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.