November 7th update: This is the 14th consecutive day of no media coverage of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee, which began meeting two weeks ago today to examine the communications failures after the October 15th earthquakes.
November 6th update: CHORE anticipates that with the end of the Hawaii Security Summit, held last week on the Big Island, State Civil Defense officials will focus their activities on improving emergency communications procedures. CHORE will revive its request that they brief the public on their progress and the lessons learned on October 15th. Also, we can hope the news media will favor us with reports on the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee's work.
November 3rd update: CHORE's letter in today's edition of Pacific Business News was sent as an email to local journalists on October 19th before Hawaiian Electric Company's public briefing on the island-wide power outage. Therefore, the letter's reference to HECO's lack of information on "load shedding" to stabilize the power grid -- while accurate on the 19th -- is now dated.
November 6th update: CHORE anticipates that with the end of the Hawaii Security Summit, held last week on the Big Island, State Civil Defense officials will focus their activities on improving emergency communications procedures. CHORE will revive its request that they brief the public on their progress and the lessons learned on October 15th. Also, we can hope the news media will favor us with reports on the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee's work.
November 3rd update: CHORE's letter in today's edition of Pacific Business News was sent as an email to local journalists on October 19th before Hawaiian Electric Company's public briefing on the island-wide power outage. Therefore, the letter's reference to HECO's lack of information on "load shedding" to stabilize the power grid -- while accurate on the 19th -- is now dated.
October 15th was a difficult day for Hawai`i residents. Earthquakes shook our homes and damaged some of them, and the daylong Oahu power outage tested our readiness and patience.
Do the events of that day make us feel more secure or less secure?
I think a poll of Oahu residents would reveal a heightened sense of insecurity in our community. We feel that way because the communications chain we thought we could rely on was broken on Earthquake Sunday.
The breakdown is still with us. In the three weeks since the quakes, additional links in the information chain seem less reliable than we had imagined.
Among them are the daily print and broadcast media outlets, which have shown little inclination to cover the efforts now underway to improve emergency communications in our community.
The breakdown began when the violent shaking stopped. At that moment, thousands of households wanted to know what had happened and turned to our favorite radio stations.
We found silence up and down the dial. Nearly a dozen stations that supposedly broadcast in the public interest were off the air and stayed that way for hours during Oahu’s island-wide power outage.
The designated emergency station continued broadcasting with generator power, but it took nearly an hour before it stopped a pre-recorded public affairs program and began reporting on the earthquake and outage.
No News Was Not Good News
Residents living near the ocean wondered about a tsunami threat, but State Civil Defense officials made a conscious decision to not issue a “no-tsunami” message and were silent about the potential. Their decision added to the fear factor.
The Emergency Alert System was not activated for nearly three hours, and it took a similar period for the electric utility to begin updating customers on the status of the power grid.
These failures to communicate were troubling, but the State’s formation of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee offered hope that information on improvements would soon be available.
Although the committee began meeting nine days after the earthquakes, to this day not a single news report has been printed or broadcast about the committee’s work.
The continued media indifference about the communications lapses and remedial action only increases our sense of insecurity. Citizens have a right to know what went wrong and what’s being done to correct those problems.
Civil Defense Briefing a Starting Point
State Civil Defense officials could begin the confidence building by briefing the public on lessons they’ve learned and what they’ve done to improve communications during emergencies.
We deserve to know the changes they’ve made in their tsunami warning protocols – to include announcing that no tsunami has been generated.
We deserve to know details about the “gap areas” in the emergency siren system that Civil Defense officials have said require an additional 148 sirens to fill. We should be told what’s being done to provide emergency backup power to the 100 sirens that now depend on the electric grid.
We deserve to hear from broadcasters about their intentions to remain on the air in power outages.
And we deserve journalism that responds to the community’s concerns and reports to us on efforts to improve communications during the many and varied emergencies that strike our vulnerable islands.
All this is required to help restore our lost sense of security.
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