Elaborate Fix to Communications Problems Misses Basic Issue: Planning and Response

An editorial in today’s Honolulu Advertiser on improving emergency communications begins with this generalization:

“Communication is power, but there can be little communication when the power’s out.”

In truth, there MUST be communication when the power’s out. That’s the whole point of emergency communications – to provide information in the worst of circumstances.

Most of us would agree that an island-wide power outage is a bad circumstance. Oahu’s had numerous major outages over the past 25 years, so contingency planning surely took major blackouts into account. How, then, do we explain what happened on October 15th?

Planning and Execution

Citizens still are in the dark about the planning that’s being done to ensure our safety. The work of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee has received only minimal media coverage, so the public essentially is uninformed at this point. But this much is certain:

The problem on October 15th wasn’t the failure of the cellular telephone network. First responders obviously don’t rely on cell phones in an emergency. The breakdown of the cellular network was what the editorial called it – a frustration. And as Hawaiian Telcom keeps telling us, its network stayed up throughout the blackout.

The failure wasn’t because it was impossible to communicate with the public. Some radio stations stayed on the air using generators, so the power outage did not deny access to information for citizens with battery radios.

No, it’s reasonable to conclude the failure resulted from inadequate planning for a blackout contingency, poor execution of a good (or bad) plan or a combination of both.

Nice vs. Necessary

Creating a media room and direct connections to Civil Defense is a nice idea, but it sidesteps the obvious need for immediacy in relaying information to the public. Citizens ask: If the weather service can break into broadcasts with flash flood warnings, why can’t Civil Defense do the same?

The Emergency Alert System presumably exists for just that sort of immediate communications throughout the state. Efforts to improve the EAS obviously will be part of the committee’s recommendations.

Fixing the problems truly will take a comprehensive makeover of the communications chain between first responders and the public, to include the broadcast industry. Radio stations not only require emergency backup power sources but staffs with training and an “emergency” mindset that downplays entertainment during a crisis.

KISS

CHORE was created on the premise that crisis planning should not be the exclusive domain of the professionals. We’ve proposed that final recommendations of the review committee be released at a public meeting at which citizens would have an opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback to the experts.

While conclusions and recommendations are still being processed, maybe the old advice dispensed regularly in military circles is appropriate now: KISS -- Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Nobody working to improve emergency communications is “stupid,” and that includes we citizens.