Emergency Communications Enhancements Should Be Briefed to the Public for Reaction

There’s still no on-line link today to the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee’s report that was submitted yesterday to the Governor. As we noted in last night’s post, the January 5th draft report was available immediately at the Governor’s website; why the final report isn’t similarly available for public scrutiny is a question an inquiring reporter may wish to ask.

We have to rely on media this morning for details, and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s list of “key recommendations for improving emergency communications in the state” apparently summarizes what’s in the report. CHORE was founded in the spirit of Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies, so let’s take a look at some of the suggestions on that list:

• Update Hawaii Emergency Alert System Plan – That’s definitely a good idea; as CHORE noted 10 days after the 10/15/06 earthquake and power outage, the EAS wasn’t activated until three hours after the emergency began. The Honolulu Advertiser reported that the City didn’t implement the EAS because of “a lack of training and state protocol.” How has the plan been updated in the past year to eliminate these problems? See if you can tell by clicking on the link to the Hawaii State EAS Plan in the left column of the Hawaii State Civil Defense website. The last change, dated 10/26/06, appears to have been an update to a list of phone numbers. Is that it? Are no other EAS changes merited, or have they been made but aren’t available to the public on the web? Those are questions a reporter could ask, and we hope at least one does.

• Utilize cell phone text messaging – Our emergency communications planners continue to advocate use of this new technology for use in hurricanes, tsunamis, floods and other major disasters. Maybe they know from extensive research that the cell phone network has been sufficiently “hardened” to survive category 4 and 5 hurricanes. Maybe the difficulty in keeping the network operating in an extended power outage has been overcome. Maybe they’re convinced a population with the oldest demographics in the nation is well suited for text messaging. Maybe they believe text messaging is an excellent way to keep the hearing impaired community informed during emergencies. Maybe their analysis of these and other issues related to text messaging is in the final report. We really don’t know what to think about text messaging because we haven’t seen the report. We do know this, however: The recommendation to promote text messaging is from a committee whose membership, as we noted in January, includes representatives from Cingular Wireless, Hawaiian Telcom, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. We aren't surprised TM is on the list.

Next: A Public Hearing on the Plan?

The list continues with suggestions that appear well founded, such as establishing a media/joint information center at Diamond Head crater and installing dedicated phone lines to broadcast stations. Readers can judge the recommendations for themselves, and after you do, CHORE hopes you’ll call the Governor’s office and ask when this plan will be briefed to the public in an open meeting.

It should have happened long ago while the draft was still being assessed. Now that the report itself has been “hardened” in a final version, the committee should have no reticence in discussing it with the audience that emergency communication is supposed to serve.