Public expectations of disaster information provided by critical infrastructure operators: lessons learned from Barreiro, Portugal

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017. Previous research into the role of social media in crisis communication has tended to focus on how sites such as Twitter are used by emergency managers and the public rather than other key stakeholders, such as critical infrastructure (CI) operators. This paper sets out to address this gap by examining Barreiro residents’ expectations of disaster communication from CI operators through the use of an online questionnaire and comparing the results to the current practices of the Barreiro Municipal Water Network, which were examined via an in person interview. The findings suggest that the public expect CI operators to communicate via traditional and social media and that the Barreiro Municipal Water Network should expand their current practices to include digital media.