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.