reporter at The Royal Gazette, where he spent seven years. He then moved to Marsh Global Brokers for a year as an insurance broker before joining the department then known as Government Information Services (now the Department of Communication and Information) in March of 2002. The 33-year old has two daughters, Zindzi, eight, and Zenani, six, as well as an 11-year-old stepson called Terin.

Reporter SARAH TITTERTON and photographer TAMELL SIMONS caught up with Mr. Burchall in his office at Global House this week, and sat down to talk to him about the ups and downs of his job - in particular his experience as a Government spokesman both during and after Hurricane Fabian.

Q: What exactly is your position at the Department of Communication and Information and what do you do there?

A: I am a public affairs officer. I am responsible for the public relations, media management and marketing for Government departments.

Q: How long have you been there for?

A: March next year will be two years, so nearly two years.

Q: What aspects of the job do you enjoy?

A: I enjoy the fact that it's a very diverse job. On any given day I could be drafting a speech for the Premier, I could be helping to plan a conference, or I could be deciding on the size and content of an ad or helping to design an advertising campaign.

Q: And the most challenging aspects of the job?

A: The challenging part of the job is dealing with a vast constituency of people who all need information - whether that's members of the public who want things such as Government documents, legislation, school projects; members of the media wanting access; (Government) Ministers wanting speeches - so it's trying to juggle that vast array and keeping everybody happy. And I don't always get it right, I'd be the first to admit that.

Q: Now, you're not the only Government spokesperson - how many of you are there, how does it work?

A: There are six of us on the public affairs side and we each have ministries and Government departments that we're responsible for. So I handle Finance, the Ministry of Labour, Home Affairs & Public Safety, Education, and the Security Services/Emergency Measures Organisation (EMO).

So that's how I came to be up at Prospect (during Hurricane Fabian). And each of those ministries has an array of departments within them - for example, in Labour there's Immigration, Finance covers the Post Office.

Q: What was your role during the hurricane?

A: During the initial stages of Hurricane Fabian I was stationed at ComOps and I was the Government spokesman responsible for handling the information flow to the public as well as managing the local and foreign media requests for information. I was also responsible for working with the police for the handling of the Emergency Broadcast System.

I arrived (in the Emergency Broadcast room at EMO headquarters at ComOps) at 10 Friday morning and was there right through until 4 p.m. Saturday.

Q: Can you describe what it was like being down there with Robin Simmons, Thaao Dill, and Wayne and Dwayne Caines?

A: Well, I think it was a very energetic and at times frenetic environment. The phones were constantly ringing, there were meetings with senior officials in the Police Service and other areas of Government who needed their messages put out to the public, and also fielding calls from international media, giving interviews to local and overseas journalists about the storm and what was happening in Bermuda.

Q: What was it like working with the international media? There were some big names involved.

A: Yeah - I mean, I was interviewed by CNN, Wolf Blitzer, Gary Tuchman, the BBC, ABC, NBC - as well as getting the Premier and (Labour & Home Affairs Minister) Randy Horton interviewed. The Premier was interviewed on the NBC morning show on Saturday, and Minister Horton was on the CBS morning show on Saturday as well, by telephone interview.

Q: When you discovered that the Emergency Broadcast System was not initially working, how did you feel?

A:We all accept that there are going to be challenges in any endeavour and the ins and outs of what actually happened are being looked into at the moment so I can't say too much about that . . . But it was difficult, because the public was calling in and looking for information, going to the station and not hearing anything, so some people were quite irate, angry, some were quite unkind.

But, you know, I understood their frustration, and tried to assure them that every effort was being made to get the system working and to get information.

But it was an immensely difficult position to be in because the public had a valid concern.

Q: Do you think Government was prepared for the storm? Did we have enough time?

A:I think preparations were definitely made and the entire EMO was definitely organised, was definitely up and ready. But I think none of us could've contemplated the level of stress that was to come.

The high winds, in excess of 120 mph, had severe consequences on our ability to cope and we were fortunate that we already had systems in place that allowed us to manage under what were tremendously difficult circumstances.

I know that there will be many debriefings after things have subsided, but overall we see this as an opportunity to fine tune the system and make improvements so that we can be even better prepared the next time. Which I hope is not too soon.

Q: You mentioned systems already in place - what were those systems exactly?

A: The Broadcast System, the EMO which is the umbrella body responsible for the management of the crisis, we also had a national disaster co-ordinator - so we had all of those systems already in place and that part of the exercise went well.

Q: There has been a lot of criticism for Government/GIS from the press and the public on not having specific details in the aftermath of the storm. For example, in a press conference it was said the Causeway would be open for the daylight hours but what exact hours that entailed was never specified, things like what times buses would be running, which exact flights were landing, when the lighthouse will be repaired and so on. How do you respond to that kind of criticism?

A: I think information flow in a crisis is extremely important. I think we'd all accept that, however one of our challenges is getting the correct information out in a timely manner.

Now, in the circumstances of this hurricane you have the challenges of the communication system under stress, you have the challenge of getting information from the field to central headquarters, ensuring that information is correct and then getting the information out.

Under normal circumstances that is a challenging endeavour. If you add the difficulties with the storm on top of that you can see that that process becomes even more difficult.

That is not to say that our process cannot be improved, and we will be meeting to look at ways to make things better.

Q: So it's not a matter of Government sitting on this information, holding back the details, it's more a matter of you wanting to confirm information?

A:I think that it's easy to assume that there is an unwillingness to give information to the public, but what is our challenge is to make sure that we give the correct information to the public and so accuracy takes precedence over speed.

Q: But, then - using the times the Causeway would be open, for example. They said it would be open, but did not give the exact hours when. Do you not think it's wiser to wait for a full report or is it better to release information bit by bit?

A: At the moment all of those issues are going to be looked at and scrutinised, and so I don't want to pre-empt anything coming out about that.

Q: In the aftermath of the hurricane what have you been doing - i.e., since you left the Broadcast room?

A: Since then it's been working with the public affairs team here to get messages and advisories from the various departments co-ordinated and in the public domain, responding to media requests, getting on top of the projects we were working on for our various departments before the storm came.

Q: Getting back to business?

A: (Laughing) Yeah, getting back to business.

Q: How about your home, did you have a lot of damage?

A: Fortunately - as I said, I left home on Friday morning and I tried to secure my house as best I could and left to go to ComOps. I didn't return home until Saturday evening and I was really worried about what I was going to find but my house did not have any damage thankfully so I was fortunate - just a lot of cleaning to do.

Q: Were you separated from your family during the storm?

A: Well, my wife was overseas in the US.

Q: She must've been worried sick.

A: Oh yeah. She was. And my children were fine, I kept calling to check on them and they were glad to hear me on the radio.

Q: What do you think it's going to take for us to make a full recovery?

A: I think the community outreach has been really great and that has to continue. Our ability to come out of this really depends on everyone playing their part and helping wherever they can.