Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Earthquake-Related Issues on Back Burner as Terrorism Dominates Hawai`i Security Summit

With just about all of State Civil Defense attending the Hawaii Security Summit on the Big Island this week, citizens will have to wait for answers to pressing questions about Earthquake Sunday and the adequacy of the communications response. Such as:

• Will State Civil Defense hold a public briefing -- as Hawaiian Electric Company already has -- to describe how it intends to improve communications to the public during and after the next emergency?

• What's happening to strengthen the local broadcast industry's ability to stay on the air during power blackouts?

• Which communities are in the "gap areas" that, according to a newspaper report on Sunday, are not covered by the emergency siren system? (Officials so far have declined to name them.) And will it really take seven years to fix that problem?

Let's hope our officials are prepared to be open with citizens on these relatively pedestrian nuts-and-bolts matters after they've thoroughly discuss the terrorism threat to Hawai`i, such as it is.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Tsunami Sirens Inadequate To Warn Isles, but Officials Won’t Say Who Lives in Silent Peril

Today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin breaks the news that Hawai`i’s beachside tsunami siren system may be next to useless depending on where you live.

If your community’s siren runs off the electrical power grid, it won’t work in a power blackout like the October 15 shutdown on Oahu even if a tsunami is detected.

And if you live in a community uncovered by a siren – officials say 148 more are needed to cover “gap areas” – you won’t get a tsunami alert either.

That’s remarkable enough, but buried deep in the story is this:

"Officials would not disclose the individual communities not covered by the system, saying only that 47 sirens are needed on Oahu, 38 on Maui, 52 on the Big Island and 11 on Kauai. But they said coastal areas have priority for upgrades."

Officials know which communities of perhaps thousands of families are inadequately protected by the alarm system, and they won’t identify them?

Serving the Public Good

How does refusing to tell citizens where these gaps exist serve the public good? Families living in a gap area certainly deserve to know about it and that whatever sense of security they have the sirens will alert them in an emergency is false.

Without delay, officials must publicize maps of the islands showing gaps in the siren system. They also should identify the individual sirens that can't operate independently of the electrical grid.

The story goes on to say it will take “more than seven years and nearly $19 million to upgrade the system….” Really? Seven more years to provide true emergency alert protection for our communities?

Maybe that’s true if this is “business as usual,” but one has to wonder whether it would take more than a single year if the public were outraged enough to demand immediate action.

Blame the Victim

There’s a certain “blame the victim” mentality running through this story. Only three paragraphs into it, scientists say public ignorance is a bigger issue than the 148 missing sirens and the 100 more that require the power grid to work.

A tsunami adviser notes, “If (members of the public) are calling four hours later and asking if there’s a chance of a tsunami, that shows that they haven’t been properly educated.”

That’s a legitimate issue, but is it bigger than the Siren Gap some officials now acknowledge? Public education will never be 100-percent complete, because some people can’t or refuse to learn.

But the reason so many citizens were calling radio stations for information was that the post-quake public information system was inadequate. A fully informed public would not have had to ask about a possible tsunami.

Let’s not forget that Civil Defense officials made a conscious decision to NOT alert the public to the absence of a tsunami, as CHORE recounted in this space three days after the quakes.

The hand-wringing in this story about an uninformed public points the finger directly back at those who are responsible for educating our citizens. If the job is as poorly done as this story indicates, the question CHORE asked on October 21 is still relevant: “How much emergency planning is really happening?”

Aftershocks

• The Star-Bulletin story reveals the existence of another committee investigating the communications “glitches” after the earthquakes. (An honest start would be to call them what they were – “failures.”) The Science Advisory Working Group allegedly intends to submit recommendations to the state by January. This is the first we’ve heard about this body, and the story has no details about its composition.

• Today is the fifth day since the first meeting of the Governor’s Comprehensive Communications Review Committee, and the first media report of its discussions and possible decisions has yet to appear.

• We’ve all been here before – wondering about Hawai`i’s ability to meet and surmount natural disasters. Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call for our citizens; if emergency planning and response could be so inadequate for mainland states, Hawai`i’s isolation is cause for true concern.

The writer’s Katrina Lessons blog on September 12, 2005 noted the many media stories on this theme and asked, “How well is Hawai`i prepared for its next disaster?” The several stories linked from that particular post are worth reading as we collectively ask and ask again.

• Full Disclosure: I've been asked if I have a dog in this fight -- a client, perhaps, who might benefit from my blog. The answer is no; there is no client. Like you, I'm concerned about protecting my family, including two grandchildren who live not far inland. I want them, their parents, my wife and our friends to be safe during emergencies, and for that to be the case, our emergency planners and communicators have to step up. It's as simple and nonpartisan as that.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Still No Journalism in Sight re Communications

The "lack of journalistic enterprise" observed here yesterday seems more ingrained than we imagined could be the case. Today's papers again have no reports on the earthquake review committee’s meetings this week to improve emergency communications. Our emails to the papers' key gatekeepers urging coverage -- even a passing mention -- have had no effect.

Continuing that trend, we've received no response to our inquiry to a senior State Civil Defense official about whether CD will brief the public on its Earthquake Sunday activities and communications reforms. But, hey........

The trades are gentle,
the sky is blue,
the surf is up
and nothing’s new.

So goes life in Hawai`i Nei.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Communications Panel Meets Twice, but News Media Carry No Stories about What Happened

Here’s an early prediction on which Hawai`i news story will be ranked #1 by the local news media at year’s end: The October 15 earthquakes and subsequent power outage will top the list.

Then again, we haven’t heard the last of Michelle Wie this year. The Big Earthquake vs. the Big Wiesy -- that’s a tough choice in this town. Still, we’ll go with the earthquake.

But the real story isn’t the shaker itself. The real story is how the quake exposed gaping holes in our community’s emergency communications system and plans.

Civil Defense communications sputtered, the broadcast industry fell apart and the electric company couldn’t find a way to tell customers why the power was out and would stay that way for hours.

So with that backdrop, the Governor’s “Comprehensive Communications Review Committee” began meeting this week to gather information on what went wrong and how to do better next time.

The Big News Blackout

Representatives of the news media and government agencies met on Tuesday and Thursday in the Governor’s Capitol conference room. News directors, editors, reporters have been on the inside dissecting one of the big news stories of the year.

What have they discussed? What deficiencies are targeted for correction? What protocols are being rewritten? What can we expect in the next major emergency?

We don’t know any of that because the number of news stories published and aired about the committee meetings so far has been exactly zero. Not one.

Not Newsworthy?

Are Hawai`i citizens to believe these meetings are not newsworthy? Do these executives not recognize news when they see it? Once inside, do they become members of the “insiders club” and feel no obligation to report?

We see only two possibilities for this news blackout:

Either the media reps don’t recognize the news value of these meetings, or they’ve been told not to report what’s happening behind closed doors.

[Note: See comment below in Afternoon Update from a Honolulu TV reporter that eliminates the second of those two possibilities.]

Either way, that’s bad. Having been shut out from participating on this committee, the public now apparently doesn’t deserve to know what officials are doing to improve emergency preparedness and execution.

CHORE hopes Hawai`i citizens find this as baffling as we do. If so, call or write the media and ask what’s going on. You might want to ask the same of the Governor’s office.

Public safety and what’s being done to preserve it shouldn’t be treated like a state secret.

Aftershocks

Doug White’s blog today offers this view about why the media aren’t covering the meetings:

In general, editors prefer to edit the news, not make the news. This particular issue, however, obviously throws a spanner into that machine since it would require exactly that sort of meta-reporting. Furthermore, there is a risk of the media being unable to objectively report the story once they become an intimate part of it (recall the “embedded” war correspondents). A strange form of willing co-optation could be at play, although I’m sure the members of the Committee would rather describe it in more paternalistic terms.

White has a point about the media not wanting to be part of the story in most cases, but I’m not buying it in this one. This is Emergency Communications to Protect Public Safety we’re talking about. The newspapers’ letters pages are full of the public’s upset over the government’s performance.

These meetings are newsworthy, and if the media have to assign a non-participating reporter to cover what’s said, so be it.

What would George Chaplin and Bud Smyser do?

Afternoon Update

A Honolulu television reporter responded to CHORE as follows: The reporter's newsroom personnel "did not see news value in covering the meeting per se." This reporter says "it's a battle to get government news on in this consultant-driven world" because the younger producers and staff "believe the more visually oriented story is preferable and doesn't bore the audience."

We sympathize with this reporter; it's an all-too-familiar story. But do these staffers truly believe it's boring to report on how they and their families can be better informed and protected before, during and after the next hurricane?

The reporter also says the State "welcomed and encouraged" coverage of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee. CHORE therefore concludes that the impediment to news coverage of the committee's meetings isn't the State, and we eliminate it as a contributor to the news blackout. The problem seems to be the lack of journalistic enterprise within the Honolulu media.

We have to believe this wouldn't be happening if George and Bud and KGMB's Bob Sevey were still around and running their respective news operations.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

“Comprehensive” Review Committee Meeting Behind Closed Doors; No Media Coverage?

From the top, here’s the commitment CHORE made in our first post on October 17: This is not a make-wrong site. We have no political motivation, no grudges, no hidden agenda. We’re not out to “get” anyone or any agency.

The issues raised here are meant to stimulate discussion leading to improved communications during and after emergencies in our community. The information flow after the October 15 earthquakes fell far short of what’s needed to safeguard lives and property. That’s CHORE’s opinion, and it seems to be shared by many others.

Surprise: The Committee’s Already Meeting

With that as preamble, we find it surprising the State’s so-called Comprehensive Communications Review Committee already has had one meeting this week. What’s surprising is that the meeting went unnoticed by the local media.

Another meeting is underway as this post is being written, according to the following invitation received by a Honolulu media outlet to attend today’s session:

"On behalf of Governor Linda Lingle and Lenny Klompus, chair, Governor's Comprehensive Communications Review, we would like to extend an invitation for two journalists from your news outlet to participate in a meeting on Thursday, Oct. 26, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m. in the Governor's Conference Room (State Capitol, 5th floor).

"The purpose of this meeting is to hear from journalists who were working to provide important information to the public in the hours immediately following the Oct. 15 earthquake. This includes challenges new outlets may have faced in obtaining and disseminating accurate information, as well as operating with minimal power and communications capabilities.

"We suggest you send one reporter who was "in the field" and one reporter/editor who was in the newsroom.

"This session will build on a meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 24 with the owners/general managers/publishers of Hawai`i's major news outlets, wireless service providers and Civil Defense agencies."

Senior media personnel apparently attended Tuesday’s meeting, yet we’ve found no reporting about it. Was no news made in the meeting? That’s hard to imagine in light of the issues presumably being discussed. Do ground rules prohibit coverage? Again, that seems incomprehensible.

You have to wonder why something as important as this committee’s after-earthquake assessment is being conducted behind closed doors, with no discernable reporting to the public about what’s happening inside.

Striving for Credibility

Whatever’s going on in this series of committee meetings, one would think its organizers would want to avoid any question about the credibility of its findings.

CHORE wrote on October 18 that the public surely needs to be represented on this committee. It’s not enough for discussions to be tightly held among government officials and media representatives, all of whom are in business to serve the public. The public should be there.

CHORE’s other suggestion – that the committee be chaired by an independent community-based person without connection to the State Administration – hasn’t gotten anywhere either. Will the committee’s final report be as frank about State Civil Defense’s performance under the panel's current leadership as it might be with an independent chair?

Again, this has nothing personally to do with the individual who’s filling the role. But if credibility were important, appointing someone with no ties to the Administration would have seemed like an obvious choice.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Will State Civil Defense Brief the Public on Quake Communications and Improvements?

The public’s upset over inadequate post-earthquake communications is slacking off in the newspapers’ letters columns, and the rest of the media seem to be moving on, too.

Before the issue cools off much more, CHORE today urges State Civil Defense officials to hold a public briefing to explain the sequence of events on how it attempted to communicate to residents on October 15 and what changes it’s making in its communications plans.

That may be asking a lot at this time. CD officials undoubtedly are occupied by numerous quake-related requirements. They’re also preparing to host the Asia-Pacific Homeland Security Summit & Exposition 2006, October 31-November 2 on the Big Island.

This writer attended last year’s conference and posted the following to the Katrina Lessons blog after the Summit ended out of a concern that Hawai`i’s emergencies are more likely to be caused by natural events than by man:

“The Asia-Pacific Homeland Security Summit and Exposition came and went last week in Honolulu with not as much attention paid to natural disasters as some might have hoped (emphasis added). That’s not a criticism, just a fact. The Summit gave participants a good look at the processes crisis planners use to prepare for the next (first?) terrorist act in Hawaii, and the implication was that their response to natural disasters is thereby enhanced."

The Summit’s agenda is heavy again on national security, terrorism and geo-political issues, but we can hope the response to the recent earthquakes will merit considerable attention, too.

What a Civil Defense Briefing Could Cover

CHORE already has posted in the past week about what we think the public wants to know regarding the Civil Defense communcations effort. Here’s a review:

What will State Civil Defense do differently to communicate with the public within minutes of the next major emergency? Far as we’ve determined, the Emergency Alert System wasn’t activated until nearly three hours after the shaking. What’s the new thinking?
What plans does State Civil Defense have to advise the public about the nature of a tsunami threat, even if it’s non-existent? Officials have said CD protocols don’t call for a “no tsunami” message. Citizens disagree; not knowing whether loved ones were endangered by a possible tsunami created tremendous anxiety.
What will State Civil Defense do to “encourage” Hawai`i’s broadcast industry to toughen up? Ten or more outlets were knocked off the air because of the Oahu-wide power outage, and some didn’t return until the next day. Officials say they can’t force broadcasters to make changes, but they certainly can express concern about the stations' hardware and staffing preparedness.
Will State Civil Defense seek to add public members to the State’s “Comprehensive Communications Review Committee?” Only Civil Defense and other government officials and media reps were appointed initially to this committee, but as CHORE noted here on October 18, the whole point of emergency communications is to serve the public. It seems only logical for the public to be represented on the committee.

CHORE has asked a senior State Civil Defense administrator if a briefing is planned, and we’ll let you know his response. And tell us what you think should be on the briefing's agenda.

Aftershocks


Hawaiian Electric has suggested by telephone and email that CHORE’s report on HECO’s public briefing this week may have missed the company’s intentions to inform the community about what it’s doing to improve emergency communications.

We’re told the company did not intend to be evasive on the subject at Monday’s briefing and that with some prior planning, it could have anticipated questions about changes in its emergency communications planning in light of difficulties HECO experienced on October 15. For example, HECO has updated its list of unpublished telephone numbers at broadcast stations to avoid the problems it had with getting through after the quake.

CHORE agrees that forethought can help avoid all manner of communications problems. Let’s hope HECO will talk with broadcasters to encourage an “emergency” mindset at the stations that would result in communicating more effectively to the public during the next emergency.

That would be preferable to the “entertainment” mode we heard on Earthquake Sunday.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

HECO Briefing Reveals Resolve To NOT Tell Public About Changes in Its Communications

Hawaiian Electric Company’s question-and-answer session at the State Capitol yesterday may have been captivating to the Public Utilities Commission staffers and retired engineers in the audience. Beyond them, I’m not sure it shed much light on what the public wants to know. Coverage today in The Honolulu Star-Bulletin and Honolulu Advertiser suggests as much.

As we see it, the public deserves to know more that just the technical reasons why the whole island went black on October 15th and stayed that way for a dozen or more hours for most of us.

Ninety minutes of talk about which generators and transmission lines tripped when and why on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island had a numbing effect.

The non-technical members of the public – that’s 99 percent of us – probably want to know this: “What has HECO done in the past week to improve its communications to the public in a major power emergency?” The next one could happen at any moment, and when it does, few would welcome a repeat of Earthquake Sunday’s information blackout.

The public didn’t get any answers about that at the briefing. Even when asked directly about what the company has done to improve the information flow to the public, the answers weren’t forthcoming. It even seemed HECO’s representatives were determined to avoid answering.

“We’re Not Going to Talk About That”


The impression was confirmed after the session ended in side conversations with HECO’s communications staff members. They said they have no intention to tell the public what the company is doing to improve public communications. One rep defended that stand by saying: “The only thing the public wants to know is when will I get my power back on.”

That’s all the public wants to know? We don’t want to know why there’s an emergency, what the sequence might be to restore power, what the company’s advice is on protecting sensitive equipment, what it has done to correct the communications problems? We only want to know when MY power will come back on?

Continuing, these communicators said they’re not going to talk in public about why information was so slow in coming on October 15. The reason, it seems, is that doing so might not be appreciated by some of the weaker links in the communication chain to the public beyond HECO.

All of this is discouraging to say the least. I had doubted whether a post to CHORE about the technology-oriented Q&A session would be worthwhile. That all changed when HECO’s strategy was revealed to keep the lid on its communications assessment and what it’s doing to improve the information flow.

This is especially ironic because company officials said yesterday the one thing they know they could have improved during the blackout was their communication with the public, yet how they're working to do that was the one thing they resolutely refused to discuss.

More than nuts-and-bolts lessons about communicating with customers has been forgotten over the years at the electric company.

Aftershocks

The Saturday post to CHORE had a reference to the press conference State Adjutant General Robert Lee held on Friday afternoon. The location was previously announced to be the Lingle campaign headquarters on Kapiolani Boulevard. Word now comes that it wasn't in the headquarters; it was in the headquarters' parking lot. Well, that clears it up.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Let’s Not Be Too Quick with the Anointing Oil While the Jury’s Still Out on Media Response

CHORE has devoted most of this blog’s space to questions about civil defense and utility communications last Sunday after the earthquakes. Today we raise a few points about the media’s performance – again with the intent to stimulate discussion and perhaps contribute to improvements in serving the public during emergencies.

First, a word from our sponsor about the writer’s experience with broadcasting and earthquakes:

I was on duty as the newsroom editor/producer at all-news radio station KFWB in Los Angeles at 6:02 a.m. on February 9, 1971 when the Sylmar earthquake struck. The 6.5 quake killed dozens, most of them in a veterans hospital in the San Fernando Valley. KFWB’s studios in Hollywood shook harder and longer than what we felt here on Oahu last week, but we stayed operational and broadcast without commercial interruption for the next 24 hours at least.

Every broadcaster wants to be on the air in a crisis, and since the federal government licenses all broadcasters to operate in the public interest, they should be. The local outlets that were without power and had no backup capability last week are properly reevaluating their operations.

The outlets that did stay on the air did the minimum of what’s expected of them, so as the headline above suggests, plaudits such as those found in today’s Honolulu Advertiser story about stations distinguishing themselves might be too effusive in light of actual performance.

Let’s Go “Live” for that Report

Beyond minimal standards for broadcasters, most readers here at CHORE probably would endorse several additional layers of professionalism. Here are a couple suggestions.

A quick-response “live” broadcast capability seems essential to meeting the audience’s information needs.

The automation of the broadcast industry is well-established by now; it’s a model that seems to work for the conglomerates that own multiple outlets in this and many other markets. Does it work for the public?

What we know so far is that it took most of an hour for the state’s designated emergency broadcast station on Oahu to begin its continuous “live” earthquake coverage. That surely is too long for the public to be in information limbo, as numerous citizens have complained.

If a crisis hits during “normal” hours, a station’s staff can begin immediate coverage, but last week’s quakes hit when the staffing was minimal and a prerecorded public affairs program was airing. (Hawaiian Electric’s corporate communications staff used to joke about “Peck’s Law,” attributed to a HECO environmental department staffer who once declared, “All major power outages will happen at the most inconvenient times.” Last Sunday’s earthquake could be considered a validation.)

Do stations train their overnight board operators on how to go to a “war footing” when they’re the only person there? What protocols have Hawai`i broadcasters enacted in light of “Peck’s Law?”

If it’s absolutely impossible to go “live” in the first minutes of a crisis, stations could air a pre-recorded message that acknowledges the emergency condition (which listeners already have sensed) and assures the audience that “live” coverage will begin as quickly as possible. CHORE believes that would be far better than continuing to air a pre-recorded program with no connection whatsoever to the ongoing crisis.

When is a Crisis "Entertainment?"

Oahu’s primary emergency broadcaster seemed stuck after the earthquake in an “entertainment” mode that’s normal for weekday mornings but presumably is inappropriate for a post-earthquake island-wide power outage on a Sunday morning. So here’s another suggestion:

Broadcasters with an “emergency” rather than “entertainment” mindset will come closer to meeting the public’s needs.

It’s entertaining when listeners call in with their anecdotal stories about what happened at their house during the quake. It’s not essential to take those calls, however, and it’s even debilitating to do so when those calls block access by emergency responders. We’ve learned that HECO’s spokesman tried repeatedly without success to get through to the station, and so may have other responders. Encouraging callers to phone in with their stories presumably made matters worse.

The “entertainment” mindset obviously was in play Sunday evening when Oahu’s emergency broadcast station began airing a pre-recorded music show hosted by entertainer John Tesh while half of Oahu was still without power. Tens of thousands of customers remained blacked out into the night and had to be satisfied with news breaks on the half hour.

As suggested here yesterday, let’s hope civil defense and utility officials have worked in the past few days to compile a list of unpublished phone numbers at radio stations that can be used during the next crisis. Scenarios for a telephone service blackout also should be revisited.

HECO Fills the Void on Series-Less Monday

Unless Sunday’s St. Louis-Detroit World Series game is postponed, Monday will be a travel day for the teams. That will free up Monday afternoon for Hawaiian Electric’s question-and-answer session beginning at 2 o’clock in the State Capitol. All citizens with an interest are encouraged to listen, learn, question and help improve communications response with your good ideas.

NOTE: Readers with a newly elevated interest in improving media response to emergencies are encouraged to visit the Tsunami Lessons blog, which this writer started after the devastating December 2004 earthquake and tsunami. The posts have tapered off this year, but the need for improved broadcast tsunami warnings hasn't, so plow through the 2005 entries beginning on January 2 for a sense of our intent. Mahalo.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Friday’s Revelations Make You Wonder How Much Emergency Planning Is Really Happening

CHORE’s first post on Tuesday said our intent here is not to lay blame. That wouldn’t add value to implementing solutions to the community’s emergency communications deficiencies, so if we inarticulately ask questions here that sound a little too direct, let this paragraph serve as CHORE’s preemptive apology. The questions need asking.

Friday’s news makes you wonder about the quality of the emergency planning in the quiet times between crises. Whatever scenarios were brainstormed before Sunday’s earthquakes, they obviously failed to uncover serious gaps in the first responders’ preparedness.

These gaps were pretty basic – like not having dedicated telephone lines to local radio stations and lists of unpublished numbers at the stations to call in an emergency. As mentioned in our commentary in Tuesday’s Honolulu Advertiser, these lessons were learned decades ago after other island-wide power outages.

Civil Defense and utility officials have complained they couldn’t get through to the designated emergency broadcast station on Oahu because the public was clogging the lines. Today’s first question:

Have officials and the stations worked this week to create a list of secure and unpublished phone numbers known only to insiders for use in the next emergency?

Beyond compiling lists of phone numbers, what if the phones don’t work? What if all electronic communication from point to point is down in the next emergency? What are the contingency plans?

Both the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin today have prominent stories on yesterday’s quake-related news from a variety of sources, and they’re worth a leisurely read on this Saturday, with plenty of rest stops for questions along the way.

Dominating the coverage is Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s announcement that the City will use its own resources to disseminate emergency information quickly. Two paragraphs far down in the Advertiser’s story raise more questions about what’s been happening between our emergencies:

What were the “glitches” that prevented the City from broadcasting over the old Emergency Broadcast System? Unable to use that channel, the City also couldn’t implement the newer Emergency Alert System because of “a lack of training and state protocol,” according to the Advertiser.

Why haven’t all necessary key communicators been trained to activate the EAS, and what are the protocols that block the City’s use? Is a jurisdictional battle going on here that undermines public safety?

State Civil Defense’s number two official is reported today to have said he was unaware on Sunday morning that the City had been unable to use the EAS.

Were State officials waiting for the City to send out the first alert after the earthquake? Did the State activate the first EAS announcement nearly three hours after the quake only after learning of the City’s failed attempt? Are State and City Civil Defense officials on the same page? How often do they meet, and what do they discuss?

The Advertiser story notes the Mayor’s assertion that the City has not been invited to participate in the “Comprehensive Communications Review Committee” formed by Governor Lingle on Tuesday.

Will the Governor invite the City to participate on this committee? Will representatives of the public also be invited to make it “comprehensive,” as CHORE suggested the day the committee was formed?

If the committee’s composition is still fluid…

Might the Governor consider appointing an independent community leader to chair the body and add credibility to its findings? CHORE believes credibility will remain an issue if her original appointee – a senior administration advisor who also runs communications for her re-election campaign – remains in that position.

KITV reported last night that this close Lingle advisor “said he’s not aware of Hannemann’s request” to use the EAS. Further, the station reports, the advisor asserted that “It’s important to have one clear voice in an emergency, and that’s the governor.” (The quote marks refer to KITV’s story, not necessarily the advisor.)

With the City striving to communicate more and State apparently resisting, it would seem the State and City are not on the same page at this date. Let's hope that's soon resolved, as public safety is what they’re kicking back and forth.

Which brings us to the P word – politics. One would hope that emergency response would be kept above political partisanship to the maximum extent possible. Here’s a portion of a story posted at 2:58 p.m. Friday on the Advertiser’s web site:

Maj. Gen. Robert Lee, Hawai'i's adjutant general and head of Civil Defense, and Lenny Klompus, Gov. Linda Lingle's Communication Director, will hold a press briefing this afternoon to respond to comments about emergency communications challenges made this morning by Mayor Mufi Hannemann.

At the briefing, set for 3:45 p.m. at Lingle Headquarters on Kapiolani Boulevard, officials are expected to address the matters tied to the Emergency Alert System. Hannemann announced this morning that the city is trying to get permission from the state to be able to access the Emergency Alert System on its own authority, instead of having to follow state protocol.

CHORE hasn’t yet confirmed whether the briefing was indeed conducted at a political campaign’s headquarters – today’s stories don’t give the location -- but if it was, the next question is, “Why?” Why would the State’s top Civil Defense official hold a news conference in a political headquarters? Would it be for convenience, since the other individual scheduled to participate is on leave from the Lingle administration to work in her political campaign?

With the State’s credibility already at stake due to Sunday’s communications lapses, one would think officials would be extra cautious to avoid any possible appearance of partisanship in their post-earthquake response.

Maybe the conference wasn’t held there and never was intended to be there. Maybe the Advertiser made a mistake. As we said at the top, all we can do is ask questions based on the available information.

Citizens of CHORE, if you have your own questions that need airing, click “comments” and ask away.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Answers on Blackout Prompt More Questions; Citizens Will Have Their Chance on Monday

Hawaiian Electric Company’s briefing yesterday to the Public Utilities Commission was a welcome look behind the scenes of a utility that usually does its public service job out of sight and out of mind.

HECO employees are committed to providing what arguably is society’s most important product, around the clock and throughout the year. That commitment becomes part of the DNA of long-time employees, and it’s completely understandable why protecting the company’s generators was of paramount importance to them on Sunday – and on every day, for that matter.

The company’s collective actions saved the generators, and all were cranking again hours after the earthquake. That said, more questions are suggested by newspaper accounts of yesterday’s briefing.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported today that a HECO official said the only thing the company would have done differently during the power crisis was improve its communication with the media and the public.

The CHORE blog is about giving voice to Citizens who want to Help Officials Respond to Emergencies. With respect to HECO officials, what we’re hearing is that citizens would like to know what might have been done differently to keep their power on.

Citizens are saying in the newspapers’ letters pages, on talk shows and on blogs that improved communications during outages, while absolutely necessary, pales in comparison to improving system operations that might prevent outages in the first place.

Load Shedding Still a Question

Only the Honolulu Advertiser’s story today mentions load shedding, an emergency process we’ve written about this week, so either the Bulletin missed it or load shedding wasn’t a prominent topic at yesterday’s PUC hearing. And the Advertiser’s report mentions load shedding pretty much in passing. Here’s a quote from that story:

“As generators were going down, HECO automatically cut power to some customers to balance the system, a process known as load shedding. If they can cut off customers fast enough, they can keep the active generators from taking on too much stress and shutting down.”

An obvious question: Can HECO’s computerized load shedding protocol be improved to shed greater numbers of customers to stabilize the system quicker than what happened on Sunday, thereby preventing a total shutdown? HECO’s own timeline, if reported accurately in the Advertiser, suggests that more than 150,000 customers still had power at 7:27 a.m. when another generator shut off, “resulting in an Islandwide blackout”.

We need more detail about that last phrase. Why did the loss of that generator result in the blackout, when the earlier loss of other generators prompted incremental load shedding. Could a different computerized scheme have saved the system? The Advertiser raises the issue in its lead editorial today.

Without more information, it’s hard to accept that the total shutdown was inevitable and unavoidable and that the only corrective action HECO now identifies is improving its communication to the media.

Most of this won’t be sorted out with any finality until HECO’s newly hired consultant Power Engineers produces a report months from now. Let’s make a collective mental note to see what’s in the report about load shedding.

First HECO, Now Civil Defense?

Hawaiian Electric is stepping up to the plate (in a World Series week) to hold a question-and-answer session for the public at 2 p.m. Monday in the State Capitol.

Unless I’ve missed it, no similar briefing is scheduled by State officials to explain to the public why the Emergency Alert System didn’t kick in early in the crisis; why it wasn’t important to announce that no tsunami was generated and whether they’ve changed their ideas about that; what the State intends to do to encourage broadcasters to improve their ability to stay on the air and operate throughout a crisis in the public interest, etc.

Despite all the attention given by CHORE today to HECO, it’s really the State’s emergency communications system that seems to have generated the most citizen interest. Citizens, you have great ideas and questions, so don’t be shy. Click on “comments” and post them here at CHORE.

Update: City Seeks Quicker Alerts

From the Advertiser in mid-morning:

Mayor Mufi Hannemann this morning announced plans to get more accurate information out to the public quickly in the event of an emergency like Sunday's earthquakes and power outage.

The city's Traffic Management Center has the ability to communicate directly with TV and radio stations and in the future will use that technology to get information directly to the media when that is the most effective option.

The city is also trying to get permission from the state to be able to access the Emergency Alert System on its own authority, instead of having to follow state protocol.

Meanwhile, the city's information technology experts will be looking into ways to get information out over the Internet.

Good move, Mr. Mayor. Your move, State Civil Defense.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

From Birth to On the Radio in Less than 60 Hours

10/20 Update: Click here for the MP3 file of the "Town Square" Show.

CHORE seems to have struck a nerve in a good w
ay. Lots of calls and emails are coming in (although not so many "comments" posted -- but that's OK). Hawaii Public Radio has invited us to be on KIPO's "Town Square" public affairs show at 5 p.m. today (89.3 FM), along with Big Island Mayor Harry Kim (by phone) and State Adjutant General Robert Lee. Mahalo to host Beth-Ann Kozlovich and guest arranger Larry Geller, as well as Ian Lind for helping bring us together.

First Light Sheds None this Morning on Whether Computer Setting Could Have Avoided Blackout

Go here for CHORE's first post and what we hope to achieve.

So far, last night's question remains unanswered this morning. The Honolulu Advertiser's story today -- "Preventing blackout would cost us dearly" -- has a rally-around-the-flag feel to it based on quotes of electric industry insiders. (BTW, with the jury still out, that's a pretty strong assertion for a headline on a news page.)

The experts cite the cost issue; "gold-plating" the system would be expensive, they say. But until last night's question is addressed by Hawaiian Electric, I'm not so sure. But let's not dwell on HECO here. Journalists presumably will ask the company about the unselected "dump the customers" option soon enough, and the issue surely will be plowed through in detail in the Public Utilities Commission inquiry -- we hope.

As noted in Tuesday's first post here at CHORE, the focus is on Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies, with an emphasis on civil defense officials. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin's editorial today pulls no punches in suggesting a major overhaul of the State's emergency procedures is required.

And speaking of SB editorials, Tuesday's called for an "independent panel" to review what went wrong with the State's emergency communications response. Would you call the Governor's "comprehensive communications review committee" an "independent" body based on its makeup -- and the person selected to chair it?

We made the point on CHORE yesterday that without the public on the panel, it truly isn't "comprehensive." And with the Governor's senior communications adviser chairing it, "independent" isn't plausible either.

Readers (if you're out there), you are the C in CHORE. Got something you want to say to improve not only emergency communications in this state but also the process to improve it, click "Comments" and start writing.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Will Thursday's Papers Answer this Question?

Three days of newspaper journalism and one 30-minute TV special have failed to answer the one question that Hawaiian Electric Company ultimately must address about why it lost power throughout Oahu after Sunday's earthquake.

HECO's representative managed not to answer it tonight in KGMB-TV's special, even though it was put to him in a pretty direct manner. Here it is:

Why did HECO's computer system select the "dump the generators" option instead of the "shed the customers" option on Sunday morning when the load suddenly exceeded the carrying capacity of the power plants?

Surely both options were available in the moment it took for the computers to decide what to do. Load shedding is a legitimate option, and had it been exercised, the hours-long outage would not have occurred.

HECO's infamous "Black Wednesday" outage of July 13, 1983 was caused by an all-generator shutdown after HECO's circuit breakers failed to react quickly enough to isolate a fault on a 138,000-volt transmission line in Ewa. A thorough engineering study concluded the relays had been set to react too slowly and that the shutdown was necessary to protect the generators.

Will the study of "Earthquake Sunday" reach the same conclusion, or will it find that the load-shedding option could have and should have been chosen? More to the immediate point, when will journalists ask -- repeatedly, if necessary -- why HECO's system selected a path that debilitated our entire island?

Maybe the "ask" should go higher up HECO's organization.

The "Comprehensive Communications Review Committee" Is Missing Something: The Public

Today's Honolulu Advertiser has a long story headlined "Governor wants quake information mess cleaned up". And to do it, she's appointed what she apparently called a "comprehensive communications review committee" that will include "managers and publishers of radio, television and print outlets, along with state officials, and recommend improvements within 60 days."

Not so fast with the "comprehensive" bit. Where's the public in this? Doesn't the Governor want to know what the public felt while in an information blackout on Sunday? Isn't emergency communications intended to keep the public informed? Without the public, what's the point?

This committee won't be "comprehensive" until it gives voice to the people who did not have their fears calmed about a possible tsunami, who did not know why the power was out and for how long and who wondered why 10 or more broadcast outlets were silent for hours or even until the next day.

Let's add some men and women to this committee who aren't in the media and Civil Defense. That would make it real.

Common Sense Says Our People Won't Panic

Go here for CHORE's first post on what we hope to achieve.

The operable words in CHORE are "Citizens Helping", because the more we read and hear from our crisis management officials, the more citizens need to chime in with their own common-sense views and help Hawaii's Civil Defense community do a better job in the next crisis.

We said in our first post to this blog yesterday that this site isn't about laying blame. And it's not. But....(and that's always a tricky word)....but....some common sense is needed in large doses.

Civil Defense officials continue to defend their low-key, non-alert performance on Sunday, and in so doing, they are treating Hawaii citizens like children. "Oh, if we had gone on the air to say there was NO tsunami, the message might have been misunderstood." (That's a paraphrase, not a quote; so is the next one.) "Oh, if we had turned on the emergency sirens to encourage people to get to a radio, there would have been panic and havoc in the streets."

Oh, please.

Are Civil Defense officials telling us that if and when a tsunami alert must be sounded, they expect "panic" and "havoc" among our population? Because if that's what they're saying, they're wrong.

And if that's what they truly believe, they don't really know much about the citizens of Hawaii, and maybe another line of work would suit them better.

Hawaii can't tolerate a mindset that assumes the population will go bonkers if we're given information we need to make good decisions and stay safe. C'mon......!

At least the Governor is saying the right things and seems determined to improve the information flow to our population in a crisis. (But...see later post today for another look at the committee she's forming to investigate the communications glitches.)

Aftershocks: What's in the Plan?

If you're interested in how the Emergency Alert System works, check out the Hawaii State Civil Defense web site. You can click on the link in the left-hand column to access the EAS Plan.

Unless my quick read and the "Find" function have failed me, the words "power" and "outage" do not exist in that plan, either in combination or standing alone.

No emergency plan is perfect. As a rule, they require rewriting -- especially after an emergency. So there's no shame in recognizing that an Emergency Alert System plan without provisions to operate during a massive power outage needs a major rewrite.

So Civil Defense officials: Now is not the time to play defense. Admit you could and should have done a better job, made better snap decisions, communicated more.

Give the public some credit for being able to handle troubling news. Don't assume we'll panic if you tell us the truth! And when you DO have a troubling message to deliver, be sure it's delivered so early, so often and so sensibly that we can't possibly misunderstand what you're saying and what you'd like us to do.

People, speak up. I invite your comments to this site. Don't be intimidated by the procedure outlined in the instructions when you click on "Comments" below. Post anonymously if you want, but please let your common sense views flow.

They are needed in our post-earthquake and -- yes -- our current pre-hurricane environment.

Because there will be a hurricane with much worse consequences than the inconvenience most of us endured on Sunday.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

This is Your CHORE if You Choose to Accept It

CHORE stands for the title of this new blog: Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies.

Specifically, the focus is helping officials in Hawaii respond to emergencies such as the one we just had -- the two earthquakes (6.7 and 6.0 on the scale) that struck the islands on Sunday, October 15, 2006.

"Help" is the operable concept. I get the feeling -- based on news coverage of officialdom's emergency response -- that some good old-fashioned idea mongering and suggestions might help improve communications to our population during and after emergencies.

You be the judge after reading this report in The Honolulu Advertiser today, headlined: "Debate begins on delay of news"

My reaction to that story is that our Civil Defense officials, elected government leaders and broadcast media need to communicate more, not less. Comments by officials in this story suggest a mindset to
not tell the population too much for fear the messages might be misunderstood.

My thoughts about communications during the massive power outage that followed the quakes are contained in this commentary, also in today's Advertiser, which editorialized in favor of improved news flow over Hawaii's commercial radio stations. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin's editorial called for an independent panel to review the State's earthquake response. The paper's story on the public reaction to the prolonged power outage was headlined "Outage stirs anger"

This blog can be a collection point for citizens' comments and common sense ideas on how they can be served by our media and government officials after natural disasters. The need for such a forum seems real. Remember, this blog is all about helping improve the system, not laying blame. Your comments are invited.

More About CHORE

Our Motto: It's a CHORE, but somebody has to do it.Our Mission: To improve communications to the public during and after emergencies in Hawaii by organizing the views of average citizens and submitting their proposals to the appropriate government officials and broadcasters to enhance their performance.Our Objective: To ensure that Hawaii's emergency response officials and broadcasters are performing at peak capabilities and efficiency during and after community-wide emergencies.

MISSION: To Ensure the Lahaina Fire Tragedy Will Be the Last Time Hawaii Emergency Management so Poorly Serves the Public

The cause of the August 2023 wildfire that destroyed Lahaina, Maui and killed at least 101 residents is still unknown at this writing. What ...