Former baseball hero Mark McGwire famously dodged questions two years ago at a congressional hearing into alleged steroid use in his sport by answering: “I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to be positive about this subject." When pressed with more questions, McGwire answered, "Like I said earlier, I'm not going to go into the past and talk about my past."
That pretty much sums up Governor Linda Lingle’s response to a question posed by CHORE during the Honolulu Advertiser’s “Hot Seat” chat room today. Here’s our question to Hawaii’s Chief Executive:
“Governor, don't you think it would be a good idea for State Civil Defense to conduct confidence-building public meetings on each island to discuss the problems it experienced on Earthquake Sunday and measures taken since then to improve emergency communications to the public? SCD is resisting holding these meetings. What do you think?”
And this is the Governor’s response:
“I think it important both to review past experiences and focus on the future. We have done an extensive review of what happened on October 15, 2006, the day the earthquake hit and have published a report on how to improve our response in the future. We are now focused on a statewide education program to better prepare for the future.”
Since Advertiser editorial page editor Jeanne Mariani-Belding discouraged follow-up questions from chat room visitors, we were unable to take issue with the State’s review and its major flaw: The public was excluded from any participation, a point we first wrote about here on October 18th.
Given the opportunity, we politely would have raised the conflict-of-interest issue – the review of a State agency’s performance (Civil Defense) by a committee selected by the executive ultimately responsible for that performance, chaired by one of her senior advisors, co-chaired by the director of the agency in question, etc. (You can review who was on the committee by going to this Governor's Office press release and clicking on the PDF document at the bottom.)
Where’s the Independence?
The Governor’s review was just that – her review – and was far from the independent assessment advocated shortly after the earthquakes by a Honolulu Star-Bulletin editorial, “Independent panel should review earthquake response.” By excluding the public from the committee and holding no meetings to receive public comment and questions about the substandard emergency communications response on October 15th, the government avoids the embarrassment of having to own up to those deficiencies in an open forum.
As we noted here Monday, it may take intervention by State legislators to convene their own open forums on each island to which State Civil Defense and the public would be invited. This would seem to be the only way the Administration will meet the public to discuss the public safety issues that were revealed on October 15th.
It shouldn’t have to be that way, but that’s the way it is.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
State Civil Defense Disses Public Meeting Idea, Says Citizens Already Had Their Opportunity
Nobody knows what’s next in life, so we really have no idea whether State Civil Defense will relent and conduct public meetings on each island to engage citizens in a dialogue on emergency communications – as it should, in CHORE’s opinion.
That said, I’d bet the farm it won’t if today’s informational briefing testimony revealed SCD’s rock-bottom intentions. And I’d double the bet that it won’t happen without intervention from State legislators.
CHORE was first to testify at the briefing held by two legislative committees; we focused on our ongoing theme that the public has been improperly excluded from the post-earthquake discussions on how to improve emergency communications.
We argued that improving emergency communications is not a one-way street, with a government-dominated committee deciding what’s good for us without talking to us. Legislators surely know the value of citizen input. Ignore it, and they’re out of a job, but that’s not the mindset at State Civil Defense.
One Hearing Was Enough?
State Adjutant General Robert Lee followed CHORE’s testimony and countered it by noting the public already has had its chance for input into the post-earthquake assessment. When? During one hour of the January 9 hearing conducted by two legislative committees, that’s when. Also, according to Maj. Gen. Lee, the public sent e-mails and made phone calls to SCD, and the Governor received a few letters, too.
With all due respect to General Lee, that is not a strong position, sir. It means that if neighbor island residents wanted to help SCD do a better job by giving them feedback on the October 15th communications breakdown, they should have flown to Oahu to testify at that hearing -- at their own cost and inconvenience.
We just can’t go along with that kind of thinking, which doesn’t fit in with the Administration’s alleged “greater transparency and accountability” that we’ve read about recently.
Legislators, Please Sign In
We really don’t see these meetings happening without legislators on each island firmly asking State Civil Defense to include the public in the emergency communications dialogue. Citizens who want to communicate with their senators and representatives can find their emails at the Hawaii Legislature web portal.
That said, I’d bet the farm it won’t if today’s informational briefing testimony revealed SCD’s rock-bottom intentions. And I’d double the bet that it won’t happen without intervention from State legislators.
CHORE was first to testify at the briefing held by two legislative committees; we focused on our ongoing theme that the public has been improperly excluded from the post-earthquake discussions on how to improve emergency communications.
We argued that improving emergency communications is not a one-way street, with a government-dominated committee deciding what’s good for us without talking to us. Legislators surely know the value of citizen input. Ignore it, and they’re out of a job, but that’s not the mindset at State Civil Defense.
One Hearing Was Enough?
State Adjutant General Robert Lee followed CHORE’s testimony and countered it by noting the public already has had its chance for input into the post-earthquake assessment. When? During one hour of the January 9 hearing conducted by two legislative committees, that’s when. Also, according to Maj. Gen. Lee, the public sent e-mails and made phone calls to SCD, and the Governor received a few letters, too.
With all due respect to General Lee, that is not a strong position, sir. It means that if neighbor island residents wanted to help SCD do a better job by giving them feedback on the October 15th communications breakdown, they should have flown to Oahu to testify at that hearing -- at their own cost and inconvenience.
We just can’t go along with that kind of thinking, which doesn’t fit in with the Administration’s alleged “greater transparency and accountability” that we’ve read about recently.
Legislators, Please Sign In
We really don’t see these meetings happening without legislators on each island firmly asking State Civil Defense to include the public in the emergency communications dialogue. Citizens who want to communicate with their senators and representatives can find their emails at the Hawaii Legislature web portal.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Better Civil Defense Communication Set as Topic Of Informational Briefing Monday at Capitol
Two legislative committees will meet Monday afternoon to hear how “state civil defense (can) improve communication with general public when a man-made or natural disaster occurs.”
CHORE has a few ideas along those lines and hopes to present testimony during the scheduled three-hour briefing, which begins at 1 p.m. in conference room 423 at the Capitol.
Specifically mentioned as prospective attendees are members of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee, along with just about every known agency and entity that could possibly be involved in weather-related and other disasters – county mayors, the National Weather Service, radio hams, hotel reps, FEMA, the FCC, TV and radio stations, the PUC, the DOE and others….and the public.
It will be interesting to see just where the public fits into the proceedings. As CHORE has said repeatedly, the public hasn’t been invited into the discussion until now. With no average citizens among its 70 members, the Governor-appointed Review Committee isn’t truly “comprehensive,” as we noted one day after its creation.
Making Room for Citizens
Here are a couple paragraphs from our testimony:
“If State Civil Defense truly wants to improve communication with the public – and I believe it does – it will hold public meetings and solicit comments, questions and concerns from citizens about what went right and wrong on Earthquake Sunday. What average citizens think presumably should matter to Civil Defense officials."
“If Civil Defense agencies were not in the business of serving average citizens, those agencies would not even exist. Citizens are the ultimate consumers of emergency information and could have described their communications habits, likes and dislikes – information that would have added value to the committee’s deliberations. The public should have been at the table.”
Here’s hoping our legislators agree and will urge State Civil Defense to conduct meetings with citizens across the state and be a player in restoring “public trust and confidence in government through greater transparency and accountability.”
CHORE has a few ideas along those lines and hopes to present testimony during the scheduled three-hour briefing, which begins at 1 p.m. in conference room 423 at the Capitol.
Specifically mentioned as prospective attendees are members of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee, along with just about every known agency and entity that could possibly be involved in weather-related and other disasters – county mayors, the National Weather Service, radio hams, hotel reps, FEMA, the FCC, TV and radio stations, the PUC, the DOE and others….and the public.
It will be interesting to see just where the public fits into the proceedings. As CHORE has said repeatedly, the public hasn’t been invited into the discussion until now. With no average citizens among its 70 members, the Governor-appointed Review Committee isn’t truly “comprehensive,” as we noted one day after its creation.
Making Room for Citizens
Here are a couple paragraphs from our testimony:
“If State Civil Defense truly wants to improve communication with the public – and I believe it does – it will hold public meetings and solicit comments, questions and concerns from citizens about what went right and wrong on Earthquake Sunday. What average citizens think presumably should matter to Civil Defense officials."
“If Civil Defense agencies were not in the business of serving average citizens, those agencies would not even exist. Citizens are the ultimate consumers of emergency information and could have described their communications habits, likes and dislikes – information that would have added value to the committee’s deliberations. The public should have been at the table.”
Here’s hoping our legislators agree and will urge State Civil Defense to conduct meetings with citizens across the state and be a player in restoring “public trust and confidence in government through greater transparency and accountability.”
Thursday, January 25, 2007
State Civil Defense Still Mum on Meeting
“One week, two weeks, three weeks, four;
give them a little, then wait some more.”
State Civil Defense officials probably don’t consciously treat inquiries from average citizens and taxpayers that way. But repeated emails and calls to SCD urging a meeting to describe the agency’s new and allegedly improved emergency communications procedures have not produced a substantive response.
CHORE’s email justifying such a meeting was sent two weeks ago to Vice Director Ed Teixeira. CHORE called public information specialist Dave Curtis a week later to follow up. Mr. Curtis described his personal feelings about such a meeting -- “I do not believe this is something we would like to do” – so we sent the justification once again to Mr. Teixeira. We’ve heard nothing since.
Maybe SCD’s leadership is simply too busy to deal with bloggers, but that in itself says something about an agency’s ability and willingness to communicate under duress. As CHORE wrote in December, “It would be inconceivable for a private company to be as unresponsive to public inquiry after a major public safety incident as State Civil Defense has been.”
Suspecting legislators might evoke a response, CHORE wrote four days ago to Rep. Cindy Evans, chair of the House Public Safety & Military Affairs Committee, and Rep. Robert Herkes, chair of the House Consumer Protection & Commerce Committee, that began: “Your influence in bringing State Civil Defense to a meeting with the public to explain the agency’s deficiencies on Earthquake Sunday and subsequent improvements is sorely needed. It likely will not happen without direction from you….
“Thank you for whatever help you can provide in bringing State Civil Defense to a public session — not for vilification, but to ensure that the public is apprised of communications improvements already made and that SCD can benefit from citizens’ responses and evaluation of same.”
Citizens who agree are encouraged to make your views known to Representative Evans and Representative Herkes.
give them a little, then wait some more.”
State Civil Defense officials probably don’t consciously treat inquiries from average citizens and taxpayers that way. But repeated emails and calls to SCD urging a meeting to describe the agency’s new and allegedly improved emergency communications procedures have not produced a substantive response.
CHORE’s email justifying such a meeting was sent two weeks ago to Vice Director Ed Teixeira. CHORE called public information specialist Dave Curtis a week later to follow up. Mr. Curtis described his personal feelings about such a meeting -- “I do not believe this is something we would like to do” – so we sent the justification once again to Mr. Teixeira. We’ve heard nothing since.
Maybe SCD’s leadership is simply too busy to deal with bloggers, but that in itself says something about an agency’s ability and willingness to communicate under duress. As CHORE wrote in December, “It would be inconceivable for a private company to be as unresponsive to public inquiry after a major public safety incident as State Civil Defense has been.”
Suspecting legislators might evoke a response, CHORE wrote four days ago to Rep. Cindy Evans, chair of the House Public Safety & Military Affairs Committee, and Rep. Robert Herkes, chair of the House Consumer Protection & Commerce Committee, that began: “Your influence in bringing State Civil Defense to a meeting with the public to explain the agency’s deficiencies on Earthquake Sunday and subsequent improvements is sorely needed. It likely will not happen without direction from you….
“Thank you for whatever help you can provide in bringing State Civil Defense to a public session — not for vilification, but to ensure that the public is apprised of communications improvements already made and that SCD can benefit from citizens’ responses and evaluation of same.”
Citizens who agree are encouraged to make your views known to Representative Evans and Representative Herkes.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Public Meeting Status: No Change, No Progress
The State Civil Defense recipient of our January 11th email had this response today about the public meeting we're advocating: "I do not believe this is something we would like to do." He stressed it's his personal opinion and that he's not had time to talk with Vice Director Ed Teixeira due to the latter's busy schedule.
Staffer Dave Curtis implied a meeting is unnecessary because SCD has been responsive to the public's emails and telephone calls. CHORE has been ineffective in presenting our case to Dave, a radio newsroom veteran, on why meeting with the public would be a demonstration of the agency's responsiveness and willingness to entertain the public's views.
We've resent the email -- this time directly to Ed -- and hope for a positive response when he's considered the value of meeting with the public as described in our message.
Staffer Dave Curtis implied a meeting is unnecessary because SCD has been responsive to the public's emails and telephone calls. CHORE has been ineffective in presenting our case to Dave, a radio newsroom veteran, on why meeting with the public would be a demonstration of the agency's responsiveness and willingness to entertain the public's views.
We've resent the email -- this time directly to Ed -- and hope for a positive response when he's considered the value of meeting with the public as described in our message.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
List of Communities Without Sirens No Longer Secret; Newspaper Forces Information Release
One of the more remarkable disclosures since the October 15th earthquakes came on October 29th, when the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported on nearly 150 “gap areas” unprotected by the State's emergency siren system.
The gaps themselves are regrettable enough, of course, but as CHORE noted that day, the most astounding disclosure in the story was State Civil Defense’s refusal to say which communities are in the gaps. We asked:
“How does refusing to tell citizens where these gaps exist serve the public good? Families living in a gap area certainly deserve to know about it and that whatever sense of security they have the sirens will alert them in an emergency is false.”
To its credit, the Star-Bulletin didn’t let the issue die and filed a “public records request” that produced what it calls Siren Weak Points around the state; the list is in today’s edition.
The list is unsettling. How do you suppose parents with children in Enchanted Lake Elementary feel, knowing the school is on the list? Or people who frequent Kapiolani Park and the five other Oahu parks listed, or residents of Sunset Beach, Velzyland, Palolo Valley, Mililani, Kahuku, Waianae, Ewa, Pearl City…? The list is extensive.
Every inhabited island except Niihau is represented (the Robinson family must have it handled), so this emergency communications deficiency has been allowed to grow until it’s now a statewide problem. Maybe more than a little of the projected $700 million State budget surplus can be spent on correcting this public safety problem.
Who Are These guys?
For only the second time, we read in today’s Bulletin about the existence of the Science Advisory Working Group, which the paper says “spent months studying communications glitches experienced during the earthquake, as well as the public’s response to it.”
The only other mention of this local group was in the October 29th story, which said it would make recommendations to the state about improving alert systems and boosting public education. A Google search produces only three hits for this particular SAWG (there are others around the planet) -- the two Star-Bulletin stories and CHORE’s 10/29 post.
Doesn’t that seem odd? Here’s a committee of some kind that’s studying how to improve emergency communications to the public, and its existence is virtually unknown. Except for its chair, we don’t know who sits on it, what their agendas are (everybody and every agency has them) and how the members presume to know what’s best for the public and how to reach us in an emergency.
It’s highly probable that the public isn’t a part of the study group, just as average citizens weren't on the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee appointed by the Governor to recommend improvements in emergency communications. Once again, citizens are on the outside.
Defining the “Overriding Issue”
The reason this matters is to be sure the committees making decisions about public safety communications don’t make bad ones. For instance, CHORE doesn’t know with certainty what the overriding issue is in this emergency communications debate, but we’re pretty sure it’s not the public’s “lack of education.”
Yet according to today’s Star-Bulletin story, that’s what the SAWG’s chair thinks it is: "You can have all the bells and whistles in the world, but if the citizenry, the news media and the visitor industry don't understand what a tsunami is and what they should do in the event of a tsunami ... if they don't know that, we are in deep trouble."
We’re already in deep trouble, and it’s not the public’s fault!
The overriding issue surely is the government’s demonstrated inability to safeguard the public with timely emergency information on October 15th. The overriding issue actually is many issues – the siren gap; outdated agency communications protocols; the broadcast industry’s backup power deficiencies; some broadcasters' poor performance on Earthquake Sunday, and undoubtedly others that members of the public could readily identify if asked.
The Public Must Be Involved
Yet because the public is not represented on the SAWG and the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee, the public's “lack of education” becomes the overriding issue.
And that’s what happens when priorities are left to our friends in government. They get to decide where the buck stops, and they seem to think it stops with us.
Professional emergency communicators and planners can’t pass the buck that easily. We citizens expect every dollar spent on experts’ salaries and their communications infrastructure to actually improve our safety. Recent events show that’s not happening.
The public must and can be brought into the picture. This will happen when State Civil Defense holds the public meeting it seemingly is committed to scheduling, based on recent contacts. CHORE anticipates progress will be made toward that end this week.
The gaps themselves are regrettable enough, of course, but as CHORE noted that day, the most astounding disclosure in the story was State Civil Defense’s refusal to say which communities are in the gaps. We asked:
“How does refusing to tell citizens where these gaps exist serve the public good? Families living in a gap area certainly deserve to know about it and that whatever sense of security they have the sirens will alert them in an emergency is false.”
To its credit, the Star-Bulletin didn’t let the issue die and filed a “public records request” that produced what it calls Siren Weak Points around the state; the list is in today’s edition.
The list is unsettling. How do you suppose parents with children in Enchanted Lake Elementary feel, knowing the school is on the list? Or people who frequent Kapiolani Park and the five other Oahu parks listed, or residents of Sunset Beach, Velzyland, Palolo Valley, Mililani, Kahuku, Waianae, Ewa, Pearl City…? The list is extensive.
Every inhabited island except Niihau is represented (the Robinson family must have it handled), so this emergency communications deficiency has been allowed to grow until it’s now a statewide problem. Maybe more than a little of the projected $700 million State budget surplus can be spent on correcting this public safety problem.
Who Are These guys?
For only the second time, we read in today’s Bulletin about the existence of the Science Advisory Working Group, which the paper says “spent months studying communications glitches experienced during the earthquake, as well as the public’s response to it.”
The only other mention of this local group was in the October 29th story, which said it would make recommendations to the state about improving alert systems and boosting public education. A Google search produces only three hits for this particular SAWG (there are others around the planet) -- the two Star-Bulletin stories and CHORE’s 10/29 post.
Doesn’t that seem odd? Here’s a committee of some kind that’s studying how to improve emergency communications to the public, and its existence is virtually unknown. Except for its chair, we don’t know who sits on it, what their agendas are (everybody and every agency has them) and how the members presume to know what’s best for the public and how to reach us in an emergency.
It’s highly probable that the public isn’t a part of the study group, just as average citizens weren't on the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee appointed by the Governor to recommend improvements in emergency communications. Once again, citizens are on the outside.
Defining the “Overriding Issue”
The reason this matters is to be sure the committees making decisions about public safety communications don’t make bad ones. For instance, CHORE doesn’t know with certainty what the overriding issue is in this emergency communications debate, but we’re pretty sure it’s not the public’s “lack of education.”
Yet according to today’s Star-Bulletin story, that’s what the SAWG’s chair thinks it is: "You can have all the bells and whistles in the world, but if the citizenry, the news media and the visitor industry don't understand what a tsunami is and what they should do in the event of a tsunami ... if they don't know that, we are in deep trouble."
We’re already in deep trouble, and it’s not the public’s fault!
The overriding issue surely is the government’s demonstrated inability to safeguard the public with timely emergency information on October 15th. The overriding issue actually is many issues – the siren gap; outdated agency communications protocols; the broadcast industry’s backup power deficiencies; some broadcasters' poor performance on Earthquake Sunday, and undoubtedly others that members of the public could readily identify if asked.
The Public Must Be Involved
Yet because the public is not represented on the SAWG and the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee, the public's “lack of education” becomes the overriding issue.
And that’s what happens when priorities are left to our friends in government. They get to decide where the buck stops, and they seem to think it stops with us.
Professional emergency communicators and planners can’t pass the buck that easily. We citizens expect every dollar spent on experts’ salaries and their communications infrastructure to actually improve our safety. Recent events show that’s not happening.
The public must and can be brought into the picture. This will happen when State Civil Defense holds the public meeting it seemingly is committed to scheduling, based on recent contacts. CHORE anticipates progress will be made toward that end this week.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Encouraging Rapid Response to Kuril Earthquake
• See January 11th post for latest on proposed State Civil Defense public meeting to review improvements to emergency communications procedures.
• Go to the bottom of this post for commentary on how Honolulu's two daily newspapers played the Tsunami Watch story. The contrast is amazing.
KITV broke into programming this evening around 7:15 for a "live" report by weather guy Justin Fujioka on the magnitude 8.3 earthquake east of the Kuril Islands that has triggered a Tsunami Watch for Hawaii.
We received our first notice of the 6:23 p.m. HST quake via email from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center/NOAA/NWS 30 minutes later, at 6:53 p.m. The email said a tsunami, if generated and if it reaches Hawaii, would arrive at 12:23 Saturday morning at Nawiliwili, 12:41 at Honolulu and 12:58 at Hilo. That first message -- and no other has been received as of 7:20 p.m. HST -- stressed that it's not known whether a tsunami has been generated.
From CHORE's perspective, it's good to see KITV jumping into the fray as early as it did. This can only strengthen the station's reputation; it was the only station capable of sending reports out of state on October 15th after the Hawaii quakes. We're not paying much attention to television this evening, but our unscientific channel-changing survey has found no "crawls" or programming interruptions on the other outlets.
• 8 p.m. Update: KITV and KGMB-TV break into programming with "live" reports on the Tsunami Watch. Still no confirmation that a tsunami was generated. • 8:15: KGMB breaks in again, including a phone interview with a City spokesman at the Oahu Civil Defense center. Anchor gives wrong arrival time for potential tsunami of 9 p.m., corrects mistake minutes later. No sign yet of State Civil Defense in this state-wide Tsunami Watch, although it's possible it could have been seen on other stations. • 8:30: KITV goes "live" with phone interview with State Civil Defense official, who reports on emergency center preparations. Anchor asks about potential impact on homeless encampments on leeward beaches; spokesman says a warning, if announced, would trigger evacuation of all beaches. • 8:40: KHNL gives brief "live" report on Watch and plugs 9 p.m. newscast on sister station KFVE. KITV runs a crawl across "Desparate Housewives." • 9:02: KFVE actually has a "live" status report from inside the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, perhaps hinting at PTWC sensitivity to criticism of its "remoteness" from the media in past tsunami events (see the Tsunami Lessons blog in general and the March 30, 2005 post in particular for some observations about the PTWC and its relationship with the news media). • 9:30: Another KFVE report from the PTWC says the Tsunami Watch is cancelled based on readings from bouys in the Pacific. KITV's "live" update a few minutes later advises caution on beaches due to possible ocean surges.
CONCLUSION: The media and Civil Defense response to this Tsunami Watch is superior to the emergency-related events we've experienced in the past three months; of course, this one happened at an optimum time -- a weeknight with news teams at the ready and CD officials reachable. Regretably, we didn't monitor radio stations to see how they handled this alert.
• 7 a.m. Saturday Update: By running the Tsunami Watch story on page B-1 this morning and giving it all of about 6 inches of space, with no maps and no quotes from Civil Defense and PTWC officials, the Honolulu Advertiser continues its under-reporting of emergency communications issues. It virtually ignored the activities of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee for weeks and in general is overshadowed consistently by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin's treatment of this ongoing story that affects public safety. The paper's news judgment on issues uppermost in citizens' minds is remarkable.
• 9 a.m. Update: You have to be glad this is a two-newspaper town. The Star-Bulletin, by far the smaller of our two dailies, gave the Watch story top-of-page-one treatment -- a six-column headline ("Tsunami watch surges Hawaii fears" that seems to have caught last night's mood right), with a map showing the earthquake's location -- and about another 20 inches and a photo from inside the PTWC on the jump page. The note at the end says four Bulletin reporters and the Associated Press contributed to the report. In other words, the SB was all over this story. The Advertiser? Less than 6 inches, with no quotes, no maps and no photos under a two-column headline on B-1 in the edition delivered to our house. You be the judge of which paper is doing a better job covering public safety and emergency communications issues, and if you conclude the Advertiser is under-reporting them, visit this page and let the paper's leadership know what you think.
• Go to the bottom of this post for commentary on how Honolulu's two daily newspapers played the Tsunami Watch story. The contrast is amazing.
KITV broke into programming this evening around 7:15 for a "live" report by weather guy Justin Fujioka on the magnitude 8.3 earthquake east of the Kuril Islands that has triggered a Tsunami Watch for Hawaii.
We received our first notice of the 6:23 p.m. HST quake via email from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center/NOAA/NWS 30 minutes later, at 6:53 p.m. The email said a tsunami, if generated and if it reaches Hawaii, would arrive at 12:23 Saturday morning at Nawiliwili, 12:41 at Honolulu and 12:58 at Hilo. That first message -- and no other has been received as of 7:20 p.m. HST -- stressed that it's not known whether a tsunami has been generated.
From CHORE's perspective, it's good to see KITV jumping into the fray as early as it did. This can only strengthen the station's reputation; it was the only station capable of sending reports out of state on October 15th after the Hawaii quakes. We're not paying much attention to television this evening, but our unscientific channel-changing survey has found no "crawls" or programming interruptions on the other outlets.
• 8 p.m. Update: KITV and KGMB-TV break into programming with "live" reports on the Tsunami Watch. Still no confirmation that a tsunami was generated. • 8:15: KGMB breaks in again, including a phone interview with a City spokesman at the Oahu Civil Defense center. Anchor gives wrong arrival time for potential tsunami of 9 p.m., corrects mistake minutes later. No sign yet of State Civil Defense in this state-wide Tsunami Watch, although it's possible it could have been seen on other stations. • 8:30: KITV goes "live" with phone interview with State Civil Defense official, who reports on emergency center preparations. Anchor asks about potential impact on homeless encampments on leeward beaches; spokesman says a warning, if announced, would trigger evacuation of all beaches. • 8:40: KHNL gives brief "live" report on Watch and plugs 9 p.m. newscast on sister station KFVE. KITV runs a crawl across "Desparate Housewives." • 9:02: KFVE actually has a "live" status report from inside the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, perhaps hinting at PTWC sensitivity to criticism of its "remoteness" from the media in past tsunami events (see the Tsunami Lessons blog in general and the March 30, 2005 post in particular for some observations about the PTWC and its relationship with the news media). • 9:30: Another KFVE report from the PTWC says the Tsunami Watch is cancelled based on readings from bouys in the Pacific. KITV's "live" update a few minutes later advises caution on beaches due to possible ocean surges.
CONCLUSION: The media and Civil Defense response to this Tsunami Watch is superior to the emergency-related events we've experienced in the past three months; of course, this one happened at an optimum time -- a weeknight with news teams at the ready and CD officials reachable. Regretably, we didn't monitor radio stations to see how they handled this alert.
• 7 a.m. Saturday Update: By running the Tsunami Watch story on page B-1 this morning and giving it all of about 6 inches of space, with no maps and no quotes from Civil Defense and PTWC officials, the Honolulu Advertiser continues its under-reporting of emergency communications issues. It virtually ignored the activities of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee for weeks and in general is overshadowed consistently by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin's treatment of this ongoing story that affects public safety. The paper's news judgment on issues uppermost in citizens' minds is remarkable.
• 9 a.m. Update: You have to be glad this is a two-newspaper town. The Star-Bulletin, by far the smaller of our two dailies, gave the Watch story top-of-page-one treatment -- a six-column headline ("Tsunami watch surges Hawaii fears" that seems to have caught last night's mood right), with a map showing the earthquake's location -- and about another 20 inches and a photo from inside the PTWC on the jump page. The note at the end says four Bulletin reporters and the Associated Press contributed to the report. In other words, the SB was all over this story. The Advertiser? Less than 6 inches, with no quotes, no maps and no photos under a two-column headline on B-1 in the edition delivered to our house. You be the judge of which paper is doing a better job covering public safety and emergency communications issues, and if you conclude the Advertiser is under-reporting them, visit this page and let the paper's leadership know what you think.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
State Civil Defense Invites Input on Proposed Meeting; Capitol Auditorium Suggested as Site
An encouraging dialogue has begun with State Civil Defense that could well lead to the public meeting that CHORE has been pushing for over the past three months. We won’t go so far as to call the proposed meeting a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but like the South African process, it would indeed reveal the truth about emergency communications in this state and foster greater understanding and even reconciliation between SCD and citizens who have been shut out of the review process on why emergency communications failed after the earthquakes on October 15th and how it can be improved to serve the public.
SCD information officer Dave Curtis asked for an email today outlining why the meeting would be useful and what it might cover. CHORE produced the following, which is posted here in the spirit of transparency:
Email to State Civil Defense:
Dave, I'm glad State Civil Defense seems to have a positive attitude about holding a meeting to brief the public on what worked to communicate emergency information on October 15th and what didn’t, and how communications procedures have been improved since then.
You noted in our phone call that you’ve read some of the CHORE blog, and I’ll include a few links, below, to supplement this email. All of the reasons why the meeting is the right thing to do, in my view, have been written in the blog many times, so I won’t spend a lot of time here. With the links, Ed Teixeira can easily find the major points that have been made repeatedly.
Everyone, including SCD, has acknowledged the poor flow of information to the public after the earthquakes and during the first hours of the power blackout on Oahu. Given that breakdown, our request for a public meeting should be easy to understand. Citizens are the ultimate consumers of emergency information; we rely on it for our safety, so when that communications breaks down, citizens have every reason and right to be concerned and to want an opportunity to evaluate whether the improvements to serve them better will in fact meet their needs.
Only State Civil Defense can provide the information citizens need to be informed on these matters. As a public agency, SCD reasonably should be responsive to the citizens it seeks to inform. Private companies that experience major problems in their operations that impact the public generally move quickly to address the public’s concerns with press conferences, consumer meetings and other outreach programs. SCD has done none of that in the past three months, and it is not unreasonable to conclude that the agency apparently has seen no need to do so. Under different circumstances, Hawaiian Electric Company briefed the public eight days after the earthquakes; of course, HECO is overseen by and is responsive to a public agency, unlike Civil Defense.
Giving the Public a Voice
The meeting we seek would finally bring the public into the process of reviewing the communications problems on Earthquake Sunday. As you know, the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee did not include the public in its membership or seek to receive the public’s views during its four meetings. We argued as early as October 18th that this committee “won't be ‘comprehensive’ until it gives voice to the people who did not have their fears calmed about a possible tsunami, who did not know why the power was out and for how long and who wondered why 10 or more broadcast outlets were silent for hours or even until the next day.”
We also believe a public meeting might challenge the official version about what happened on October 15th. Specifically, we heard as recently as three days ago from the State Adjutant General and at least one legislator that the designated emergency broadcasting station did a “fabulous” job that day. The CHORE blog has noted several times that KSSK’s performance left much to be desired. Two facts stand out:
• KSSK’s personalities essentially transplanted their “entertainment” model for their usual weekday program into their October 15th emergency response. Seemingly unaware that circumstances were entirely different, they invited residents to phone the station to tell them what the earthquake felt like at their homes. The flood of telephone calls prevented SCD and HECO communicators from phoning in with information the public needed, and as much as three hours elapsed before official SCD information could be broadcast.
• With half the island of Oahu still without power at 7 p.m. on October 15th, KSSK ended its “live” programming and began broadcasting the syndicated John Tesh Radio Show, a recorded three-hour program, and cut back its reporting on the blackout to reports on the half-hour. This business-as-usual approach in the midst of an ongoing emergency for tens of thousands of Oahu families can hardly be called “fabulous.”
As long as top State officials are publicly laudatory about the station’s performance, KSSK will see no need for self-evaluation and improvement. Indeed, the entire broadcast industry here needs a reality check on its ability to serve the public interest in emergencies.
I hope we’ll have a chance to schedule a meeting relatively soon before much more time goes by. It might be reasonable to conduct the meeting in the State Capitol Auditorium on a weekday, when legislators, their staffs, the media and citizens easily could attend. HECO’s briefing on October 23 in that room could be the model. As is my custom on the CHORE blog to keep my involvement as transparent as possible, I will post this email there.
Aloha...
URL links to past CHORE posts:
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
The "Comprehensive Communications Review
Committee" Is Missing Something: The Public
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Let’s Not Be Too Quick with the Anointing Oil
While the Jury’s Still Out on Media Response
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Will State Civil Defense Brief the Public on
Quake Communications and Improvements?
(Includes What a Civil Defense Briefing Could Cover)
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Tsunami Sirens Inadequate To Warn Isles, but
Officials Won’t Say Who Lives in Silent Peril
Thursday, November 23, 2006
15 Minutes Pass Before ‘No-Tsunami Crawl'
Appears on TV after Thanksgiving Earthquake
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Until the Public Is Served, Homeland Security
Communications Scorecard Is Meaningless
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Hearings Accentuate Need for Civil Defense
Public Meeting; Legislators Asked To Help
SCD information officer Dave Curtis asked for an email today outlining why the meeting would be useful and what it might cover. CHORE produced the following, which is posted here in the spirit of transparency:
Email to State Civil Defense:
Dave, I'm glad State Civil Defense seems to have a positive attitude about holding a meeting to brief the public on what worked to communicate emergency information on October 15th and what didn’t, and how communications procedures have been improved since then.
You noted in our phone call that you’ve read some of the CHORE blog, and I’ll include a few links, below, to supplement this email. All of the reasons why the meeting is the right thing to do, in my view, have been written in the blog many times, so I won’t spend a lot of time here. With the links, Ed Teixeira can easily find the major points that have been made repeatedly.
Everyone, including SCD, has acknowledged the poor flow of information to the public after the earthquakes and during the first hours of the power blackout on Oahu. Given that breakdown, our request for a public meeting should be easy to understand. Citizens are the ultimate consumers of emergency information; we rely on it for our safety, so when that communications breaks down, citizens have every reason and right to be concerned and to want an opportunity to evaluate whether the improvements to serve them better will in fact meet their needs.
Only State Civil Defense can provide the information citizens need to be informed on these matters. As a public agency, SCD reasonably should be responsive to the citizens it seeks to inform. Private companies that experience major problems in their operations that impact the public generally move quickly to address the public’s concerns with press conferences, consumer meetings and other outreach programs. SCD has done none of that in the past three months, and it is not unreasonable to conclude that the agency apparently has seen no need to do so. Under different circumstances, Hawaiian Electric Company briefed the public eight days after the earthquakes; of course, HECO is overseen by and is responsive to a public agency, unlike Civil Defense.
Giving the Public a Voice
The meeting we seek would finally bring the public into the process of reviewing the communications problems on Earthquake Sunday. As you know, the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee did not include the public in its membership or seek to receive the public’s views during its four meetings. We argued as early as October 18th that this committee “won't be ‘comprehensive’ until it gives voice to the people who did not have their fears calmed about a possible tsunami, who did not know why the power was out and for how long and who wondered why 10 or more broadcast outlets were silent for hours or even until the next day.”
We also believe a public meeting might challenge the official version about what happened on October 15th. Specifically, we heard as recently as three days ago from the State Adjutant General and at least one legislator that the designated emergency broadcasting station did a “fabulous” job that day. The CHORE blog has noted several times that KSSK’s performance left much to be desired. Two facts stand out:
• KSSK’s personalities essentially transplanted their “entertainment” model for their usual weekday program into their October 15th emergency response. Seemingly unaware that circumstances were entirely different, they invited residents to phone the station to tell them what the earthquake felt like at their homes. The flood of telephone calls prevented SCD and HECO communicators from phoning in with information the public needed, and as much as three hours elapsed before official SCD information could be broadcast.
• With half the island of Oahu still without power at 7 p.m. on October 15th, KSSK ended its “live” programming and began broadcasting the syndicated John Tesh Radio Show, a recorded three-hour program, and cut back its reporting on the blackout to reports on the half-hour. This business-as-usual approach in the midst of an ongoing emergency for tens of thousands of Oahu families can hardly be called “fabulous.”
As long as top State officials are publicly laudatory about the station’s performance, KSSK will see no need for self-evaluation and improvement. Indeed, the entire broadcast industry here needs a reality check on its ability to serve the public interest in emergencies.
I hope we’ll have a chance to schedule a meeting relatively soon before much more time goes by. It might be reasonable to conduct the meeting in the State Capitol Auditorium on a weekday, when legislators, their staffs, the media and citizens easily could attend. HECO’s briefing on October 23 in that room could be the model. As is my custom on the CHORE blog to keep my involvement as transparent as possible, I will post this email there.
Aloha...
URL links to past CHORE posts:
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
The "Comprehensive Communications Review
Committee" Is Missing Something: The Public
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Let’s Not Be Too Quick with the Anointing Oil
While the Jury’s Still Out on Media Response
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Will State Civil Defense Brief the Public on
Quake Communications and Improvements?
(Includes What a Civil Defense Briefing Could Cover)
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Tsunami Sirens Inadequate To Warn Isles, but
Officials Won’t Say Who Lives in Silent Peril
Thursday, November 23, 2006
15 Minutes Pass Before ‘No-Tsunami Crawl'
Appears on TV after Thanksgiving Earthquake
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Until the Public Is Served, Homeland Security
Communications Scorecard Is Meaningless
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Hearings Accentuate Need for Civil Defense
Public Meeting; Legislators Asked To Help
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Hearings Accentuate Need for Civil Defense Public Meeting; Legislators Asked To Help
CHORE sent the following email today to the members of the three legislative committees that held hearings earlier this week on Hawaii’s emergency response to the October 15th earthquakes:
Committee members, your hearings this week were a tremendous public service. Thank you for addressing the critical public safety issue of emergency communications effectiveness in our community.
Yesterday’s hearing revealed how lessons learned in emergency situations can be unlearned with the passage of time and turnover of personnel. As HECO's manager of corporate communications and spokesman in the 1980s, I and my colleagues were unable to telephone KGU, the designated emergency station, the night of November 23, 1982 when Hurricane Iwa struck, for the same reason HECO’s current managers were stymied on October15th in calling KSSK:
If you have only the telephone book’s numbers for local radio stations, you may as well have no numbers. You simply can’t get through, especially if the station is encouraging listeners to call in with their anecdotes.
We learned in 1982 that a list of unpublished numbers is essential. We therefore worked with the radio industry in the subsequent months to develop that list of non-published emergency-only numbers and used it on “Black Wednesday,” July 13, 1983, when all of Oahu lost power due to a sugar cane fire in Ewa.
HECO and KSSK obviously have unlearned the lessons of the 1980s. Just as obviously, private and public officials have more game-planning to do for major disaster scenarios. For example, at Monday’s hearing, Major General Lee expressed his complete satisfaction with KSSK’s performance on Earthquake Sunday, a point some of us dispute (see my blog’s post on October 22). When asked what would happen if the station lost power, General Lee noted that KSSK was selected as the emergency station in part because it has its own backup generator and won’t go black.
But what if it does lose power? What’s the backup plan? We heard nothing about a scenario such as a category 4 hurricane that might destroy KSSK’s tower. Military doctrine emphasizes the importance of “defense in depth.” We have no idea what State Civil Defense’s plans are if its first line of defense crumbles.
That’s why my CHORE blog has advocated repeatedly that a public meeting is warranted to hash out all these matters, explain October 15th in detail, answer the public’s questions and demonstrate responsiveness to the public’s concerns. Your assistance is sought in encouraging General Lee and Vice Director Teixeira to conduct such a meeting, ideally in the Capitol Auditorium so as to be convenient to legislators and your staff members.
Aloha and best wishes,
Committee members, your hearings this week were a tremendous public service. Thank you for addressing the critical public safety issue of emergency communications effectiveness in our community.
Yesterday’s hearing revealed how lessons learned in emergency situations can be unlearned with the passage of time and turnover of personnel. As HECO's manager of corporate communications and spokesman in the 1980s, I and my colleagues were unable to telephone KGU, the designated emergency station, the night of November 23, 1982 when Hurricane Iwa struck, for the same reason HECO’s current managers were stymied on October15th in calling KSSK:
If you have only the telephone book’s numbers for local radio stations, you may as well have no numbers. You simply can’t get through, especially if the station is encouraging listeners to call in with their anecdotes.
We learned in 1982 that a list of unpublished numbers is essential. We therefore worked with the radio industry in the subsequent months to develop that list of non-published emergency-only numbers and used it on “Black Wednesday,” July 13, 1983, when all of Oahu lost power due to a sugar cane fire in Ewa.
HECO and KSSK obviously have unlearned the lessons of the 1980s. Just as obviously, private and public officials have more game-planning to do for major disaster scenarios. For example, at Monday’s hearing, Major General Lee expressed his complete satisfaction with KSSK’s performance on Earthquake Sunday, a point some of us dispute (see my blog’s post on October 22). When asked what would happen if the station lost power, General Lee noted that KSSK was selected as the emergency station in part because it has its own backup generator and won’t go black.
But what if it does lose power? What’s the backup plan? We heard nothing about a scenario such as a category 4 hurricane that might destroy KSSK’s tower. Military doctrine emphasizes the importance of “defense in depth.” We have no idea what State Civil Defense’s plans are if its first line of defense crumbles.
That’s why my CHORE blog has advocated repeatedly that a public meeting is warranted to hash out all these matters, explain October 15th in detail, answer the public’s questions and demonstrate responsiveness to the public’s concerns. Your assistance is sought in encouraging General Lee and Vice Director Teixeira to conduct such a meeting, ideally in the Capitol Auditorium so as to be convenient to legislators and your staff members.
Aloha and best wishes,
Monday, January 08, 2007
Anticipated Assessment of Public Information Response & Enhancements Completely Missing In State Civil Defense’s Capitol Briefing Today
• See bottom of today's post for update.
CHORE’s post here yesterday speculated (hopefully) that when the State Administration met with legislators this morning to discuss disaster preparedness measures and brief them on the October 15th response, we’d hear how emergency communications to the public has and will be improved.
Instead, what legislators, some media and a few members of public scattered among department directors and other State employees heard was a detailed description of how the Hawaii National Guard and State Civil Defense internal communications networks work. Other topics included quake damage to highways, airports, harbors and healthcare services – all important, of course, but not what we had hoped to hear.
To be fair, perhaps the legislators’ information request was narrowly focused on such matters and didn’t include how State CD is improving its public communications. That might explain Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Robert Lee’s presentation. Still unexplained in a public forum, however, is why the emergency communications network designed to protect the public collapsed on October 15th.
5 Minutes in 3+ Hours
Not that the subject didn’t come up in the briefing that began at 9 a.m. and continued past noon. It’s just that it came and went so quickly that someone stepping outside to take a phone call would have missed it.
Rep. Cynthia Thielen asked Lee how Civil Defense intends to improve communications to the public, and that led to a brief discussion by the two – without actually addressing changes or improvements -- about the “incredible” and “fabulous” job KSSK’s on-air personalities did on Earthquake Sunday.
As CHORE has written, as recently as Saturday and way back on October 22, if we uncritically accept that spin, we’ll have learned nothing from the earthquake experience about how designated emergency broadcast stations can improve their performance.
KSSK complicated matters on October 15th by failing to adopt an “emergency mindset” and instead largely duplicated its Monday-to-Friday morning entertainment format even as everything was falling apart. If you've switched to emergency operations, you don’t invite listeners to call in with anecdotal stories about the quake and tie up all your incoming telephone lines. You don’t cut away to a recorded program hosted by entertainer John Tesh at 7 p.m. with half the island still blacked out if you have your emergency hard hat on.
From our perspective, KSSK got by with doing the minimum on October 15th -- they showed up and stayed on the air, which was better than most. But that's what you'd expect of a designated emergency broadcast station. All the over-the-top praise heaped on the station and its personnel says more about KSSK's decades-long ratings supremency and Clear Channel's PR operation than it does about actual performance on Earthquake Sunday. (For our qualifications to comment on these matters, see CHORE's October 22 post.)
Public Meeting Still Needed*
Maybe the legislators will schedule a hearing to ask average citizens how the information blackout affected them and how they feel they could be better served by first responders. Maybe State Civil Defense will actually schedule the public meeting CHORE has written about for two months.
Maybe, but we’ve seen little interest by government officials in what the average citizen thinks and wants. The public was absent from the meetings of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee, and even the mass media – allegedly the eyes and ears of the public – took a pass for the most part.
If any legislators are reading, please remember that this issue is about public safety. You can help protect and promote it by ensuring that systems meant to speed emergency communications to the public are improved.
* Vice Director of Civil Defense Ed Teixeira sent an email late this evening recommitting his agency to a public meeting and saying a public information officer will be in contact.
CHORE’s post here yesterday speculated (hopefully) that when the State Administration met with legislators this morning to discuss disaster preparedness measures and brief them on the October 15th response, we’d hear how emergency communications to the public has and will be improved.
Instead, what legislators, some media and a few members of public scattered among department directors and other State employees heard was a detailed description of how the Hawaii National Guard and State Civil Defense internal communications networks work. Other topics included quake damage to highways, airports, harbors and healthcare services – all important, of course, but not what we had hoped to hear.
To be fair, perhaps the legislators’ information request was narrowly focused on such matters and didn’t include how State CD is improving its public communications. That might explain Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Robert Lee’s presentation. Still unexplained in a public forum, however, is why the emergency communications network designed to protect the public collapsed on October 15th.
5 Minutes in 3+ Hours
Not that the subject didn’t come up in the briefing that began at 9 a.m. and continued past noon. It’s just that it came and went so quickly that someone stepping outside to take a phone call would have missed it.
Rep. Cynthia Thielen asked Lee how Civil Defense intends to improve communications to the public, and that led to a brief discussion by the two – without actually addressing changes or improvements -- about the “incredible” and “fabulous” job KSSK’s on-air personalities did on Earthquake Sunday.
As CHORE has written, as recently as Saturday and way back on October 22, if we uncritically accept that spin, we’ll have learned nothing from the earthquake experience about how designated emergency broadcast stations can improve their performance.
KSSK complicated matters on October 15th by failing to adopt an “emergency mindset” and instead largely duplicated its Monday-to-Friday morning entertainment format even as everything was falling apart. If you've switched to emergency operations, you don’t invite listeners to call in with anecdotal stories about the quake and tie up all your incoming telephone lines. You don’t cut away to a recorded program hosted by entertainer John Tesh at 7 p.m. with half the island still blacked out if you have your emergency hard hat on.
From our perspective, KSSK got by with doing the minimum on October 15th -- they showed up and stayed on the air, which was better than most. But that's what you'd expect of a designated emergency broadcast station. All the over-the-top praise heaped on the station and its personnel says more about KSSK's decades-long ratings supremency and Clear Channel's PR operation than it does about actual performance on Earthquake Sunday. (For our qualifications to comment on these matters, see CHORE's October 22 post.)
Public Meeting Still Needed*
Maybe the legislators will schedule a hearing to ask average citizens how the information blackout affected them and how they feel they could be better served by first responders. Maybe State Civil Defense will actually schedule the public meeting CHORE has written about for two months.
Maybe, but we’ve seen little interest by government officials in what the average citizen thinks and wants. The public was absent from the meetings of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee, and even the mass media – allegedly the eyes and ears of the public – took a pass for the most part.
If any legislators are reading, please remember that this issue is about public safety. You can help protect and promote it by ensuring that systems meant to speed emergency communications to the public are improved.
* Vice Director of Civil Defense Ed Teixeira sent an email late this evening recommitting his agency to a public meeting and saying a public information officer will be in contact.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Review Panel Releases List of Communication Upgrades; Remembering the KISS Principle; Public May Get Answers at Capitol Hearings
“We report, you decide” is how one broadcast network describes its role, and in that vein, it’s now time for citizens to decide what you like in the report distributed yesterday by the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee.
The Governor created this committee two days after the October 15th earthquakes and appointed 70 representatives from government, broadcasting and the print journalism and wireless communications industries. (No public representatives were invited, as CHORE has repeatedly observed, but we’ll get to that important issue near the end of this post and in future ones.)
The Governor’s Office press release summarizes the panel’s 15 recommendations to improve emergency communications response in light of government’s well-documented failures on Earthquake Sunday. The press release also has a link to the report and a separate link to the committee’s membership roster.
Some recommendations stand out as good ideas. Giving State Civil Defense a mechanism to interrupt regular TV and radio programming with emergency messages makes sense, Big Brother concerns notwithstanding. Stepping up education efforts to prepare citizens to recognize hazardous conditions is a no-brainer; too many of our friends and neighbors still want to “surf the tsunami.”
Applying the Category 4 Test
But other suggestions remind CHORE of the KISS principle that’s known to every veteran of the armed services – Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Nice as it might be to create a text messaging capability – and it’s no surprise this is one of the recommendations, with representatives from Cingular Wireless, Hawaiian Telcom, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless on the committee – what’s the confidence level that text messaging will be useful after a category 4 hurricane? Shouldn’t planning surmise that most cell phone towers will be inoperable?
Electronic freeway and portable message signs are mentioned in another recommendation – again, a “nice-to-do” channel. But are resources so abundant that we can develop numerous channels of communication for emergency messages, or are we better served by mastering a few?
If many are better than few, maybe these ideas are worth pursuing, but let’s hope the best recommendations take precedence over the more exotic.
The Near-Ubiquity of Radio
Five minutes of Googling found a U.S. Census report on household radio ownership in the United States. It says 99 percent of all households have at least one radio, and the average per household is 8. Hawaii statistics weren’t immediately found, but they undoubtedly would reveal similar radio penetration here.
Applying the KISS principle, CHORE hopes officials will utilize radio as the primary way to disseminate emergency messages, especially during power outages when television programming is mostly unavailable. In light of the propensity to lose power in these islands, it's obvious that every Hawaii household should have at least one portable radio. And for households that just won't buy that portable, a car radio might do.
That said, the radio industry also failed to live up to expectations on October 15th, when a dozen or more stations had no backup power and were off the air for hours during the blackout. And as this blog has suggested, the actual performance of the designated emergency broadcasters left much to be desired on Earthquake Sunday.
You won't find much criticism in the Review Committee's report of the broadcasters' performance, however -- not with approximately half the committee's membership in broadcasting. We can expect individual stations and local station networks to address these deficiencies, but if they don't, citizens can look ahead to the FCC’s re-licensing process to challenge the refuseniks’ credentials to "broadcast in the public interest.”
Making Room for the Public
As noted above, CHORE will have more to say in future posts about what to us has been the glaring hole in the Review Committee’s makeup – the absence of average citizens to represent the public, the ultimate consumers of emergency information. The committee’s report says near its beginning:
"At a series of four meetings (one each on Oct. 24 and Oct. 26 and two on Nov. 9), participants engaged in open and honest discussions about the challenges they faced on Oct. 15, and offered suggestions on how they could more efficiently and effectively communicate with the public during future emergencies."
The committee’s members talked up these issues among themselves, apparently content that they know what's best for the public. CHORE is uncomfortable with that presumption and has said so here repeatedly.
You also have to wonder whether the committee -- run as it was by State officials -- could really do a thorough job of investigating the post-earthquake performance of State agencies. The need for an independent assessment seems as obvious as the desirability for the public to sit on the committee. That's not how it went down.
Perhaps involving the public would have produced too many “inconvenient truths” about the government’s inability to communicate public safety information after the earthquake. Whatever the rationalization to keep the public out, it hints at a “we know what’s best for you” attitude that is discomforting when found in government.
Will “In Conjunction” Speed the Flow?
Elsewhere, one of the recommendations involves the role of the Department of Defense or State Civil Defense public affairs officer who would be dedicated to assist the media in disseminating information at the to-be-established State Emergency Operations Center. The recommendation states:
"The public affairs officer’s main responsibilities, in conjunction with Governor’s Communications Team, will be to respond to media requests for information or interviews; coordinate informational briefings; release information to the media and public; and correct misinformation."
CHORE thinks it is reasonable to wonder about the meaning of the “in conjunction with Governor’s Communications Team” phrase. What does that imply, and what is the extent and purpose of the “conjunction” function?
Over the past four years, the Governor’s Communications Team (a loosely framed title that doesn’t seem to be codified anywhere and might well be interpreted to be a Public Relations Team) seems to have functioned chiefly to promote the Governor.
Will Recommendation #5 with its “in conjunction” wording speed up or slow down the flow of emergency information to the public, or are emergency messages best left to the Civil Defense and tsunami warning professionals – leaving the GCT/GPRT out of it?
Legislative Hearings Set
Ah, the questions that could and should be asked by the public at a meeting that has been promised (here and here) but not yet scheduled. Maybe some of these issues will emerge at legislative hearings scheduled during the coming week.
Three hours have been reserved on Monday morning in Conference Room 329 for “Governor Linda Lingle and other administrative agencies or individuals “ to “discuss the problems and issues that arose as a result of the earthquakes of October 15, 2006, and to accept comments and recommendations on a proposed disaster preparedness measure that will be introduced in the upcoming legislative session.”
The same committees have reserved all day Tuesday to hear from the City and County of Honolulu, FEMA, HECO and others.
Let’s hope our elected representatives ask good questions of our government officials about their performance and lessons learned on October 15th and that the hearings don’t devolve into back-patting sessions. Some might suggest another part of the anatomy for attention.
The Governor created this committee two days after the October 15th earthquakes and appointed 70 representatives from government, broadcasting and the print journalism and wireless communications industries. (No public representatives were invited, as CHORE has repeatedly observed, but we’ll get to that important issue near the end of this post and in future ones.)
The Governor’s Office press release summarizes the panel’s 15 recommendations to improve emergency communications response in light of government’s well-documented failures on Earthquake Sunday. The press release also has a link to the report and a separate link to the committee’s membership roster.
Some recommendations stand out as good ideas. Giving State Civil Defense a mechanism to interrupt regular TV and radio programming with emergency messages makes sense, Big Brother concerns notwithstanding. Stepping up education efforts to prepare citizens to recognize hazardous conditions is a no-brainer; too many of our friends and neighbors still want to “surf the tsunami.”
Applying the Category 4 Test
But other suggestions remind CHORE of the KISS principle that’s known to every veteran of the armed services – Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Nice as it might be to create a text messaging capability – and it’s no surprise this is one of the recommendations, with representatives from Cingular Wireless, Hawaiian Telcom, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless on the committee – what’s the confidence level that text messaging will be useful after a category 4 hurricane? Shouldn’t planning surmise that most cell phone towers will be inoperable?
Electronic freeway and portable message signs are mentioned in another recommendation – again, a “nice-to-do” channel. But are resources so abundant that we can develop numerous channels of communication for emergency messages, or are we better served by mastering a few?
If many are better than few, maybe these ideas are worth pursuing, but let’s hope the best recommendations take precedence over the more exotic.
The Near-Ubiquity of Radio
Five minutes of Googling found a U.S. Census report on household radio ownership in the United States. It says 99 percent of all households have at least one radio, and the average per household is 8. Hawaii statistics weren’t immediately found, but they undoubtedly would reveal similar radio penetration here.
Applying the KISS principle, CHORE hopes officials will utilize radio as the primary way to disseminate emergency messages, especially during power outages when television programming is mostly unavailable. In light of the propensity to lose power in these islands, it's obvious that every Hawaii household should have at least one portable radio. And for households that just won't buy that portable, a car radio might do.
That said, the radio industry also failed to live up to expectations on October 15th, when a dozen or more stations had no backup power and were off the air for hours during the blackout. And as this blog has suggested, the actual performance of the designated emergency broadcasters left much to be desired on Earthquake Sunday.
You won't find much criticism in the Review Committee's report of the broadcasters' performance, however -- not with approximately half the committee's membership in broadcasting. We can expect individual stations and local station networks to address these deficiencies, but if they don't, citizens can look ahead to the FCC’s re-licensing process to challenge the refuseniks’ credentials to "broadcast in the public interest.”
Making Room for the Public
As noted above, CHORE will have more to say in future posts about what to us has been the glaring hole in the Review Committee’s makeup – the absence of average citizens to represent the public, the ultimate consumers of emergency information. The committee’s report says near its beginning:
"At a series of four meetings (one each on Oct. 24 and Oct. 26 and two on Nov. 9), participants engaged in open and honest discussions about the challenges they faced on Oct. 15, and offered suggestions on how they could more efficiently and effectively communicate with the public during future emergencies."
The committee’s members talked up these issues among themselves, apparently content that they know what's best for the public. CHORE is uncomfortable with that presumption and has said so here repeatedly.
You also have to wonder whether the committee -- run as it was by State officials -- could really do a thorough job of investigating the post-earthquake performance of State agencies. The need for an independent assessment seems as obvious as the desirability for the public to sit on the committee. That's not how it went down.
Perhaps involving the public would have produced too many “inconvenient truths” about the government’s inability to communicate public safety information after the earthquake. Whatever the rationalization to keep the public out, it hints at a “we know what’s best for you” attitude that is discomforting when found in government.
Will “In Conjunction” Speed the Flow?
Elsewhere, one of the recommendations involves the role of the Department of Defense or State Civil Defense public affairs officer who would be dedicated to assist the media in disseminating information at the to-be-established State Emergency Operations Center. The recommendation states:
"The public affairs officer’s main responsibilities, in conjunction with Governor’s Communications Team, will be to respond to media requests for information or interviews; coordinate informational briefings; release information to the media and public; and correct misinformation."
CHORE thinks it is reasonable to wonder about the meaning of the “in conjunction with Governor’s Communications Team” phrase. What does that imply, and what is the extent and purpose of the “conjunction” function?
Over the past four years, the Governor’s Communications Team (a loosely framed title that doesn’t seem to be codified anywhere and might well be interpreted to be a Public Relations Team) seems to have functioned chiefly to promote the Governor.
Will Recommendation #5 with its “in conjunction” wording speed up or slow down the flow of emergency information to the public, or are emergency messages best left to the Civil Defense and tsunami warning professionals – leaving the GCT/GPRT out of it?
Legislative Hearings Set
Ah, the questions that could and should be asked by the public at a meeting that has been promised (here and here) but not yet scheduled. Maybe some of these issues will emerge at legislative hearings scheduled during the coming week.
Three hours have been reserved on Monday morning in Conference Room 329 for “Governor Linda Lingle and other administrative agencies or individuals “ to “discuss the problems and issues that arose as a result of the earthquakes of October 15, 2006, and to accept comments and recommendations on a proposed disaster preparedness measure that will be introduced in the upcoming legislative session.”
The same committees have reserved all day Tuesday to hear from the City and County of Honolulu, FEMA, HECO and others.
Let’s hope our elected representatives ask good questions of our government officials about their performance and lessons learned on October 15th and that the hearings don’t devolve into back-patting sessions. Some might suggest another part of the anatomy for attention.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Until the Public Is Served, Homeland Security Communications Scorecard Is Meaningless
The guy in the movie had it right: “Show me the money!”
Show me how the average citizen’s safety is actually being protected by emergency communications and first responders and then we’ll know how we’re doing.
According to a Honolulu Advertiser story today, Honolulu “is progressing toward closing communications gaps among emergency first responders….” The story then says the standard against which the agencies are judged is “to communicate with each other within one hour of a major disaster.”
One hour? One hour to communicate with each other?
CHORE takes no comfort in a situation in which responders are “progressing toward” a goal of talking to one another within an hour – not when a tsunami near the Big Island could devastate coastline communities across the state in a fraction of that time.
It’s terrific that first responders are moving toward – toward, but not at – this internal communications standard, but that’s not the issue, is it? Just weeks ago, these agencies failed miserably in communicating with the public during an emergency.
As today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin editorial says, Hawaii’s first responders are far from meeting the goal of protecting public safety with their emergency communications.
The Elusive Public Meeting
It has been two months since State Civil Defense Vice-Director Ed Teixeira wrote to CHORE and said a Civil Defense public information officer “….will be contacting you for additional information and for a possible date we can meet with the public.” It has been nearly three weeks since Maj. Gen. Robert Lee, director of State Civil Defense, told CHORE the same thing.
We’ve received no such contact. And maybe that's a minor insight on the communications problem here.
The CHORE blog isn’t inside the government loop, where communications is "better." CHORE is on the outside, where it obviously isn’t.
Meeting Request Renewed
E-mail on January 4th to General Lee and Vice-Director Teixeira, with a copy to Lenny Klompus, the Governor’s senior communications adviser:
Gentlemen, as the CHORE blog notes today, it's been two months since Ed’s letter said I would be contacted by a public information officer about setting up a public meeting. Nearly three weeks have passed since Robert said the same thing in a phone call. It hasn't happened.
I therefore respectfully renew my request to discuss with you or your staff the creation of a public meeting at which State Civil Defense will give citizens an assessment of your lessons learned on and after October 15th and the changes that have been implemented to improve emergency communications and promote public safety.
Aloha and mahalo,
Doug Carlson
CHORE - Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies
Show me how the average citizen’s safety is actually being protected by emergency communications and first responders and then we’ll know how we’re doing.
According to a Honolulu Advertiser story today, Honolulu “is progressing toward closing communications gaps among emergency first responders….” The story then says the standard against which the agencies are judged is “to communicate with each other within one hour of a major disaster.”
One hour? One hour to communicate with each other?
CHORE takes no comfort in a situation in which responders are “progressing toward” a goal of talking to one another within an hour – not when a tsunami near the Big Island could devastate coastline communities across the state in a fraction of that time.
It’s terrific that first responders are moving toward – toward, but not at – this internal communications standard, but that’s not the issue, is it? Just weeks ago, these agencies failed miserably in communicating with the public during an emergency.
As today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin editorial says, Hawaii’s first responders are far from meeting the goal of protecting public safety with their emergency communications.
The Elusive Public Meeting
It has been two months since State Civil Defense Vice-Director Ed Teixeira wrote to CHORE and said a Civil Defense public information officer “….will be contacting you for additional information and for a possible date we can meet with the public.” It has been nearly three weeks since Maj. Gen. Robert Lee, director of State Civil Defense, told CHORE the same thing.
We’ve received no such contact. And maybe that's a minor insight on the communications problem here.
The CHORE blog isn’t inside the government loop, where communications is "better." CHORE is on the outside, where it obviously isn’t.
Meeting Request Renewed
E-mail on January 4th to General Lee and Vice-Director Teixeira, with a copy to Lenny Klompus, the Governor’s senior communications adviser:
Gentlemen, as the CHORE blog notes today, it's been two months since Ed’s letter said I would be contacted by a public information officer about setting up a public meeting. Nearly three weeks have passed since Robert said the same thing in a phone call. It hasn't happened.
I therefore respectfully renew my request to discuss with you or your staff the creation of a public meeting at which State Civil Defense will give citizens an assessment of your lessons learned on and after October 15th and the changes that have been implemented to improve emergency communications and promote public safety.
Aloha and mahalo,
Doug Carlson
CHORE - Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
New Procedures Being Adopted to Trigger Tsunami Alerts Based on Quake Size, Location
The most important phrase in today’s Honolulu Advertiser story on new tsunami warning criteria appropriately is in the story’s lead:
“Scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center are rethinking the guidelines they use to decide which Hawai`i earthquakes trigger a local tsunami warning.”
They are “rethinking”, changing, adjusting – just what you’d expect people in responsible positions to do to take advantage of experience and lessons learned after an emergency.
Civil Defense officials have said they are doing the same – rethinking how they respond to emergencies, changing their procedures and adjusting the mechanisms they use to communicate with the public.
CHORE will use our first post of the New Year to renew our call for a public meeting to explain their adjustments to average citizens and respond to citizens’ concerns.
It may be too much to expect the Warning Center’s officials to meet with the public; the PTWC is tucked inside the federal bureaucracy and has no direct connection with the public. That’s not the case with Civil Defense. The “Civil” in "Civil Defense" makes the connection with citizens, and we therefore look forward to our opportunity to meet with our civil defenders.
PTWC Should Rethink More
The Warning Center’s willingness to adjust to the October 15th earthquake begs the question about how much it has adjusted its procedures since the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
One would think a quarter million or more deaths in the region would have triggered a major pragmatic rethinking of how the Center distributes its warnings to populations in peril.
Our sister blog, Tsunami Lessons, continues to advocate use of the broadcast media, fed by the major international news organizations (AP, BBC, etc.) to send warnings in time to save lives. Protocols can be created and tested that would link the PTWC directly with a few key "gatekeeper" media offices that in turn would disseminate a legitimate tsunami warning as a "flash" news story.
Nothing PTWC scientists did the day of the Indian Ocean earthquake saved more than perhaps a handful of lives anywhere but on the east coast of Africa – hours after hundreds of thousands died closer to the quake’s epicenter.
The PTWC's rethinking obviously must continue.
“Scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center are rethinking the guidelines they use to decide which Hawai`i earthquakes trigger a local tsunami warning.”
They are “rethinking”, changing, adjusting – just what you’d expect people in responsible positions to do to take advantage of experience and lessons learned after an emergency.
Civil Defense officials have said they are doing the same – rethinking how they respond to emergencies, changing their procedures and adjusting the mechanisms they use to communicate with the public.
CHORE will use our first post of the New Year to renew our call for a public meeting to explain their adjustments to average citizens and respond to citizens’ concerns.
It may be too much to expect the Warning Center’s officials to meet with the public; the PTWC is tucked inside the federal bureaucracy and has no direct connection with the public. That’s not the case with Civil Defense. The “Civil” in "Civil Defense" makes the connection with citizens, and we therefore look forward to our opportunity to meet with our civil defenders.
PTWC Should Rethink More
The Warning Center’s willingness to adjust to the October 15th earthquake begs the question about how much it has adjusted its procedures since the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
One would think a quarter million or more deaths in the region would have triggered a major pragmatic rethinking of how the Center distributes its warnings to populations in peril.
Our sister blog, Tsunami Lessons, continues to advocate use of the broadcast media, fed by the major international news organizations (AP, BBC, etc.) to send warnings in time to save lives. Protocols can be created and tested that would link the PTWC directly with a few key "gatekeeper" media offices that in turn would disseminate a legitimate tsunami warning as a "flash" news story.
Nothing PTWC scientists did the day of the Indian Ocean earthquake saved more than perhaps a handful of lives anywhere but on the east coast of Africa – hours after hundreds of thousands died closer to the quake’s epicenter.
The PTWC's rethinking obviously must continue.
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