Some Media Show More Interest in Response Issues, but State CD Has Yet to Set Meeting

• See our Tsunami Lessons blog for a remembrance of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

KIPO’s December 28th “Town Square” public affairs program (the MP3 file isn’t yet available on-line but will be linked when it is) was devoted to the “unreported” news of 2006. CHORE was invited to participate and discuss the under-reporting of emergency communications issues since the October 15th earthquakes.

The Honolulu Advertiser has yet to run a story on the preliminary report of the Comprehensive Communications Review Committee. The Star-Bulletin’s story on that report was published a week ago yesterday, so there can be no doubt the Advertiser is under-reporting this public safety issue.

The broadcast media also have ignored it mostly until now, but KHON-TV2 followed up on the KIPO program with a report last evening that focused on communications and the electric power failure, which according to the State's Adjutant General was the biggest problem:

"It was a little slow getting the information out -- made tougher by the loss of power," said Maj. General Robert Lee. "On Oct. 15, all of the counties and all of the first responders had the correct information within minutes. It's just with the loss of power we couldn't get it all out."

Yes….And….But….

Life certainly does become more complicated when the power’s out, but that’s no excuse when public safety’s involved, is it? First responders must have ways to communicate in a power blackout. Surely they thought about that in advance…..didn’t they?

Well, obviously they didn’t. Otherwise, plan X, Y or Z would have been put into action, and we citizens wouldn’t have been left in a communications vacuum about the earthquake and its potential to generate a tsunami, which was a legitimate concern that day.

And that is why we citizens want a public meeting with State Civil Defense authorities to ask what they learned from the October 15th communication failure and what they’ll do differently in the next emergency. That, too, is a legitimate concern. After all, the experts were caught without a workable communications plan on Earthquake Sunday.

As we said in KHON’s report:

“If a tsunami can move from the Big Island to Oahu and other islands within 15 to 20 minutes, we can take no comfort if messages are starting to be received 30 minutes or later.” If first responders do in fact know within minutes the true nature of an emergency, so, too, should we citizens.

General Lee, if you’re reading this, your directive for a State Civil Defense staffer to contact us about a public meeting is not being carried out. Please begin the New Year strongly and demonstrate your agency’s responsiveness to the public by taking the necessary steps to hold that meeting in January.