•Status on letter to NOAA’s Lautenbacher: Awaiting his response (see April 8 post)
•National Weather Service “won’t allow” direct media contact (see March 31 post)
•Report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (see March 26 posts)
Mauritius (20º south, 57º east, some 500 miles east of Madagascar) is hosting the Second International Coordination Meeting for the Development of an Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System on April 14-16. Numerous documents can be accessed here.
Among them is the 2nd Draft Edition of the Communications Plan for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific, dated April 7, 2005. As with the 1st draft, which was completed just in time for the First International Coordination Meeting in March, this one was reviewed by Francois Schindele of France, chairman of the International Tsunami Information Center in Honolulu, and Dr. Laura Kong, its director.
A new reviewer this time is Dr. Charles McCreery, with whom I met on March 25 at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, where he is the director. I wrote about that visit in two posts on March 26.
McCreery told me then that although the member states in the tsunami warning network generally don’t want media transmission of tsunami warnings into their territory, he could raise the issue at the Mauritius meeting as a way to speed warnings to populations in peril. Now that he’s in Mauritius, I’ll send an e-mail to see if that’s still his intention.
A cursory reading of the 2nd Draft Edition of the Communications Plan unfortunately reveals no added emphasis on media notification. McCreery also told me on March 25 that the National Weather Service "won't allow" direct telephonic notification of the news media to issue tsunami warnings, an assertion that requires clarification.
My letter to Admiral Lautenbacher asks him to revoke such a prohibition if it exists, since it appears indefensible. He presumably holds the key to revising the PTWC’s communications protocols to use the international news media’s networks to speed tsunami warnings and save lives.
Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
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