A Proposal for a Tsunami Emergency Alert Procedure: “Feel the Quake, Activate!”

Scientists and Civil Defense professionals must roll their eyes when CHORE and other amateurs come up with suggestions to improve response procedures.

But maybe simple solutions work. The present goal is to generate informational alerts to the public as quickly as possible following earthquakes to tell us whether a tsunami has or hasn’t been generated. The public needs to know either way.

As we see it at CHORE, both scenarios require an urgent response by Civil Defense. In post-October 15th Hawai`i, the public is looking for reassurance that officialdom can and will communicate with us when the chips are down.

Yesterday’s response was far superior to what happened in October, when earthquakes triggered an island-wide power outage on Oahu. But still, as noted in yesterday’s post, 15 minutes passed after the Thanksgiving Day earthquake before an Emergency Alert System announcement was made in a screen crawl and by voice on KGMB-TV around 9:35.

Could the EAS announcement have happened earlier? Maybe it could. KITV apparently cut in with its own information once the no-tsunami call had been made by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. KITV’s first news on the quake probably was broadcast before 9:35. KHON reportedly also went with its own announcement rather than the EAS screen crawl around 9:50.

Reacting As Quickly As Possible

But here’s the key question: Are the collective efforts of the PTWC, State Civil Defense and the EAS capable of issuing automated announcements over TV and radio sooner than 15 minutes after a quake? If the PTWC knows within three to five minutes what’s up, why can’t an EAS message be triggered then and there?

A 15-minute delay won’t be good enough in a tsunami situation. Certainly, individual citizens must take responsibility for their own safety; officials constantly preach that if we feel a major temblor, we must immediately leave areas that could be inundated.

Isn’t the same advice applicable to first responders? If they feel a significant quake, shouldn’t the system immediately prepare to generate an EAS message?

CHORE thinks it should and therefore suggests this simple mantra:

“If you feel the quake, activate.”

If a shaker is strong enough to be felt throughout the island chain, officials must activate the EAS on the assumption that people will immediately want to know what’s happening. It would seem they could do that once PTWC has made an evaluation of the earthquake’s strength and tsunami potential.

We’ve had two “dry runs” since October 15th to put into practice lessons learned on Earthquake Sunday. Response time is improving, but it’s far too soon for anyone responsible for emergency communications to be satisfied.