State Civil Defense Commits to Public Briefing On October Earthquakes' Emergency Response

November 15th Update at 6:06 a.m.: This morning's tsunami watch triggered an Emergency Alert System break-in on radio stations between 5:50 and 6:05 a.m. It's an improvement when the EAS is at work within the hour of a watch, but it's not unreasonable to hope fine tuning will produce an even quicker activation.

Breaking a new development in the earthquake response story may be no great shakes in light of the media’s general disinterest in the story so far, but we’ll make the point anyway:

With this post, CHORE appears to be the first to confirm the State Civil Defense’s intention to conduct a public briefing on its response to the October 15th earthquakes and discuss lessons learned and planned improvements to emergency communications.

Vice Director of Civil Defense Ed Teixeira’s response to CHORE’s November 6th letter arrived today. It contains the welcome news that a public meeting is in the works and will be held once more pressing matters are addressed.

This is a good move by State authorities, and we'll continue to hope the meeting also will include recommendations for improved emergency communications now being developed by the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee.

Here’s Ed Teixeira’s letter:

Dear Mr. Carlson:

Thank you for your letter of November 6, 2006. I know from our previous letters and conversations that you are deeply interested in protecting the public when disasters occur, and I welcome your observations and suggestions.

We, at State Civil Defense, intend to conduct an after-action review on our response to the October 15, 2006, earthquake, including lessons learned. However, responding to people who were impacted by the earthquake is our most immediate priority. We are presently staffing several Disaster Recovery Centers on the island of Hawaii and a joint Field Office in coordination with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

We are never fully satisfied with our response to any disaster or emergency; we know there are always ways to improve and have already addressed improvements to the emergency alert system. We appreciate your interest and will take you up on your offer to help.

Mr. Ray Lovell, State Civil Defense Public Information Officer, will be contacting you for additional information and for a possible date we can meet with the public.

Sincerely,

/signature/
EDWARD T. TEIXEIRA
Vice Director of Civil Defense

c: MG Robert G. F. Lee
Director of Civil Defense

We look forward to participating and welcome comments, questions and recommendations by CHORE’s readers on providing information you need to feel secure in a crisis. Add your comments here or send an email; we'll post a list of questions in this space.