Perennially perceptive Washington Post columnist David Broder focuses his column today ("A Long-Term Gift: Enough Warning") on the need to avert tragedies with warning systems that can save untold numbers of lives.
Broder highlights how governments are investigating a high-tech system to alert ocean-bordering nations when tsunamis are generated by earthquakes. He notes Senator Olympia Snowe's criticism of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for failing to issue an effective warning to south Asia based on information that was available before the tsunami struck the region.
As noted in each post on this web log, a warning might well have been issued by U.S. agencies and scientists if they had immediately notified the major news media once they suspected a tsunami instead of making one-on-one telephone calls to colleagues in the region.
Retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher, head of NOAA, and John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, both told Broder that the lack of an integrated warning system in the Indian Ocean contributed to the lack of an effective warning. When the earthquake off the coast of Indonesia was detected, Broder writes, no one knew who needed to be called. "That was embarrassing," Marburger said.
It also was deadly. No senior government official has yet to address whether a low-tech warning -- telephone calls to the media -- was activated by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center or other government agencies. Senator Snowe has announced her intention to conduct hearings on NOAA's performance following the earthquake.
Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 6, 2005
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