Improving S.50, the Tsunami Preparedness Act

As a response to the December 26 tragedy, the Tsunami Preparedness Act (S.50) has much to recommend it and is hard not to like (access the text at thomas.loc.gov and enter the bill number). Nevertheless, the bill can be improved by specifically mentioning the role of the international news media in transmitting tsunami warnings, which it does not do in its present form.

This web log is focused on one small piece of the tsunami picture -- the critical need for NOAA and its agencies to issue useful tsunami warnings through existing media channels. The Associated Press, CNN and other international news organizations with globe-circling networks and instantaneous communications capabilities were not telephoned with urgent voice messages on December 26, even though Pacific Tsunami Warning Center scientists did call their colleagues in the Indian Ocean region about the suspected tsunami.

It's impossible to know how many lives might have been saved if an effective media warning had been issued. As NOAA's representatives testified at the February 2nd Senate hearing on S.50, populations in threatened areas need to be educated on how to react to a tsunami warning. But regardless of the readiness of local communities, effective warnings must be generated, and it is this web log's belief that existing media can be activated quickly toward that end.

Doing so will require crisis communications protocols to be in place, coordinated, rehearsed and implemented in future tsunamis. We civilians still don't know what's in NOAA's communications protocols, despite our January 27 request for a copy of its crisis communications plan (see 1/27 post). We'll undoubtedly learn much about those plans if NOAA does issue the invitation to visit the Hawaii Center, as we've been told it will (2/3 post).

How, then, can S.50 be improved? It should specifically mention the role of the international news media in transmitting tsunami warnings to areas endangered by tsunamis.

As currently written, Section 5, Tsunami Research Program, broadly addresses communications in paragraph (b), Communications Technology: The Administrator, in consultation with the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and the Federal Communications Commission, shall investigate the potential for improved communications systems for tsunami and other hazard warnings by incorporating into the existing network a full range of options for providing those warnings to the public, including, as appropriate--
(1) telephones, including special alert rings;
(2) wireless and satellite technology, including cellular telephones and pagers;
(3) the Internet, including e-mail;
(4) automatic alert televisions and radios;
(5) innovative and low-cost combinations of such technologies that may provide access to remote areas; and
(6) other technologies that may be developed.

I suggest renumbering this list by inserting a new subparagraph:
(5) international news media networks with instantaneous transmission capabilities;

This would be an unambiguous directive to NOAA and its agencies to think outside the high-tech box and, as subparagraph (1) suggests, pick up the telephone to get the attention of news media gatekeepers when minutes matter.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
February 12, 2005