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.