The paper subject is the analysis of the work of the Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia during the pandemic of COVID-19 disease which is caused by a coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The focus is on the analysis how Headquarters managed the crisis and how the public sector body conducted crisis management, especially crisis communication. The objectives of the paper are to determine how the Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia managed the crisis in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, to identify key shortcomings in the manner in which the Headquarters managed the pandemic crisis and to propose solutions to key problems in crisis management. In the beginning, the headquarters managed the crisis well, and as the crisis progressed, so the quality of crisis management declined. Communication between the Headquarters and the public proved to be a key item in this crisis. When the communication was of good quality, it strengthened the trust of the citizens and made it easier to manage the crisis, and when the communication was of poor quality, it created a bad public atmosphere. The Headquarters is thus brought into a situation where the crisis is often managed reactively instead of anticipatory, which is not recommended. Thus, Headquarters should have engage more experts, especially in the field of communications, and use more online media, especially social networks, in order to achieve direct communication with citizens.