Thoughts.
Any time above 25000' cabin alt is bad, because above that there is a real chance of decompression sickness (BOAC - remember bends, chokes, creeps, staggers from the N Luffenham advanced farting course?) and any sub aqua fans on here know what decompression sickness means.
If you're not sure about 'structural damage' leave the IAS alone - you'll still get 4000fpm down (at least) and yr aiming for 10000' (so no more than 10 mins downwards), where the partial pressure of O2 is half that of sea level so a good place to be and not coincidentally the RAF limit of unpressurised flight.
Slow and methodical is good when it comes to initiating the descent - no prizes for rushing and getting it wrong; another 20sec won't hurt.
Don't ignore RA - the other guy won't and you get no more points (and therefore no more prizes) for an immaculate emergency descent which writes off two ac.
Pax comms (sorry OP) is the last thing to consider. Once it's all done (the 'and relax' moment) is the time to explain - let's hope all the pax have had the courtesy to listen to the briefing properly and when the masks descend "pull sharply etc etc etc". But if they haven't the chances are that they'll have fallen asleep and will wake up pretty quickly once at 10000'. On the other hand, if they haven't listened and yr over some seriously high ground they might not. SO PAX - listen to what the cabin crew tell you in the briefing.
Just my 2p worth - hope it helps