This web log's premise is gaining traction. For the most exhaustive examination yet found of NOAA's response to the earthquake, visit Lila Rajiva's column at the DISSIDANT VOICE web site. Using NOAA's own statements, both Rajiva and this log (January 6 post) have concluded that it would not have been unreasonable for scientists to determine immediately after the earthquake that a tsunami probably had been created based on the earthquake's location alone:
"The (NOAA) bulletins may be vague about the threat in the region, but Ken Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, California is pretty explicit. 'We knew the whole coast of Sumatra was capable of large damaging earthquakes and large tsunamis,' he says. Dr. Elizabeth Keating, current president of the Tsunami Society, also thinks the tsunamis were predictable especially since 'almost on a weekly basis for the last two months there had been seismic activity in the Indonesian area.'"
Rajiva goes on to ask almost the identical questions I raised in my December 30 letter to The Honolulu Advertiser and in the newspaper's subsequent coverage by noting:
"...even if they (NOAA) couldn't reach people, why did they use email bulletins which were unlikely to be opened immediately? Why didn't NOAA simply contact the media? A CNN bulletin or an AP news flash would have reached (sic) almost at once and gone to local radio stations fast enough to have saved lives in India and Sri Lanka for certain and probably also in Thailand. It boggles the mind that in an age of instant global communication, the combined efforts of the military, top university seismic systems and the national weather service weren't able to get through to anyone in four large Asian countries and also can't remember whom they spoke to."
The failure to send an alert straight to the news media will continue to be the focus of this web log. It's an issue that demands examination by Senator Olympia Snowe's hearings on NOAA's response to the Sumatra earthquake.
Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 7, 2005
1 comment:
Before going off half-cocked, you might want to check to see if the warning systems make use of the NOAA Weather Wire or other such communications networks.
My understanding is that tsunami messages are carried by the weather wire.
The US media and wire services montior services like these continuously.
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