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.