Community Needs an Alternative to KSSK; Hawaii Public Radio Could Grow into Role

Let’s shift the focus to how emergency broadcasting can be improved and away from KSSK‘s marginal performance during Friday night’s island-wide power outage. Clear Channel’s apparent “entertainment first” philosophy – even during emergencies – poorly serves the public, as many are concluding. (See “comments” beneath stories in the daily papers and in Comments added to our Saturday and Sunday posts, below.)

Update: Today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin editorial also criticizes KSSK for its performance during the outage.

Would the public be better served if Hawaii Public Radio enjoyed that official status, too? We think so. HPR’s two stations – KHPR and KIPO, both FM stations – already are the state’s undisputed leaders in public affairs programming. Stepping up to emergency broadcaster status seems only logical.

First Things First

HPR’s leadership already has done a fine job upgrading its capabilities, including the recent increase in KIPO’s transmitting power. But the job is far from done; both stations were off the air Friday night, so getting to emergency broadcaster status will take a lot more work. Emergency stations have to stay on the air during emergencies!

General Manager Michael Titterton told a Hawaii Media Council audience last year that “some things just have to be done” to ensure HPR’s stations can operate in a power outage. So as a community, we could get behind HPR to help them achieve that critical first step and then move on to emergency broadcaster status.

News Orientation Needed

KSSK’s emergency coverage doesn’t come close to “journalism.” HPR is all about news and fact-finding, and you have to believe its on-air reporters would have been probing for information on how the outage was affecting critical communities and seeking answers about what (obviously) failed on HECO’s system for the entire island to go dark. As it was, KSSK’s team virtually attacked callers who asked questions of their own. (“Don’t you understand, sir? This is an ISLAND! We’re not connected to a bigger grid! Maybe you should just go back to Ohio….” and so on.)

Another consideration: HPR’s stations are commercial-free, so there’d be no temptation or motivation for the public station to provide kid-glove treatment to a company experiencing a crisis (utilities included) if that company is an advertiser.

We haven’t had time to check into whether some kind of financial subsidy is available to emergency broadcast outlets, but it’s worth looking into to assist HPR with upgrades to its facilities.

Anybody out there feel the same as we do here at CHORE? Feel free to add your comment below; you can be “anonymous” or sign your name.

It's about time for the public interest to come first in emergency broadcasting.

12/30 Update continued: The editorial notes that Mayor Hannemann was the first to tell the public the outage would last 12 hours.  You have to wonder why HECO didn't go public with that information itself.

‘Masters of Disaster' Seem Pleased with Their Performance Despite Obvious Shortcomings

Most of the questions in yesterday’s post were directed at Clear Channel, the owner of several radio stations on Oahu, including KSSK-AM, a designated emergency broadcaster. The questions implied criticism of the response by some first responders. Columnist Lee Cataluna in today’s Advertiser shows we’re not alone in thinking the response should have been better.

As Cataluna notes, KSSK’s response to the outage was initially anchored by Mike Buck, a talk show host on KHVH, another Clear Channel station. We also were impressed by Buck’s businesslike handling of the emergency – straightforward, fact-based and relatively little nonsense.

But that changed within an hour when the weekday morning drive time team of Michael W. Perry and Larry Price took over. Fom that moment on, it might as well have been Tuesday.

Perry and Price deserve accolades as radio entertainers. Their show’s ratings – like that of the legendary “J. Akuhead Pupule” before them on Cec Heftel’s KGMB-AM – are always at the top and may make P&P the most dominant radio show for their market in the country.

But unlike “Aku,” who could turn off the zaniness when the moment demanded journalism, the current team can’t find the off switch. The self-professed “Masters of Disaster” seem immune to suggestions they somehow don’t measure up, bolstered as they are by the praise phoned in by adoring fans. Here’s Perry in today’s Advertiser:

"Larry and I just sort of know what to do. It's not a burden at all. My gosh, it's the best possible use for your radio and our electrons."

No, the best possible use of the station’s airtime as a designated emergency broadcaster would be to serve, not entertain. Rather than encourage calls from listeners on how to aerate fish tanks, the team might have kept lines open or showed some inquisitiveness about any number of crisis scenarios – such as apartment dwellers who were trapped in elevators. The 10 o’clock news Friday night reported on at least 42 such cases even as the outage continued.

Upon Further Review

Two calls to the station illustrate how Perry & Price so often miss an opportunity to serve. A caller inquired about whether the outage would affect the water supply for toilets and such. He was laughed off the air with the observation, “The water’s flowing, isn’t it?” or something close to that. Another caller asked whether the canoe regattas scheduled for Saturday would be cancelled. Again, one of the team seemed incredulous and dismissive. The sun would be shining!

Yet by Saturday morning the Board of Water Supply was urging water conservation, and an Iolani School canoe coach called to say the ILH regatta was cancelled.

The P&P knee-jerk reaction is to play it for laughs rather than treat the emergency like what it is – a time of uncertainty and even trauma for tens of thousands of listeners. As one of the Ps quipped about the blackout on the Windward Side: 

“The only light in Kailua was from the rockets red glare…. The good news is that they’re depleted….”

What would a service-oriented emergency broadcast station do in similar circumstances? One can imagine such a station admonishing the public to NOT call in unless the message is critical. On-air personnel might well keep incoming lines free of all “frivolous” calls so first responders could communicate their messages.

Clear Channel’s response to the above criticism – if it were to respond at all – is likely to be as dismissive as Perry and Price are when the mood strikes them. The company’s top executive told a Media Council gathering in 2007 that the team’s ratings show they must be doing something right.

And to that, we would agree; Perry and Price do their act exceptionally well from 5 to 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday. But in Friday's emergency, the team seemed stuck in a weekday morning mood (right down to answering the phones "Good morning").

And maybe it’s not the celebrities’ fault. Maybe it’s Clear Channel’s philosophy to “be entertaining” in the midst of emergencies. If that’s the case, citizens have a legitimate reason to question whether that's what we need in a crisis.  Dozens of mainland radio stations get serious when the going gets tough.  Hawaii deserves a similar response.

Questions re Oahu Island-Wide Blackout, e.g. ‘What Is the Emergency Broadcaster’s Role?’

The December 26-27 power outage that affected all of Oahu lasted about 15 hours at our house, longer than many neighborhoods but shorter than others. The post-incident analysis has yet to begin, so we’ll confine ourselves to asking some questions.

Questions for Hawaiian Electric

Q: How is it that a lightning strike at the Kahe power plant on the Waianae Coast – if that was the cause – could knock out the entire grid?

Q: Since the islands are isolated from other grids, what measures have been designed into the system to guard against what happened last night?
Q: Why didn’t the system isolate the problem at the Kahe plant and preserve the viability of the Waiau and downtown Honolulu plants?
Q: Why did measures fail that presumably were designed into the system to prevent such an eventuality?
Q: Were circuit breakers timed to react quickly enough to isolate Kahe and protect the rest of the grid? (That was the cause of the island-wide power outage on “Black Wednesday” -- July 13, 1983.)
Q: Did HECO’s load shedding occur according to plan, or did the Waiau and Honolulu plants shut down because load shedding didn’t happen quickly enough?

Questions for Clear Channel

Q: Do the on-air emergency broadcast personalities truly believe island-wide outages are to be expected routinely because Hawaii is not connected to a larger grid?
Q: Have our emergency broadcasters received training from Hawaiian Electric officials to help them grasp the complexities of the grid so they in turn can speak intelligently about power emergencies?
Q: How does KSSK owner Clear Channel believe an emergency broadcast outlet should operate during an emergency?
Q: Is that operating philosophy “entertainment as usual”? Is the station’s award-winning weekday morning team told to adopt an “entertainment” or “emergency” model during power outages?
Q: Should on-air personalities be dismissive of callers who question the electric company’s ability to measure up to reliability standards? I.E., is it their role to defend the utility’s performance? Does management want them to ask probing questions about that performance?
Q: Considering the operational possibilities, would it be in the public interest for an emergency broadcaster to discourage listeners from calling the station except for urgent matters?
Q: Might it be a good operating principle to keep the incoming phone lines open for police messages, government officials’ statements, medical advisories, persons stuck in elevators, and the rest?
Q: Should station ratings made during non-crisis times be used to judge whether an emergency broadcaster has acted in the public interest during an emergency? (Such a justification was used to defend KSSK’s performance following Earthquake Sunday.)
Q: Why did KSSK-FM go off the air repeatedly in the early hours of the outage? As a sister station to the AM designated emergency station, shouldn’t the FM station’s generator operate on demand when required to do so? What tests and rehearsals does the emergency broadcaster conduct to ensure all its stations remain on the air during an emergency?

Questions for State Civil Defense

Q: Did your office attempt to activate the emergency broadcast “interrupt” service that cuts into regular programming across the state? Governor Lingle’s voice came on, then cut out at one point during the evening.

Q. Did that system fail last night?
Q: How much money has been spent over the past two years to upgrade SCD’s emergency communications capability?

Question for the White House

Q: Is Hawaii off limits for President Obama in light of last night’s power blackout?

Listeners have heaped praise on KSSK’s broadcast team, and Clear Channel management is unlikely to take any of these questions seriously. Nevertheless, the public has a right to ask them and demand more from its emergency responders.

That said, we have to note that the City & County’s Emergency Management Center was operational and providing information over the air sooner than just about any other source last night. That’s a good contrast to the criticism it took after the recent flooding.

Citizens demanding better performance can’t hurt and may in fact do some good.

Oahu Ops Center Was Closed at Storm’s Peak

The Advertiser coverage of yesterday’s major storm includes the observation that “city emergency management officials reached between 4 and 6 a.m. appeared caught off guard by the extent of problems stacking up island-wide.”

The Emergency Operations Center wasn’t opened until three hours after heavy rain began pounding Oahu and the weather service issued a flash flood warning.

The story includes officials’ rationale that all such warnings don’t necessarily trigger a full-on response due to budget and other constraints. Nevertheless, most citizens undoubtedly would rather have officials on the job as water 4 feet deep flooded their homes and neighborhoods.

As the saying goes, “you never learn less,” and maybe Oahu officials have learned something from this experience. A page one story that contrasts their response with that of Kauai, which opened its operations center two hours earlier, can be a good teaching point.

Do Crisis Responders Intend To Use Cell Phones?

Yesterday’s AT&T cellular service outage throughout Hawaii makes you wonder how many of our civil defense and other first responders plan to use their cell phone during our next hurricane, flood or power outage to get the word out.

The outage lasted longer than reported in the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin accounts. Our service wasn’t restored fully until close to 5 p.m., making it a 10-hour outage.

Maybe we should just forget about relying on cell phone technology in our next crisis. Yesterday’s prolonged outage creates more doubts about the technology's reliability.

Millions Are Spent on Servicing CD Insiders, but True Need Is a Better Public Information System

The Honolulu Advertiser editorializes today on the need to upgrade the state and county Civil Defense centers, but we’re struck once again by what those upgrades would and wouldn't do.

Have you noticed in earlier media coverage that recent Civil Defense expenditures seem to be for tools and toys to keep officials themselves informed, coordinated and linked in? From the editorial:

The city’s center would coordinate the first responders – ambulances, firefighters and the like – and manage traffic on Oahu. The state’s center would monitor and respond to all the counties’ needs with its own resources, including the National Guard.

Just once we’d like to read about what’s being done to upgrade human software in the emergency communications chain. The big failure in October ’06 when two Big Island earthquakes resulted in a prolonged island-wide power outage on Oahu was CD officials’ inability to communicate efficiently with the public. (First-time visitors to CHORE are directed to our summary of the event more than a year after the fact.)

Officials relied on faulty assumptions – that cell phone networks would work in a power emergency, that they could simply call radio stations to convey information to the public, that emergency broadcasters were prepared to react professionally. The public was left uninformed far too long, and the fix for those human lapses is more training for humans, not necessarily more millions for computers and inter-agency communications.

After a prolonged drought, Hawaii can expect storms this winter, so if our Civil Defense officials haven’t trained and retrained on getting the word out, all those millions on electronic gadgets will be a waste.

UH Schedules Another Emergency Alert by Text But Is Silent on Testing Other Crisis Channels

The University of Hawaii has a test planned of its Emergency Notification System that uses text messaging in a few days. We've become more accepting of TM as a way to communicate in a crisis since earlier posts here, now that we're doing quite a bit of texting. But as suggested here many times, a campus emergency notification can't end with text messaging, especially since there’s some evidence that students on other campuses haven't been all that enthused about signing up for emergency alerts.

The University of Hawaii “Guideline for Emergency Communication Policy and Procedure” alludes to “alternate methods of communications” that can be employed, but note how they’re mentioned:

“In the event of a power outage at the receiver end (when electronic methods are used), this system will be disabled and alternate methods of communication used.”

This suggests the alternate methods aren’t intended for use in the absence of a power outage. Try reading the procedure yourself and see what you think.

Going Full Court Press

We still believe what we wrote here on October 26, 2007 should be the guideline for UH's emergency alert system:

Any threat to the security of the campus community warranting an alert to students and faculty will be disseminated by all available means – text messaging, emails, loudspeakers in buildings and in the campus’s exterior spaces, and broadcasts over KTUH and the commercial stations.

Why WOULDN’T the University use all available means to send an emergency message? It's a slam-dunk certainty that the Emergency Notification System (using group telephone and email) won’t reach everyone. The campus radio station, in-building loud speakers, roving campus patrols with speakers and every other method must be used each and every time there’s a need to communicate about an on-campus crisis.

We just can't imagine it any other way. In fact, Tuesday’s test quite rightly should include ALL of those channels.

What we’d like to know – and will attempt to find out – is how many students and faculty are signed up for the emergency alert system using cell phones. Presuming it’s less than 100 percent, the University needs to take another hard look at its readiness to communicate with all audiences in an emergency.

Just as importantly, it must rid of itself of a mindset that seems fixated on TM and cell phone alerts.

Fall Is Here, Still No Storms; Keep 'em Crossed

Hawaii moved uneventfully from Summer to Fall yesterday, and we've still not recorded a storm of any size during the 2008 hurricane season.

As we all should remember, though, the season extends through November. Iwa in 1982 arrived two days before Thanksgiving, so wood-knocking is still advised.

We've not been posting here for several months simply because the emergency communications issues that originally prompted this blog have been absent, absent any reason to use emergency communications. We trust (for now) that the considerable thought and the millions of dollars that have gone into upgrading emergency response in this state have produced results.

That's something we'll be able to assess if and when storms do pay us a visit. For the record, we hope they don't.

$s for Emergency Foreign Language Broadcasts

Checking in with the Governor’s PR office can turn up something useful now and then, such as yesterday’s press release that she’s released money to local foreign language radio stations to aid communications during emergencies.

Radio stations KZOO and KNDI each is receiving $100,000 “to assist with the implementation of recommendations issued by the Governor’s Comprehensive Communications Review Committee (GCCRC) convened by Governor Lingle following the October 15, 2006 Kiholo Bay earthquakes.”

In case the GCCRC is new to you, here’s how the release describes the committee:

“Members of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee included more than 100 government officials from state, county and federal agencies; owners, general managers and publishers from print, broadcast, radio and Internet media statewide; representatives from telecommunications providers; and editors and reporters who were ‘on the ground’ gathering information and reporting on the day of the earthquake.”

At the risk of seeming a tad churlish, we’ll point out one again – as we did when the committee was formed and repeatedly since then – that that the CCRC included nearly everyone but members of the public, the people who were ill-served by emergency communications and communicators after the earthquakes. It was a major oversight that never sank in with the CCRC’s leadership.

We continue to make the point that public should have been included on the CCRC, because the next time an after-action committee is formed to see what could be done to better serve Hawaii residents, the people should be included in the process.

Time To Dust Off Blog as 'cane Season Nears

Blogs that focus on one issue -- like this one and our Tsunami Lessons blog -- run the risk of losing steam and things to say once they've been said over and over again. And that's OK as long as the problems that originally prompted the blogs have been fixed.

We'd like to think Hawaii officials respond to emergencies better now than they did in October 2006 when we started CHORE. Same with our tsunami warning blog; we stopped posting there on the third anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but you can bet we'll be back with more comment if PBS or the Discovery Channel show that "Wave that Shook the World" documentary again! (Read our 12/27/07 post to see what we mean.)

We've put CHORE on hold since early April, but we're nearing the six-month hurricane season in the Pacific. We hope nothing stronger than a gale blows this way, but if any of the three or four hurricanes predicted for the season do come close to Hawaii, we expect our officials to be 100-percent efficient in alerting the public and responding to the crisis.

And we'll probably have something to say about it here. For now, check out today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin editorial on hurricane season.

“Scream and Shout” Seems To Be Accepted Protocol to Get NG's Attention in a Flight Crisis

Air traffic controllers who need to alert military authorities about a possible in-flight emergency have been forewarned: Go crazy on the phone, maybe something like this:

“Hello, National Guard? Help, Help, HELP!!!"

Or so it would seem from the Associated Press story in today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin. “There was no expression of concern….” says a military commander of the controllers’ call about the unresponsive go! airlines cockpit crew on February 13th.

The FAA is now investigating whether the pilots were asleep as the jet overflew its destination, and the Hawaii National Guard is sorting out its non-response to the FAA’s call that might have scrambled the Guard’s jets to investigate.

“If there’s a case of even a hint of a communications breakdown, we nave to solve this,” says the commander – something we’ve been saying since CHORE’s start.

Tsunami Warners Back Text Messaging for Hearing Impaired, but What’s the Backup?

Repeating the point of our February 29th post, text messaging has it place but is flawed as an emergency notification channel.  Now that the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and State Civil Defense are pushing TM to alert the hearing impaired, we'll make the point again.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin has a story today on Tsunami Awareness Month, and here's what it says about TM:

"A text messaging system also was created by Civil Defense to inform deaf people, government officials and emergency responders about a tsunami watch or warning.  The system involves sending text messages via e-mail, cellular phones and pagers.... so far, about 43 deaf people are in the system. Officials hope to increase that figure.  About $180,000 in funding was appropriated from the Department of Homeland Security for the pilot program...."

TM won't reach all hearing impaired, so once again we have reason to be wary when experts seem determined to see TM as "the answer" in emergency warning.  It isn't.  Officials need to keep working on backups so preparedness doesn't depend on cell phones and pagers working in an emergency for any segment of the population to be notified.  

Our limited perspective suggests that the hearing impaired should set up their own low-tech networks of neighbors, friends and relatives who can do what it takes to warn them after an alert is "sounded."

Text Messaging Has a Role in Emergencies, but UH Needs Much More To Reach Everyone

Many University of Hawaii students text message one another to stay in touch, but as a key component of UH’s emergency notification procedure, TM is sorely lacking.

Today’s Honolulu Advertiser story lays it out plainly enough: “…UH officials expect only 10 percent of the students to sign up” for TM alerts. Doesn’t that say it all about TM’s role in emergencies?

CHORE made this same point four months ago by quoting a National Public Radio report:

"College administrators are finding that students are not rushing to sign up for cell phone text-message alerts. After the Virginia Tech shootings last spring, many campuses felt this was the answer to keeping their students alert to danger, but students don't share their concerns."

It should come as no surprise to UH officials that students here apparently feel the same. Whether they “don’t care enough” about emergency notification – as one official is quoted in today’s story – isn’t the point. UH must use information channels that actually work!

The Love Affair with Technology

The Advertiser story notes that officials are taking steps beyond TM, but here again, technology is seen as a solution. A warning siren would be “…designed to alert faculty, staff and students and direct them to the UH Web site for more information.”

Always it’s about technology -- the web, TM, wifi. We love technology, too, but let’s get real about its limitations. We’re talking about potentially life-saving information that must be communicated to virtually everyone on campus. Do administrators really believe the Web would be effective? Sure, it's ONE way to communicate, but only one.

Tech-oriented administrators may not want to admit it, but low technology has a major role. Nowhere in the story do officials mention good old-fashioned loud speakers in campus buildings. They don’t mention using the campus radio station or how off-campus broadcasters could relay security messages.

Calling Common Sense

In other words, emergency communications is too important to leave to high-tech gurus. We need a heavy dose of common sense, and while we're at it, the public also needs to see UH's complete emergency communications plan for evidence that common sense is at work.

Shortly after a recent test of text messaging among UH’s faculty, we were told by a UH official that the test had been a success. How do you know, we asked. Because we received the message, was the answer. How many faculty and staff didn’t receive it? The official paused slightly, then said she didn’t know.

Unless UH has created a web of information channels to its community, we have to expect many faculty, staff and students will be ignorant about a potentially life-threatening situation. And that’s not good enough.

No Blinking Devices Means Reliability Was Perfect During Trip; a Tip for Wai`anae Coast

After the string of power outages at our place late in the year, it was a pleasant surprise to return from several weeks on the road to find no blinking clocks, radios, cable boxes, microwaves, ovens, amplifiers or coffee makers. Whatever was plaguing our circuit, Hawaiian Electric seems to have figured it out.

Speaking of HECO and reliability, we saw during our travels that the utility has proposed undergrounding transmission and distribution lines along Farrington Highway in Wai`anae as a work-around for the downed power line problem.

Retired HECO engineer Alan Lloyd suggested in his letter in the Advertiser on January 22 that steel poles would be preferable to burying the lines. Lloyd is one of those exceptionally knowledgeable and practical people you like to have around with a second opinion when knee-jerk solutions are suggested to solve a problem.

It’s true that undergrounding utility lines would beautify the Coast (it would beautify my street, too), but as Lloyd suggests, there may be bigger issues to consider. Here’s his letter:

STEEL POLES A BETTER SOLUTION FOR WAI'ANAE

As an engineer with some local utility system planning experience, I have a recommendation for the electric transmission lines serving the Wai'anae Coast.

I would strongly recommend that HECO be permitted to replace the wooden poles along Farrington Highway that failed during severe wind storms during the past two years with modern steel poles designed for hurricane force winds.

Steel poles have a good record on Kaua'i and on Guam, which has severe hurricane exposure. Also, there is an excellent example of a steel pole power line carrying two transmission circuits and one distribution circuit from Kailua-Kona to Kona airport.

The installation of a steel pole system will offer several advantages over converting these existing transmission circuits to underground, including much less disruption of traffic on Farrington Highway, the only road serving Wai'anae; much less possibility of disturbing iwi in the area; and for a given amount of investment, much more protection from future wind storms because many more miles of transmission lines can be converted to steel poles in the Wai'anae area than could be placed underground.

Alan S. Lloyd
Kailua