Editorial (Inadvertently) IDs Tsunami Issue: Consultation Is Required To Pull Alert Trigger

Both the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin editorialized today on the earthquake rumor, and a key point in the Advertiser’s editorial deserves follow-up.

After noting that a tsunami generated on the Big Island could reach Oahu within 20 or 30 minutes, the editorial says:

“…had the (Pacific Tsunami Warning) center determined that there was a tsunami threat, it would have made the decision in conjunction with state Civil Defense (emphasis added) to issue a warning. In addition, sirens, civil air patrols would have been activated and sent along the coastlines to warn people on beaches, where some sirens cannot be heard….”

How much “conjunctioning” can be accomplished in 20 minutes -- especially if the event happens when key decision-makers aren't immediately at hand? Will the CAP really be airborne in time to fly out to remote beaches?

Once the warning center believes a destructive tsunami is on its way, why should it be required to coordinate with any agency? And what would Civil Defense’s role be when it takes an urgent tsunami call from the PTWC? Would it ever decide not to activate the tsunami warning system?

Inter-Agency Talking Costs Lives

Of course not. This penchant for the PTWC to work through other agencies is a huge problem. As our sister blog Tsunami Lessons has written repeatedly, thousands of people died around the Indian Ocean in December 2004 because of an insistence to work through and coordinate with other government organizations.

It must be stated this bluntly: the PTWC’s tsunami warning standard operating procedure has cost lives and will do so again if not reformed.

Tsunami Lessons’ very first post on January 2, 2005 quoted a Honolulu Advertiser story on what went wrong after the PTWC suspected a tsunami: “…in the age of wireless communications, the Internet and 24-hour news, a catastrophic wall of water was able to cross an ocean and devastate a dozen nations’ coastlines without notice.”

The next day, Tsunami Lessons included quotes from an NPR story on how scientists reacted to the realization that a killer tsunami was racing toward unsuspecting populations:

"Other U.S. scientists who monitor earthquakes say when they realized how big the quake really was there was no clear way to get the information to authorities who might have been able to warn people in time.” And, “There was knowledge that a tsunami was being generated and that information was available, but the problem we ran into was that there were not appropriate agencies in places like India and in Somalia on the East and the Horn of Africa region. There was no system set up by which we could take that information and translate it into actions that the public could react to.”

The reason there was no notice the public could react to was that the PTWC insists on working through other agencies – just as the editorial today suggests. The PTWC and NOAA mindset is weak on direct action that would put critical information in the hands of the ultimate consumer as quickly as possible. In fact, as Tsunami Lessons reported exclusively on March 26, 2005, “The National Weather Service won’t allow the PTWC to call the media.” The quote was by PTWC Director Charles McCreery during this writer’s visit to the Ewa Beach center.

Cut Out the Middleman

Nearly two years later, the PTWC and State Civil Defense seem to be using the same model: The PTWC first contacts Civil Defense for consultations and then a warning is sounded.

That model eventually will cost people their lives in Hawaii. It’s time for these agencies to shed their bureaucratic shackles and devise a fast-reaction, no-wait protocol to alert people in danger.

Never again should people die while tsunami experts wring their hands about an alleged inability to warn them of their peril.

Some people bought that excuse after the Indian Ocean tsunami. That won’t be the case if a Big Island quake triggers a Hawaiian Islands tsunami and warnings are too late because agencies were “in conjunction” with one another.