For Hawaii Tsunami Awareness Month, a List of Questions for Mainstream Media To Ask the PTWC

(see March 26 posts for report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center)
Another consequence of the December tsunami will be greater awareness in Hawaii this April than in any previous annual observance of tsunami awareness month.

April would be an excellent time for the mainstream Honolulu news media to ask questions they’ve avoided until now about a critical and newsworthy issue – how the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center actually disseminates its warnings to distant imperiled populations.

The March 31 post to this web log has a list of questions that have been sent to NOAA Administrator Lautenbacher for a response. Why should the highest-ranking official at NOAA even bother with this list?

Because somebody has to explain the apparent existence of a policy that inhibits the dissemination of tsunami warnings to populations in peril.

According to PTWC Director Charles McCreery, his staff is “not allowed” by the National Weather Service to telephone the major news media when a tsunami is suspected. That’s a direct quote from my visit to the Center on March 25 (see March 26 posts to this blog). According to McCreery, the restriction stems from a belief that if you were to call some media, you’d have to call them all, which of course is not true.

Given the fact that the major international news media can pass on tsunami warnings to their broadcast and cablecast consumers faster than any telephone tree involving government agencies (which is what the PTWC used on March 28), the existence of this restriction is indefensible and requires examination.

The media can help the general understanding of how the PTWC operates by asking these questions. Since the whole point of a rapid tsunami warning capability is to save lives, the public deserves to know how the Center is pursuing that goal, which so obviously was not met in December.

The following questions are being sent to Honolulu reporters whose reporting responsibilities may present an opportunity to interview representatives of the PTWC:

• Is there a policy that deliberately curtails PTWC contact with the media?
• If so, where is that policy to be found in writing?
• If the answer is "no", how does Dr. McCreery explain his March 25 assertion?
• Just how does the Center send tsunami alerts to the news media? What specific channels are used and how do they operate?
• Which media receive these messages? Which organizations are on the recipient list?
• Are any media recipients outside the PTWC's traditional area of responsibility -- the Pacific Basin? Are any Indian Ocean regional media on the list?
• Have recipients been added since December 26?
• Are urgent tsunami-related messages differentiated in any way from the routine? If so, how is attention drawn to them? (One local journalist in a position to know says PTWC bulletins are inserted automatically and unobtrusively into the Associated Press's "state" wire, with no accompanying bells or whistles to alert newsrooms that they're there.)
• Is a formal review of communications policy underway at NOAA arising from the December and March earthquakes?
• What changes in communications policy or PTWC standard operating communications procedures have been initiated since December 26?
• Scientists didn’t transmit a bulletin about a presumed tsunami in December until 65 minutes after the earthquake; that lag time was shortened to 19 minutes on March 28. Is the shorter time the result of a policy change at NOAA, NWS and/or PTWC? Please explain.

It’s time for Honolulu reporters to step up and do more than ask for sound bites and quotes that satisfy not-so-inquiring editors but do little to promote understanding.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
April 3, 2005