Turkey, Shopping Soon To Dominate; Will it Leave Time for Emergency Response Fixes?

CHORE won’t be surprised if the whole emergency response issue is set aside for the next six weeks. Thanksgiving, shopping, parties, presents, eggnog – it’s all too much.

Besides, the earthquakes were weeks ago, and the 2006 hurricane season was as calm as they get in the Central Pacific. Complacency Check: What date in 1982 did Hurricane Iwa strike the Hawaiian Islands? Find the answer at the bottom of today's post.

The Comprehensive Communications Review Committee began meeting five weeks ago today. Is it still meeting? Who knows? You can’t tell from the media coverage, because there’s virtually none. Only one story has run on the committee’s review of the October 15th communications failures and discussions to make things better.

The only mention of the public meeting CHORE has urged State Civil Defense to hold was in a letter from the agency’s vice director posted here a week ago. We’re still waiting for the staff member to call about scheduling a meeting.

So as we slide into the holidays, the best we can do now is keep alive some of the issues and questions that remain unanswered:

• Why did the Emergency Alert System fail to kick in soon after the earthquakes? Has it been fixed?
• Do officials now acknowledge that the decision to not issue a “no tsunami” message caused undue fear in the population? Are new guidelines in place that will encourage a “non-event” message to the public?
• How much time passed after the first quake hit before Civil Defense officials were on the air? What changes have been implemented to speed the response?
• What’s been done to encourage broadcast stations to strengthen their ability to stay on the air in a power blackout? Are they reacting? Is Civil Defense satisfied?
• Does Civil Defense have new procedures that will facilitate communication with the stations in any kind of emergency?
• Where are the “gap areas” that State Civil Defense says exist in the emergency siren system? According to a media report, 148 sirens are needed to fill them. Why wouldn’t officials disclose the gap locations in that report, and have they changed their minds? Don’t people living in the gaps deserve to know they’re not protected by the siren system?
• What are the guidelines for issuing tsunami warnings and advisories? Are new protocols being written to address tsunamis that are too small for a full-scale siren alert but large enough to cause harbor damage? What is Civil Defense doing to improve the information flow to harbor masters? Is Civil Defense talking to outside agencies to benefit from their experience?

We could go on, but there’s shopping to do and a tree to trim. In the meantime, CHORE hopes the media will take a break from covering the standard fare and look into some of these issues – or is news conference news the only news that’s covered in this town?

And maybe State Civil Defense can interrupt the holiday routine to at least reveal the latest planning for the public meeting it promised.

Complacency Check answer: November 23.