NOAA’s New Warning Procedures: Will They Be Unveiled Within Six Months of the Tsunami?

• Report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (March 26)
• NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher’s letter (May 22)

The six-month anniversary of the December tsunami will soon be upon us. Media reports of the tsunami event and recovery have tapered off in recent weeks, as have posts to this site. A vacation trip starting next week will further curtail attention for the next few weeks.

When I resume, I hope to have definitive information on what NOAA is doing to revise its media-notification procedures. Lautenbacher’s May 17th letter said revisions were underway within NOAA. I sent the following letter today to NOAA Public Affairs Director Jordan St. John to learn what they are:

Dear Mr. St. John:

Administrator Lautenbacher’s May 17th response to my early-April letter (copies of both are enclosed) contained the encouraging news that your office “has been reviewing, and updating, its procedures for notifying the media in the event of another large tsunami in the Pacific. Several procedure changes are underway, or under consideration, including issuance of media advisories (in coordination with civil authorities) in addition to the tsunami bulletins.”

I would be most grateful if you would apprise me of the changes in tsunami warning procedures to which the Administrator alluded in his letter. It is my hope that the new procedures include the utilization of the major news media with international in-place communications networks in transmitting near-real-time warnings over those networks.

My web log (TsunamiLessons.blogspot.com) since early January has developed the premise that early proactive telephonic contact with the major media would certainly reduce the lag time between tsunami detection and the receipt of warnings by populations in peril. There is every reason to believe thousands of lives might have been saved on December 26 if early direct (as in telephonic) media contact had been part of the notification plan.

This premise is summarized in my letter to Admiral Lautenbacher, but I also invite you to visit my log. Thank you for your assistance in helping us understand NOAA’s revised media-notification procedures in issuing tsunami warnings.

Sincerely,

Doug Carlson

cc: Senator Daniel K. Inouye