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.