Burt St. John addressed the issue of crisis communications from his personal perspective with the United States Postal Service during the anthrax scare. Burt defined three types of crises the Postal Service faced in this situation: a physical event (anthrax in envelopes), a crisis of confidence (USPS' consumers' fears) and a "what could happen next?" (anticipation of future anthrax-filled letters, etc.). Handling all these at once was complicated by the fact that Burt and his colleagues had very little information to work with; so much was unknown.

Besides filtering out contaminated mail and handling the related communications, the Postal Service needed to look to the future to determine how to win back consumer confidence in the mail system. The resulting outreach campaign involved mailings to every address in the United States to educate the public about how to spot a suspicious package and delivered the message, "You don't have to worry about your mail. We are taking care of it."

As to lessons learned, Burt closed with three observations: Don't rush into action but confirm again and again before taking action; ensure your crisis communications center can handle the newest in communications technology; and think creatively about all the potential internal and external groups you might need to bring into your planning discussions.