After an Aug. 19 chemical spill at the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, bits and pieces of information trickled out over the course of 72 hours.

Residents and customers in the redeveloped neighborhood, which is home to over 100 businesses and organizations, quickly turned to social media, calling local representatives and reaching out to the businesses they frequent to fill the information void.

While some Brunswick Landing businesses experienced minimal impact from last week’s frenzy surrounding the spill — such as day cares who now see parents sending their children with water from home — others became unwilling communications officers in an environmental emergency. Two of these businesses, Wild Oats Café and Flight Deck Brewing, said this sudden responsibility of information dissemination points to a faulty communication procedure on the Landing.

Staff at Wild Oats came in as early as 5 a.m. Monday morning, about 30 minutes before the toxic firefighting foam was reportedly released due to a malfunction. Owner Marshall Shepherd came in a few hours later around 8 or 9 a.m.

When word about the spill spread over the course of the day, Shepherd said he only heard about the situation through a friend of a friend. He began making calls to find out what was going on, only to find that few others had sufficient information. He said was told to “sit tight” by local officials.

“Obviously our panic is, you know, is it safe for our staff? Is it safe for us?” Shepherd said. “And regardless [whether it’s] safe or not, what’s the PR side of things for our customers? Are customers going to want to come eat food or drink beer?”

For nearly three days, Shepherd said it fell on Brunswick Landing businesses to disseminate vital information — that businesses were on public water, that it was safe to drink the tap water, and that no one would be harmed eating and drinking on the landing. Staff fielded calls and emails daily from concerned customers. Shepherd also said he felt the need to share information he was piecemealing together on social media, where questions and confusion were running rampant.

“Because of that void of initial leadership and initial communication, we felt the need to step in,” he said, adding that had information been more widespread from the get-go, Wild Oats would not have spent as much time getting involved. While he’s concerned about the environmental and human impacts of the spill, he also questions the communication standards for an emergency.

Nate Wildes, the co-owner of Flight Deck Brewing, had a similar experience last week. An employee texted him a screenshot from a Facebook post about the spill on Monday, which did not spark immediate concern, he said. He thought it could have possibly been a training exercise that was not announced. It quickly became clear that the situation was far more serious than he anticipated, though there was little information coming from entities like the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, which owns the hangar where the spill occurred.

“There was a deafening silence of information that day,” Wildes said. “We couldn’t get a response from MRRA, we reached out to a couple different folks immediately, and I didn’t hear anything back. And so my immediate thought was ‘Well, it must be fine — it’s clearly visually alarming, but it must be okay, otherwise we would have heard something.’ … And we quickly learned that it was not a minor deal, it was a big deal.”

He said that the brewery’s role quickly became the “disseminator of facts.” While it was quickly evident that it was safe to eat and drink at the landing — as the Brunswick & Topsham Water District said drinking water was safe — that information wasn’t widely spread, Wildes said.

“The frustrating part is that we had to do it,” he said. “When the facts were very clear and very positive and safe from the very beginning, why that wasn’t put out there immediately by the folks responsible has been the frustration.”

Moving into the second week of spill cleanup, Shepherd said that the public can now access online much-needed safety information, much of which was shared at last week’s press conference with MRRA, DEP, and other local and state authorities. Though he reiterates that the few days of confusion were nerve-wracking.

“It was scary to hear ‘massive toxic spill, foam blowing everywhere in the air, don’t touch the foam, don’t go near it’… I think that that’s where in the immediate 24-48 hours, that information would have been extremely helpful for us,” Shepherd said.

However, Wildes said that there is still an information-sharing issue. He described the situation as a “communications crisis” as many in the area are still playing catch-up from last week. Flight Deck is still having to inform people of what the facts of the situation are. He said that local authorities such as MRRA cannot simply say that they will do better communicating the facts next time.

“Simply responding with ‘We’ll try and do better next time’ is insufficient,” Wildes said. “What changes are underway now? What changes do we need to work together to implement to make sure that there’s confidence that if something happens in the future … there’s clear communication and accountability? Because right now, we don’t have that confidence.”

For more information, visit Brunswick Landing website’s FAQ page about the spill at brunswicklanding.us/afff-hangar-4-faq/.