Friday’s Revelations Make You Wonder How Much Emergency Planning Is Really Happening

CHORE’s first post on Tuesday said our intent here is not to lay blame. That wouldn’t add value to implementing solutions to the community’s emergency communications deficiencies, so if we inarticulately ask questions here that sound a little too direct, let this paragraph serve as CHORE’s preemptive apology. The questions need asking.

Friday’s news makes you wonder about the quality of the emergency planning in the quiet times between crises. Whatever scenarios were brainstormed before Sunday’s earthquakes, they obviously failed to uncover serious gaps in the first responders’ preparedness.

These gaps were pretty basic – like not having dedicated telephone lines to local radio stations and lists of unpublished numbers at the stations to call in an emergency. As mentioned in our commentary in Tuesday’s Honolulu Advertiser, these lessons were learned decades ago after other island-wide power outages.

Civil Defense and utility officials have complained they couldn’t get through to the designated emergency broadcast station on Oahu because the public was clogging the lines. Today’s first question:

• Have officials and the stations worked this week to create a list of secure and unpublished phone numbers known only to insiders for use in the next emergency?

Beyond compiling lists of phone numbers, what if the phones don’t work? What if all electronic communication from point to point is down in the next emergency? What are the contingency plans?

Both the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin today have prominent stories on yesterday’s quake-related news from a variety of sources, and they’re worth a leisurely read on this Saturday, with plenty of rest stops for questions along the way.

Dominating the coverage is Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s announcement that the City will use its own resources to disseminate emergency information quickly. Two paragraphs far down in the Advertiser’s story raise more questions about what’s been happening between our emergencies:

• What were the “glitches” that prevented the City from broadcasting over the old Emergency Broadcast System? Unable to use that channel, the City also couldn’t implement the newer Emergency Alert System because of “a lack of training and state protocol,” according to the Advertiser.

• Why haven’t all necessary key communicators been trained to activate the EAS, and what are the protocols that block the City’s use? Is a jurisdictional battle going on here that undermines public safety?

State Civil Defense’s number two official is reported today to have said he was unaware on Sunday morning that the City had been unable to use the EAS.

• Were State officials waiting for the City to send out the first alert after the earthquake? Did the State activate the first EAS announcement nearly three hours after the quake only after learning of the City’s failed attempt? Are State and City Civil Defense officials on the same page? How often do they meet, and what do they discuss?

The Advertiser story notes the Mayor’s assertion that the City has not been invited to participate in the “Comprehensive Communications Review Committee” formed by Governor Lingle on Tuesday.

• Will the Governor invite the City to participate on this committee? Will representatives of the public also be invited to make it “comprehensive,” as CHORE suggested the day the committee was formed?

If the committee’s composition is still fluid…

• Might the Governor consider appointing an independent community leader to chair the body and add credibility to its findings? CHORE believes credibility will remain an issue if her original appointee – a senior administration advisor who also runs communications for her re-election campaign – remains in that position.

KITV reported last night that this close Lingle advisor “said he’s not aware of Hannemann’s request” to use the EAS. Further, the station reports, the advisor asserted that “It’s important to have one clear voice in an emergency, and that’s the governor.” (The quote marks refer to KITV’s story, not necessarily the advisor.)

With the City striving to communicate more and State apparently resisting, it would seem the State and City are not on the same page at this date. Let's hope that's soon resolved, as public safety is what they’re kicking back and forth.

Which brings us to the P word – politics. One would hope that emergency response would be kept above political partisanship to the maximum extent possible. Here’s a portion of a story posted at 2:58 p.m. Friday on the Advertiser’s web site:

Maj. Gen. Robert Lee, Hawai'i's adjutant general and head of Civil Defense, and Lenny Klompus, Gov. Linda Lingle's Communication Director, will hold a press briefing this afternoon to respond to comments about emergency communications challenges made this morning by Mayor Mufi Hannemann.

At the briefing, set for 3:45 p.m. at Lingle Headquarters on Kapiolani Boulevard, officials are expected to address the matters tied to the Emergency Alert System. Hannemann announced this morning that the city is trying to get permission from the state to be able to access the Emergency Alert System on its own authority, instead of having to follow state protocol.

CHORE hasn’t yet confirmed whether the briefing was indeed conducted at a political campaign’s headquarters – today’s stories don’t give the location -- but if it was, the next question is, “Why?” Why would the State’s top Civil Defense official hold a news conference in a political headquarters? Would it be for convenience, since the other individual scheduled to participate is on leave from the Lingle administration to work in her political campaign?

With the State’s credibility already at stake due to Sunday’s communications lapses, one would think officials would be extra cautious to avoid any possible appearance of partisanship in their post-earthquake response.

Maybe the conference wasn’t held there and never was intended to be there. Maybe the Advertiser made a mistake. As we said at the top, all we can do is ask questions based on the available information.

Citizens of CHORE, if you have your own questions that need airing, click “comments” and ask away.