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