Tsunami Lessons

2/27/10 Hawaii Tsunami Status

2010-02-27T07:44:00.003-10:00

We're monitoring the status of public information efforts in the hours before the tsunami is anticipated to arrive here in the Hawaiian Islands. For updates, please visit our sister blog Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies (CHORE).

The primary issue for both CHORE and this Tsunami Lessons blog is emergency communications to the public. We started TL one week after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to call attention to the inadequacy of procedures to alert the public using the news media.

Third Anniversary Show Offers Nothing New as PBS Recycles Remembrance of 2004 Tsunami; Were No Lessons Learned in Past Three Years?

2007-12-27T14:37:00.005-10:00

NOTE TO VISITORS: Thank you for dropping by the Tsunami Lessons blog. (Visit Tsunami Lessons 2 for posts beginning on 10/1/09 about the Samoa earthquake and tsunami that struck two days earlier.) Our most recent post (below) was at the third anniversary of the Christmas 2004 tsunami, and we're not updating this site barring a major event that would require doing so. We think we said what needed saying during the past three years, and you're encouraged to read our posts from the beginning -- especially those in early 2005. We like to think our recommendations to improve media-based tsunami warnings have been heeded, but we're not so sure. The third-anniversary post was a downbeat take on the retelling of the TV documentary that keeps showing up with no new information about lessons learned on how tens of thousands of lives might have been saved. Please do read this blog, especially if you have responsibility for tsunami warnings anywhere in the world. Some of you still need convincing. Click here for our current major interest -- promoting ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) and other renewable energy technologies to get Hawaii off oil.

Barely three months after the Indian Ocean tsunami killed hundreds of thousands in December 2004, Public Broadcasting System’s NOVA program aired the documentary “The Wave That Shook the World” on Tuesday, March 29, 2005.

To mark the second anniversary of the tragedy, NOVA aired the same program on Tuesday, December 19, 2006. This week, NOVA’s choice for a remembrance of the third anniversary on Tuesday, December 25 was – you guessed it – the very same documentary.

Approximately two years and nine months have passed since “The Wave” was first broadcast. One might have reasonably expected new insights and new lessons learned to have emerged in that time to merit a fresh look at the mindsets and operational systems that failed to prevent tens of thousands of deaths in the first hours after the quake.

It’s a futile hope. “The Wave” program highlights the same attitudes and beliefs that were formed in the first three months after the tragedy. How could it not? It’s the same program. Nothing new is offered in these repeats, and one might conclude that the producers and scientists interviewed in the show have an interest in hammering home their “we did everything we could” litany – even though it’s obvious they didn’t do the one thing that could have saved lives.

Ignoring the Media Connection

That many of those deaths were preventable is not in doubt. This blog chose to remember the second anniversary a year ago with an exhaustive review of “The Wave” program’s transcript, focusing on the collective “blind spot” shared by the program’s participants on how they might respond to a major quake in the region. Here’s how we headlined that post:

Two Years after Quake, Rationalization Still
Primary Way to Deal with the Terrible Truth:
Nothing Scientists Did that Day Saved Lives

What would have saved lives was the activation of links to globe-circling news media – the central point of this blog since its inception on January 2, 2005. It’s the argument we’ve made repeatedly over the past three years, and a thorough reading of our posts going back to the beginning will show that others share this view.

But those links were not in place in December 2004. The “terrible truth” in our headline is that scientists and the public affairs personnel within NOAA had no game plan to activate if a magnitude 8+ earthquake struck the Indian Ocean region.

What Did They Know…and When?

Just seconds from the end of “The Wave” and almost as an afterthought, the documentary includes this quote by one of the scientists interviewed for the program:

“In retrospect, the scientific community should have been aware that these massive earthquakes do occur off Sumatra, and probably a little more emphasis should have been focused on the Indian Ocean, where it's documented that massive earthquakes occur.”

Precisely. Within a week of this blog’s inception, research for this blog found a report on the proceedings of the Nineteenth Session of the International Coordinating Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific in Wellington, New Zealand, September 29-October 2, 2003. As we reported on January 8, 2005, four NOAA officials, including the director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu, attended this conference.

Page 30 of the report states: Due to its tectonic setting which is located at the junction of three major plates of the Pacific, Eurasian and Indo-Australian, and one minor plate of the Philippines, Indonesia has a high activity in earthquakes and tsunamis. Historical data show that many tsunamis in Indonesia are destructives (sic) and have affected neighboring countries such as Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, etc.

Continuing, page 48 says: "...the Southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean has a significant threat from both local and distant tsunamis."

And the Point Is…..?

Knowing what they should have known about the potential for destructive tsunamis in the region, what did the PTWC and NOAA do to create a warning system that might actually save lives? Nothing has emerged in the past three years to suggest they did anything. Need proof? Here’s the quote of a PTWC scientist about two-thirds through “The Wave” as seen in 2005, 2006 and 2007:

"No contact points, no organization, no warning systems that I know of, in the area. Picking up the phone and thumbing through the phone book or thumbing through the Web is useless. In fact, it can be dangerous because you're not concentrating on warning someone who can actually do something for the people. So we're brainstorming basically, 'Who can we call?'"

A Chicago Tribune reporter put it this way:

“With a killer tsunami bearing down on Sri Lanka and India at airliner speeds, an effort to save thousands of lives came down to a handful of overworked employees in Hawaii trying to telephone government officials they did not know and did not know how to reach.”

What They Could Have Done

They could have activated a link to the major media – the very same media networks that for generations have efficiently moved news around the world wirelessly in seconds. They could have but didn’t because they had made no plans to do so.

And as far as we can tell, they still haven’t. Millions have been spent on high-tech solutions – new buoys, new computers, new this and new that. There are new SOPs for connecting with media in the United States, but we’ve seen no evidence of new procedures to use the news media to reach people in the tsunami-prone regions where hundreds of thousands died three years ago.

Anyone interested in reading more about all of this can start with last year’s second anniversary post and continue with our first post on January 2, 2005 and subsequent entries.

If a producer of “The Wave That Shook the World” happens to be reading this, please relegate your 2005/6/7 editions of the program to the history shelf. A fresh look at this tragedy is long past due.

We already know the terrible truth of 2004. Next time, we hope you’ll have found reasons to report on new initiatives that will use 21st century communications to warn unsuspecting people of their peril from the next big wave with the potential to shake the world.

Report Says Women More Vulnerable in Crises

2007-10-29T14:23:00.000-10:00

We've not posted to Tsunami Lessons for more than four months -- in part because we believe the Seinfeld script excerpt post in June does such a good job in explaining one aspect of the tsunami warning problem.

But it's time to move on, and we do so today by noting a report at the OneWorld South Asia website and an article headlined Disaster Lessons from the past. Here are a few sentences:

When natural disasters occur, poor people, and specifically poor women are usually the hardest hit. It is estimated that in the 2004 tsunami three times as many women as men died. One of the reasons why more women perish is their decreased mobility since they often have not only themselves to take care of, but also children and the elderly. Due to socially constructed roles, most have never learned how to swim.

Continuing:

The medium through which information is passed is vitally relevant. A study found that women farmers in South Africa preferred seasonal climate forecast information to be relayed by extension workers or through schools rather than the radio, which was the preferred medium of men. Men have greater access as well as more time to listen to radios.

This article is thought-provoking and raises numerous issues about how to communicate life-saving information equitably among all segments of populations that are endangered by natural disasters. Contact information is available on the OneWorld site for those who wish to follow up.

Anybody Can Monitor Earthquakes and Tsunamis; The Trick Is Telling the Public What You Know

2007-06-12T07:03:00.000-10:00

JERRY SEINFELD: I don't understand, I made a reservation. Do you have my reservation?
RENTAL CAR AGENT: Yes, we do. Unfortunately we ran out of cars.
JERRY: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
RENTAL CAR AGENT: I know why we have reservations.
JERRY: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation, and that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.

Who would have thought a 16-year-old Seinfeld script would be relevant to today’s tsunami-related news, but there it is – a workable metaphor about tsunami detection and warning. First, the news:

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Tsunami experts, state representatives and National Guard members toured the tsunami warning center in Jakarta today, which has transformed over the past two years into a state-of-the-art, 24-hour facility.

The December 2004 tsunami rocked Indonesia, killing more than 120,000 residents and spurring a concerted effort to concentrate on tsunami preparedness. Countries around the world pledged their support, while Hawai'i experts also offered up their knowledge.

Hawai'i has one of the most sophisticated tsunami warning systems in the world.

Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach, said he has had a host of discussions with Indonesians since 2004 to get their country tsunami-ready. He said the tsunami center in Jakarta is now well on its way to becoming a world-class facility. Still, he added, "Indonesia has a big challenge in front of it."

That’s a challenge Hawaii’s PTWC arguably has yet to overcome, as we’ve suggested here for more than two years. The Center reportedly does an excellent job of monitoring earthquakes – the “taking reservations” part – but it’s with the “holding/warning” follow-up that the Center fails to do its most important job.

It’s darkly ironic that the PTWC is Indonesia’s source of professionalism in the creation of its own tsunami warning center. Even though the Hawaii Center’s personnel suspected a tsunami had been generated in December 2004, they didn’t do anything with that knowledge to save Indonesian lives. (See numerous posts since January 2005 for additional comment.)

They “took the reservation” but they didn’t “hold the reservation.” They kept the information they knew about the Indonesian earthquake so close to their collective vests that they didn’t successfully communicate what they knew to populations in peril throughout the Indian Ocean region.

Let’s hope McCreery and his fellow U.S. experts have conveyed to their Indonesian counterparts the importance of effective public communications. It’s one thing to install millions of dollars of earthquake-detecting equipment in Jakarta; it’s quite another to implement a quick-reaction warning system using local media to alert the public to a suspected tsunami.

Unless there’s a way to warn the public, all that equipment is a waste.
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Click here to visit CHORE -- Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies -- for occasional posts on the status and adequacy of emergency communications in Hawaii.

Rename the PTWC To Be Accurate; Call It the ‘United States Tsunami Warning Center’

2007-04-03T06:27:00.000-10:00

(This is a "two-blog" post; it’s also found today at our sister blog, CHORE – Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies.)

Yet another tsunami has killed Pacific islanders, but at least America was well informed about the status of the threat. “The system worked,” said a Hawaii Civil Defense official in praise of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center’s network of buoys and seismographs.

Can it truly be said “the system worked” when people die? Are we so concerned about our own safety that we applaud a system that was incapable of warning unsuspecting islanders that they were in imminent danger of losing their lives?

Wanted: A Vision

How appropriate to quote Solomon in Proverbs as we look for lessons in the Solomon Islands tsunami:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

What might the vision be for a tsunami warning network that actually saves lives? The current version demonstrably doesn’t do that. More than 230,000 people died in the December 2004 tsunami; at least 30 died in the Solomons, and the toll is rising.

Clearly, the way the network is put together doesn’t work if “work” is defined as being a life-saver. So let’s give the vision thing a try.

Start with a goal: An effective tsunami warning network will be structured and operated in such a way that lives will not be lost – even in a locally generated tsunami.

Apply that goal to all high-threat islands, countries and territories in the Pacific where we know with certainty killer tsunamis are generated. Analyze the existing warning capabilities – sirens, radio stations, networks. Test their reaction time.

Does the System Work?

Analyze the test results. What worked and what didn’t? Is there any possible way the existing system can warn people that a locally generated tsunami may kill them?

If not, change the system!

Argue, debate and harangue local authorities until they agree to relinquish their control of the system; holding on isn’t worth the potential loss of their citizens’ lives.

Work with the United Nations. Establish funding for system enhancements. Install a fast-alert capability that sounds sirens and scrambles radio station personnel within minutes when a threat is recognized. Set a threshold that seems reasonable – perhaps a magnitude 7.5 quake in a region that historically experiences tsunamis.

Whatever you do, NOAA, do something! The current system is not working for Pacific Islanders – so don’t call it a Pacific Tsunami Warning system.

Be honest and rename the center in Hawaii to reflect its true function. Call it the United States Tsunami Warning Center. That’s what it does well – alerts and warns the states and territories of the United States.

But don’t pretend to be a Pacific-wide life-saving tsunami warning system. Your current vision isn’t big or bold enough.

Information Still Sparse on Solomon Tsunami; Were Media Used for Time-Sensitive Warning?

2007-04-02T04:59:00.000-10:00

News reports are short on details about the timing of the tsunami that followed the magnitude 8 earthquake in the Solomon Islands yesterday.

HONIARA, Solomon Islands (AP) -- Tsunami waves churned by an undersea earthquake crashed ashore in the Solomon Islands on Monday, wiping away entire villages and triggering alerts from Australia to Hawaii, officials said. At least 13 people were killed, and the prime minister warned that the toll would likely grow. In the South Pacific nation's west, where the devastation appeared centered, there were reports of people being swept away as waves plowed up to a half-mile inland. The magnitude-8 quake that created the tsunami was followed by more than two dozen aftershocks, including at least four of magnitude-6 or stronger.

The tsunami presumably came so quickly -- one report says only 5 minutes after the quake -- that islanders had little time to escape the waves. The questions that interest us here at Tsunami Lessons are these:

• When did islanders receive media reports – i.e., radio broadcasts – about the quake’s severity and the likelihood of a tsunami?

• Which radio outlets – local or international – carried reports of the quake, and when?

It’s one thing to issue warnings and alerts via electronic means, including email, and it’s another thing altogether to issue warnings that result in lives saved. This has been our consistent message since the onset of this blog on January 2, 2005 following the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami one week earlier.

Unless a warning can be effectively communicated by electronic news media to populations in peril, the warning has accomplishing virtually nothing.

We’ll be looking for reports from the region to learn more about the sequence of events. Here’s one of the early versions of what happened taken from an Associated Press report:

“There wasn’t any warning – the warning was the earth tremors,” Alex Lokopio, the premier of the Solomon’s Western Province, told New Zealand’s National Radio. “It shook us very, very strongly and we were frightened, and all of a sudden the sea was rising up.”

It's possible no broadcast message could have reached the island in time to warn the residents, but we don’t yet know for sure. We need to know when the first tsunami alert/warning went out from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and when they were recycled into the first warning broadcasts. What did radio stations in the Solomons do with the warning they presumably received?

All we have to go on is this assessment: “There wasn’t any warning….”

Tsunami Awareness Month Begins with No Jokes; New PTWC Technology Touted as Enhancement

2007-04-01T06:23:00.000-10:00

"One goal of the improved instruments is to avoid having too many warnings, which erodes confidence in the system, McCreery said. 'The gap is really trying to keep the public prepared to do the right thing when the situation occurs.'"

That paragraph is the final one in a Honolulu Star-Bulletin story today on new instruments installed at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The irony should be obvious to anyone familiar with the complete absence of a useful warning after the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. (New visitors to Tsunami Lessons might want to start reading on this subject at our first post on January 2, 2005, "No Tsunami Warning -- Why?")

Tomorrow's second part of this two-part series is titled "Getting the public to respond to tsunamis" -- potentially another irony-laden angle in light of the 2004 tsunami warning failure.

Our observations are long overdue here on improvements made in NOAA's standard operating procedures to disseminate tsunami warnings using the news media -- the #1 subject we've flogged for the past two years. Enough has been written about these improvements in the past few months to conclude that NOAA has indeed restructured its early-warning procedures to engage the news media earlier than ever.

For now, we'll wait for more news during Tsunami Awareness Month to see how the PTWC actually will use its new technology to accomplish its mission -- which is to warn.

“Live from the PTWC”: Warning Center Goes Media Mainstream During Tsunami Watch

2007-01-13T11:04:00.000-10:00

Wait a minute. Is this the same Pacific Tsunami Warning Center that is “not allowed” to use the media’s international news dissemination networks to issue urgent, time-sensitive tsunami warnings? (See two years of posts here if you want details of how that could work.)

Yes, this is definitely the same PTWC – the same building with the same personalities. But talk about a flip-flop.

Even as a tsunami watch was in effect and Center staffers were assessing the potential for an actual tsunami to arrive after the 8.2 Kuril Islands earthquake last night, at least two Honolulu TV stations were sending “live” reports to its viewers by reporters standing just a few feet away from the computers. Today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin carries a photo taken last night inside the Center.

The message was clear: The PTWC was on the job, ready to tell the world USING CONSUMER-ACCESSIBLE NEWS MEDIA whether a tsunami had been generated.

Emphasis was added to the previous sentence to hammer home the point: PTWC officials now use garden-variety news media to inform the public, something they failed to do in December 2004 when hundreds of thousands died in the Indian Ocean region.

This blog takes some satisfaction at the PTWC’s turnabout; maybe two years of criticism about its hands-off media policy is doing some good, but it’s hard not to be cynical about the new accessibility, which seems designed to maximize the Center’s public relations.

As we asked here nearly two years ago, “…if the media can be used to transmit PTWC’s story all over the world, shouldn’t they have a role in transmitting tsunami warnings, too? Can it be, as suggested by the Center's director last week (see March 26 posts), that the PTWC is prohibited from engaging the media more energetically?”

Cynicism aside, engaging the media for PR spin may actually help NOAA, the NWS and the PTWC appreciate how the international media can be used to quickly transmit messages to their clientele and the public.

Call it PR with a positive purpose.

Blog's 2nd Anniversary Notes PTWC "Rethinking"

2007-01-02T08:10:00.000-10:00

The Tsunami Lessons blog was launched two years ago today with a question: "No Tsunami Warning -- Why?" Whether it has influenced improved distribution of tsunami warnings using the major news media is still highly doubtful. We've seen little sympathy to the views expressed here for the past two years.

Nevertheless, there's hope for new ways of thinking. Today's Honolulu Advertiser carries a story that highlights the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center's "rethinking" of how it will trigger tsunami warnings within the Hawaiian Islands.

Our sister blog, Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies (CHORE), notes today that the rethinking is encouraging because it shows Center officials can change. As we say at CHORE today, "One would think a quarter million or more deaths in the region would have triggered a major pragmatic rethinking of how the Center distributes its warnings to populations in peril."

We hope a year from now we'll be able to report with confidence that warning procedures have indeed improved and that low-tech media networks will play a significant role in those new procedures.

Two Years after Quake, Rationalization Still Primary Way to Deal with the Terrible Truth: Nothing Scientists Did that Day Saved Lives

2006-12-23T12:06:00.000-10:00

The great Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami devastated villages, cities and whole populations the day after Christmas two years ago. As with most calamities in which the number of deaths was high, the world pauses to remember, as does today’s Tsunami Lessons post.

The Public Broadcasting System’s NOVA show on December 19th was devoted to the documentary “Wave that Shook the World”, and like most documentaries, this one relies on interviews with scientists, seismologists, geologists and others who recalled the events of that day.

Reading the transcript of the show is disappointing for those of us who believe tens of thousands of lives were needlessly lost due to lack of forethought by tsunami warning planners about how they would issue a warning to populations in peril if a massive earthquake were to generate a tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

The Tsunami Was Not a Surprise

There’s no question the threat was well known. In the NOVA documentary, Australian seismologist Phil Cummins says: “In retrospect, the scientific community should have been aware that these massive earthquakes do occur off Sumatra, and probably a little more emphasis should have been focused on the Indian Ocean, where it's documented that massive earthquakes occur.”

On January 8, 2005, this blog documented that knowledge by calling attention to the report of The International Coordinating Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific’s October 2003 convention in Wellington, New Zealand. Page 30 of the convention’s report has the following about the potential for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean:

“Due to its tectonic setting which is located at the junction of three major plates of the Pacific, Eurasian and Indo-Australian, and one minor plate of the Philippines, Indonesia has a high activity in earthquakes and tsunamis. Historical data show that many tsunamis in Indonesia are destructives (sic) and have affected neighboring countries such as Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, etc.”

Page 48 of the document says: "...the Southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean has a significant threat from both local and distant tsunamis...."

These references establish what science knew about the tsunami potential in the region. Let’s turn now to what scientists and warning planners did with that knowledge. The available evidence suggests they did little or nothing to prepare for the day when millions of people would require a warning to save their lives.

International Media – A Warning Solution

We continue to draw attention to this issue, not to “blame” those who did not implement a warning to cover the Indian Ocean nations, but because tsunami warning planners and seismologists continue to avoid serious discussions about using the international news media to issue tsunami warnings in extraordinarily urgent situations.

Beginning with our first post on January 2, 2005, the Tsunami Lessons blog has advocated what to us is an obvious solution to the problem of sending messages to distant and isolated populations.

The Associated Press, Reuters, the BBC, CNN and other worldwide news networks do this routinely – day in and day out without interruption. They operate efficiently and professionally. Some of these networks have existed, not just for scores of years, but for generations.

Why Are the Media Ignored?

The international news networks were not a component of the tsunami warning plan on Christmas 2004, and they’re not in the plan today. It’s noteworthy that not once in the past two years has anyone refuted our premise that existing worldwide news networks could have been effectively used -- and could be used in the future -- in extraordinary circumstances.

We would have been happy to debate the point if an authoritative source within the tsunami warning community had come forward at any time during the past two years, but they haven’t. It’s as if the straightforward, workable and relatively simple method of cooperating with the media to issue tsunami warnings in extraordinary circumstances doesn’t merit their attention.

The reason why scientists have avoided this discussion may be their high-tech orientation; people whose lives revolve around scientific solutions may be unable to even conceive of a low-tech solution to the challenge of sending tsunami warnings quickly to far-away locations.

It’s a Policy Matter

The current crop of tsunami experts, seismologists and agency administrators may be so wedded to their high-cost exotic warning systems that they ignore the electromagnetic spectrum that bombards them with low-tech radio and television signals non-stop around the clock.

Incredible as it may seem, the news networks are ignored even after the 2004 tsunami tragedy because of a U.S. policy that prohibits scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) from contacting the media directly by telephone. Dr. Charles McCreery made this astounding statement during our visit to the PTWC on March 25, 2005; our post on that visit was the first to report this prohibition.

Sound Bites Reveal a Pattern

As you read the documentary’s transcript, keep this blog’s pro-media arguments in mind; remember also that scientists knew of the tsunami threat that major earthquakes pose for the Indian Ocean region. Read their quotes for any indication they used that knowledge on Christmas Day 2004; assess from their own words what they were capable of doing to respond quickly with life-saving warnings to the region through tested networks.

From the “Wave that Shook the World” transcript:

BARRY HIRSHORN (PTWC seismologist): “No contact points, no organization, no warning systems that I know of, in the area. Picking up the phone and thumbing through the phone book or thumbing through the Web is useless. In fact, it can be dangerous because you're not concentrating on warning someone who can actually do something for the people. So we're brainstorming basically, ‘Who can we call?’”

STUART WEINSTEIN (geophysicist, PTWC): “We then created a tsunami travel time map for the Indian Ocean basin. This gave us an idea of how much time we had in order to warn people. It told us where the wave was presently. And then, immediately, we started to try to contact nations that were ahead of the wave.”

NARRATOR: “Less than four hours since the earthquake: the Maldives are next in the tsunami's path of destruction. With the wave charging across the ocean at the speed of a passenger jet, it seems like a losing battle, but using their travel time map, scientists at the Warning Center realize there's still time to alert Africa.”

CHARLES MCCREERY (director, PTWC): “We contacted our State Department, and we advised them that this was a very large earthquake and there was the possibility of tsunami waves striking the east coast of Africa.”

BARRY HIRSHORN: “The State Department operations immediately patched us through to the embassies of Madagascar and Mauritius and we gave them a warning.”

STUART WEINSTEIN: “...their embassies in East Africa. We also contacted people in positions of authority to try to get some sort of warning to the east Africa coast.”

These quotes describe the frenetic and fruitless efforts of these scientists to issue a life-saving warning, as described by a reporter for the Chicago Tribune two weeks after the quake:

"Chicago -- With a killer tsunami bearing down on Sri Lanka and India at airliner speeds, an effort to save thousands of lives came down to a handful of overworked employees in Hawaii trying to telephone government officials they did not know and did not know how to reach."

Coping Becomes Rationalization

Despite their best intentions, PTWC scientists live today with the knowledge that nothing they did that day saved more than perhaps a handful of lives on the east coast of Africa -- and certainly none in Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. Living with this knowledge must be difficult for those who interpreted the data as it arrived at the warning center; they suspected the tsunami could be a killer but did not possess the tools or contacts to send a warning.

We are sympathetic to their plight. This blog is not written by a psychologist, but even an amateur observer can conclude that the stress felt by these scientists has been traumatic and that one way for them to cope with their inability to help anyone that day would be to conclude that “nothing could have been done” to save those people.

We heard that in the days immediately following the quake, and we continue to hear it today.

Indeed, it appears that they did everything they could do with the tools they had in 2004. Two years ago, there were no protocols in place to distribute a warning directly to mass audiences. No discussions had been held with high-level news executives to establish the relationships and bona fides necessary to trigger an alert that could save thousands of lives.

But what about now? Why aren’t officials of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration talking with international news organizations to explore how their networks could be used in extraordinary circumstances, such as the Indian Ocean mega-earthquake? Why does every new initiative to improve the warning capability involve years of planning and major financial commitments by nations with few financial resources?

Those high-tech systems are worthwhile, of course, but to ignore the low-tech, boundary- and bureaucracy-indifferent news networks is no longer acceptable.

Learning from the Past

One week after the 2004 tsunami, Tsunami Lessons posted a report by National Public Radio science correspondent Christopher Joyce, who began his story on the PTWC’s response: “Seismologists have wired the earth. They listen constantly for vibrations from earthquakes.”

So, too, have the news networks wired the earth. They listen and inform using their satellite and land-line networks, bringing distant news events into homes in every nation so routinely that the world seems smaller because they exist.

Two years after thousands died due to a failure to communicate, American scientists and policymakers could advance their tsunami warning capabilities by opening a dialogue with the news networks. There's nothing stopping them from trying to devise a better system but their own policies and inertia.

The world shouldn't have to wait.

Scientists Warn of Possible Indonesian Tsunami; Alerts to Public Still Depend on Intermediaries

2006-12-04T14:13:00.000-10:00

• Click here for Tsunami Lesson's first post on January 2, 2005 to understand what got us started.

The Honolulu Advertiser carries an online story today on scientists' conclusion that the Indonesian area is hit by tsunamis every 30 years or so. (I think we have to disregard the specific reference to "230 years" as a typo and rely on other statements that specifically reference three decades.)

Of particular interest to the Tsunami Lessons blog is the story's final paragraph:

"Until the regional tsunami warning capability is established, NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii and the Japan Meteorological Agency are providing tsunami advisory and watches alerts to 27 Indian Ocean countries. The individual countries then determine if and how they issue a warning to their publics."

Back in March 2005, this blog surmised that the "control issue" may be the biggest obstacle to transmitting warnings quickly enough to do any good. This new report reaffirms our nearly two-year-old belief that routing warnings through all the nations' independent offices will be the equivalent of "snail mail" compared to using the mass media to send life-saving alerts.

Even California Couldn’t Send Appropriate Warning of Tsunami’s Damage Potential

2006-11-18T07:25:00.000-10:00

Q. Why is a tsunami warning like the kids’ game of Telephone?

A. Because the person at the end of the line often fails to receive the right message.

Once again, officials are asking why a tsunami advisory failed to adequately warn people it was supposed to help.

The San Francisco Chronicle has reported extensively on the November 15th communications failure when a tsunami generated near Japan smashed boats and piers in Crescent City, CA. Folks in that tsunami-prone community were never told of the waves’ potential to create havoc.

Our sister blog, Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies (CHORE), advocates greater citizen involvement in the emergency communications process.

Average citizens seemingly can’t do worse than the experts in devising ways to communicate crucial information to people who need it. The linked story in the Chronicle (above) notes that "...for some reason, the (state Emergency Services) office failed to send a fax to DelNorte County" about the potential damage that the approaching tsunami could cause.

In other words, just like in December 2004, officials knew something bad was afoot but just couldn't quite get the word out to people with a crucial need to know.

Since January 2, 2005, this blog has advocated using the broadcast media as the fastest way to alert populations at risk. So here's a idea for the experts:

Show some faith in the population's ability to process information without panicking. Put your advisories on the air. Make them clear, concise and compelling without making them alarming.

Don't worry that we'll accuse you of crying wolf. We won't! It's better to be prepared for an event and have it pass without incident than to be surprised by something we knew nothing about.

It's only common sense.

Hawaii Tsunami Was Real, but Some Surfers Showed How Unreal Their Reaction Was

2006-11-16T10:42:00.000-10:00

Here’s a Tsunami Lessons first – a parallel post from our other blog.

Tsunami Event Passes with Few Consequences,
Confirms Belief that Some People Are Stupid

The initial assessments of yesterday’s mini-tsunami event compliment the first responders for their measured efforts to alert the public. The absence of any significant damage and injuries validated their decision to not activate the siren system.

Aside from some minor scrapes among a few swimmers who ignored warnings to stay out of the water, this tsunami had no serious consequences. The biggest take-away may be that despite all that’s been done to educate the public about what not to do when a tsunami approaches, some people will do it anyway.

Officials may have to acknowledge that they can’t change those people.

Some Civil Defense staffers expressed concern in media reports that if they sound an alarm for what turns out to be a non-event, the “cry wolf” syndrome will desensitize the public to future earthquakes and tsunamis.

CHORE strongly encourages these officials to set aside that concern and concentrate on the needs of sensible people – the vast majority of us who occupy the middle of the bell curve. The loonies who want to “ride a tsunami” are probably beyond hope, and the rest of us will appreciate your efforts.

Continue educating the public, keep fine-tuning your alert system and rehearsing the broadcast industry on emergency procedures. When the “big one” does arrive and sweeps tsunami-riding surfers away, it won't be because you didn't do your jobs.

Close to Home: Hawaii Officials Say Warning Gaps Exist but Won't Say Where

2006-10-29T07:44:00.000-10:00

You have to love the government -- "always there to help" when you need it, we're told.

Read this and then see what you think.

In Hawaii, the Warning Issue Has a New Twist: Silence during a Non-Tsunami Event

2006-10-18T13:43:00.000-10:00

The 6.7 and 6.0 earthquakes near the Big Island of Hawaii on Octdober 15, 2006 resulted in an unusual response by the Hawaii Civil Defense crew regarding a potential tsunami threat.

Although they knew a tsunami was not suspected within minutes of the first quake, they decided not to tell the public there was no tsunami. Rather than relieve fears during the island-wide power blackout that dragged on forever on Oahu, they chose to reveal nothing.

One official was reported in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin as saying people might catch only the end of the emergency alert and misconstrue it to be a confirmation of a tsunami.

That's bizarre. On the chance that some people might get the wrong idea, don't tell anybody anything.

Next time, try a looped tape that says, "There is no tsunami... There is no tsunami... There is no tsunami........"

The Tsunami Lessons author has started a new blog, again with the best of intentions, called Citizens Helping Officials Respond to Emergencies (CHORE). Too many officials' comments since the Hawaii earthquakes make it clear average citizens have a role to play in improving emergency communications here.

New Strategy: BLAME THE MEDIA! Flummoxed Officials Clueless on Using Radio, TV for Tsunami Warnings; Reporters Let Them Get Away with It!

2006-08-07T19:50:00.000-10:00

In keeping with the 2006 pattern to post fewer comments here but (hopefully) make the same point more economically, this is the first post on the TsunamiLessons blog since the July 17th killer tsunami that took hundreds of lives in Indonesia.

Once again, to no real surprise, the media were filled with reports on the failure of the warning system to alert the population in peril before it was too late. Here’s a sample from New Delhi Television Limited:

July 19, 2006 (Pangandaran): “Hundreds of bodies have been recovered from beaches, homes and hotels ravaged by the second tsunami to hit Indonesia in two years, pushing the death toll to more than 340. Nearly 230 others were missing. Meanwhile, the government acknowledged Tuesday it received regional warnings about the impending disaster but did not relay them to threatened communities along Java island's southern coast. Even if it had tried to tell local authorities, it is unclear how the alerts would have reached residents or tourists. There are no warning sirens or alarms.”

This is the same story, with different datelines and word combinations, that we’ve seen repeatedly since the December 2004 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami. As the story above notes, disaster officials blame the lack of life-saving warnings on the absence of sirens and alarms.

But a second reading of that paragraph reveals something significant: It wasn’t an official who made the assertion; it was the journalist who wrote the copy for this story. In other words, the journalist – without attribution – concluded that the absence of warning sirens or alarms made it “unclear how the alerts would have reached residents or tourists.” The media have bought the spin – hook, line and sinker.

It’s pretty clear by now that government officials won’t change their behavior and reveal in public that they could have done more to save lives after this or that tsunami. Read all the posts on TsunamiLessons and you’ll come across their “we did everything we could” excuses time and again. They are what they are, so let’s not waste any more time on them.

We have to turn elsewhere and try a new tack. It’s time to work on the media. Hell, let’s BLAME the media for their collective incompetence in simply accepting the official explanation over and over that nothing could have been done to save those lives. Reporters everywhere have accepted these weak explanations without seemingly giving them a second thought.

On the off chance that journalists in tsunami-prone countries might just read these words, here’s a transcript of an apocryphal future post-tsunami press conference that might help journalists dig into the story:

Government Disaster Minister: “…and so, in conclusion, let me express the government’s sincere regret for the terrible loss of life we’ve suffered on our nation’s beaches and ocean-side villages. We did everything we could, but without warning sirens and alarms, we just could not alert the victims in time to do any good.”

Newspaper Journalist: “Excuse me, Minister, but the excuse you’ve just used rings hollow. It has been nearly two years since the December 2004 tsunami, and your government has failed to install a warning system in all of that time. Why?”

Minister: “Well, these systems are extremely expensive and difficult to come by. We’ve commissioned a thorough study of our warning requirements and expect to receive a recommendation from the study commission any month now.”

Journalist: “Following up on my first question, why is it taking so long? What is delaying the government’s official response? Hundreds died this weekend because you have not installed a warning system!”

Minister: “Your question is impertinent! Your tone accuses the government – accuses me! – of needless delay. I’ve told you that we are working as quickly as we can, but without a siren network, whose funds have not been appropriated by Parliament, by the way, we are powerless to alert the population.”

Radio Journalist: “Minister, are you unaware that my radio network broadcasts news and information programming 24 hours a day? Are you unaware that many of our affiliates are equipped and professionally conditioned to broadcast breaking news instantaneously? Are you unaware that according to our country’s most recent census, fully 92 percent of the population owns or has access to a radio? Do these facts mean anything to you?”

Minister: “No, and why should they? What are you suggesting – that people should receive tsunami warnings over the radio?”

Radio Journalist: “That is precisely what I am suggesting!”

Minister: “But that is impossible! There would be no way to control the message, no way to verify that a tsunami actually had been generated, no way to avoid needless panic among the population.”

Wire Service Journalist: “Minister, you already said more than 700 of our fellow citizens died on Sunday because they received no tsunami warning. Wouldn’t it be better to issue a radio warning readily accessible to the public and accept the risk that it might be premature or even inaccurate? Wouldn’t THAT be better than refusing to engage the broadcast media and let people die!?”

Government press assistant: “Thank you. This press conference is concluded.”

With apologies to fiction writers, this little drama is meant to suggest that journalists have a role they’ve heretofore shunned. Inquiring and inquisitive reporters in real life presumably could be as demanding of answers as the fictional trio above.

But have you seen any evidence of journalistic probing in your readings? No, because it’s not happening. From Washington to Honolulu to Jakarta, reporters do nothing more than hold their microphones and take their notes as government officials absurdly assert that there's no way to alert populations without building elaborate early-warning siren systems.

So, here’s a toast – to the first reporter who raises his or her hand at some future press conference anywhere around the Pacific Rim and asks impertinent questions.

Another Quake, Another Suspected Tsunami, Another Warning System Lapse; Tonga Confirms Media Must Be Built into News-Based Alert Plan

2006-05-20T12:10:00.000-10:00

The length of today’s post will compensate for the infrequent postings here in 2006. Tsunami warning preparedness and execution has been a media focus in the past three weeks as “major” earthquakes in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean tested new procedures at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) here in Hawaii.

Despite the Center’s new 24/7 working hours and SOPs, things didn’t go as planned, and populations that should have received a warning of the tsunami potential remained ignorant of their potential peril. More on that below.

This web log’s premise is that a tsunami warning system missing proactive, human-to-human contact with the major international news media has a weak link in its chain. The BBC, CNN, Reuters and the Associated Press all have well-tested, efficient and rapid-fire international networks that dispense news around the world within seconds. (Click here to access this blog’s earliest posts dating to January 3, 2005 on the media’s potential role to transmit timely tsunami warnings to their international audiences.)

Mission: Contact Offices or Save Lives?

It’s a given in the news business that the ultimate consumer of broadcast and cablecast news is the individual viewer or listener. That also would seem to be the logical mission of the PTWC – to alert individuals of a potential tsunami. Yet that apparently is not how the PTWC and its parent organizations – the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – see it.

All three entities persist in thinking they’ve done their jobs if tsunami warning bulletins arrive in a timely fashion at their sister agencies in American states or foreign countries – the civil defense and national disaster offices and equivalents.

One would think the 2004 tsunami experience would have shattered that mindset in light of the “office-to-office” model’s failure to save a single life. It has been documented repeatedly since the deadly tsunami that PTWC scientists had no procedure in place to alert individual men, women and children on Indian Ocean beaches that their lives were at risk.

Post-Tsunami Stories Exposed Plan’s Flaws

A March 29, 2005 NOVA broadcast on PBS revealed the lack of preparedness within the PTWC to achieve its presumed mission of alerting individuals. The focus then – and now – was on alerting offices, as revealed in a quote attributed to a PTWC scientist on duty that day:

No contact points, no organization, no warning systems that I know of, in the area. Picking up the phone and thumbing through the phone book or thumbing through the Web is useless. In fact, it can be dangerous because you're not concentrating on warning someone who can actually do something for the people. So we're brainstorming basically, “Who can we call?"

Who the PTWC could have called, of course, was the handful of major news media operations cited above – each with a global network that reaches into the Indian Ocean region around the clock every day of the year. No such media-contact protocol was in place, as a New York Times story on December 31, 2004 revealed in remarks attributed to the same scientist:

Their instinct was to somehow tell more, to warn the region that it would continue, to reach people who could clear beaches. But how? Mr. Hirshorn recalled a tsunami expert he knew in Australia, called and got an answering machine. He left a message. Someone phoned the International Tsunami Information Center, asking if they knew people in the stricken region. The center simply had no contacts in this distant world.

Note the wording of the first sentence above: “…to reach people who could clear beaches.” The focus was reaching the officials who could clear beaches -- a half-way measure that relies on people who may or may not be on the job. And in the many months since the Christmas 2004 tsunami, there have been few quotes from scientists suggesting they believe their mission is ensuring that the people ON THE BEACHES receive the warnings. The buck always stops with officials in the PTWC’s network of agencies and government offices.

Have Lessons of 2004 Actually Been Learned?

The scientists themselves probably shouldn’t be faulted for following a failed emergency warning model. Others at NOAA or NWS could have modified that model with some “what if” outside-the-box thinking to expose the missing link in the system that’s supposed to warn individuals and save lives.

But what about now, nearly 18 months after tsunami lessons presumably were learned? Fast forward to the recent tsunami episodes. Here are excerpts from an Associated Press story about what happened to the tsunami alert following the 7.8-magnitude earthquake near Tonga on May 3:

A powerful earthquake struck near the South Pacific nation of Tonga early Thursday, triggering tsunami warnings for as far away as Fiji and New Zealand. But word of the imminent danger never reached the tiny country closest to the epicenter….

But nearly 18 months after an earthquake-driven tsunami in the Indian Ocean left at least 216,000 people dead or missing, sparking international calls for a better warning system, Pacific islanders received little or no notice of Thursday's threat….

Tonga did not receive the alert because of a power failure there, said the center's acting director, Gerard Fryer. "There was problem in Tonga where there was a power outage and they didn't get our initial message," Fryer said, adding that the center needs to work with Tonga to correct the problem. He said he did not know whether the power failure was caused by the earthquake.

The “power failure” explanation stood for several days, but then the PTWC revealed that the Center itself hadn’t performed as intended:

…Tonga... was inadvertently left off a list of areas predicted to be hit by a possible tsunami following the latest earthquake. The communication failure raised troubling questions about the effectiveness of such alerts, which have come under global scrutiny since an earthquake-driven tsunami in the Indian Ocean nearly 18 months ago left at least 216,000 people dead or missing.

Power outages, human error….”if something can go wrong, it will,” the saying goes. Another saying – my friends have heard it too often – is that “the Universe makes no mistakes.” Maybe it was no mistake that weak links in the warning chain were revealed in an earthquake/tsunami episode that inflicted no human suffering.

Media Channel Credited with Warning

Two items of note from the recent earthquake: First, here’s the same scientist referenced in the stories above as quoted in an MSNBC story after the Tonga quake:

“If people don’t get it (the warning), it’s not worth anything, but we don’t have people in every country who can help keep their sirens running and their power running. It’s frustrating.”

Let's hope by "people" he means the end user, not those hard-to-reach officials we've heard so much about. Second, buried in yet another story about the Tonga quake were three sentences that should be required reading for all PTWC, NOAA and NWS policy-making officials:

In Fiji, a tsunami warning alarm sounded in the capital, Suva. But authorities apparently failed to inform citizens, many on tiny and remote islands with poor communications. At the Wakaya Club, a private luxury Fijian island resort where recent guests have included Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards, staff were alerted to the danger through satellite television news.

That last part is worth repeating: “…staff were alerted to the danger through satellite television news.”

Satellite television news -- not government officials -- told people on remote beaches that a tsunami might have been generated. And if a power outage had interrupted the TV news, battery-powered radios monitoring overseas broadcasts just as easily could have been the channel.

The Tonga experience was yet another wake-up call for NOAA, the NWS and the PTWC. It may not be pleasant for public affairs personnel (who should appreciate the media’s importance) to go up against senior officials to whom “control of the message” seems more important than warning efficiency. The challenge will be even greater to convince officials of foreign governments that it’s more important to warn their citizens than it is to maintain control of the message.

But Tonga’s lesson is obvious: The message must get through as quickly and efficiently as possible to people, not only offices. The media do that routinely through thick and thin – through power outages and contact-list mistakes and offices that don’t answer the telephone and officials who oversleep.

I don't think NOAA is asleep, but it definitely needs to brew some strong coffee and wake up to the need for change from within.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

The More Things Change, The More They Don't; Last-Ditch Warning Still Relies on Phone Calls; Media Still Ignored as Quickest Way to Send Alert

2006-04-28T19:37:00.000-10:00

This web log has been idle since January 2, 2006, the one-year anniversary of its start-up. Our post that day said much seemed to have been accomplished in 2005 to raise our tsunami watchers' awareness at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) of ways to improve the transmission of alerts to populations endangered by an approaching tsunami.

Our hope was that the new protocols enacted by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would reflect some outside-the-box thinking in how those alerts are proactively disseminated.

Why crank this blog up again today? Because the story in today's Honolulu Advertiser on the new operating protocols at the PTWC reveals that the staff still is not empowered to pick up the telephone and call the news media in a tsunami crisis.

Visitors to this blog can click on virtually any post in 2005 to find our theme -- that the failure of the PTWC to contact the major news media on December 25, 2004 (HST) with a tsunami alert contributed to many needless deaths in the Indian Ocean region. The record is clear that no such effort was made.

Why contact the major media? Because they've had worldwide communications networks in place for years, decades, generations. Because one phone call to a clued-in and rehearsed international desk at the Associated Press, Reuters, BBC or CNN could have conveyed life-saving messages on their networks and to their outlets in the imperiled region.

Here's the key paragraph from today's Advertiser story:

"It (the PTWC) also has e-mail systems in place to alert people of potential Indian Ocean tsunamis. To make sure people are seeing the bulletins, there is a list of English-speaking offices they can telephone in the region that are operated around the clock, LeDouce said."

Doesn't this system seem more than a little sketchy? What they've put in place is a 21st Century version of the "telephone" game with an e-mail twist.

First, let's say there are 15 countries in the path of the next killer earthquake and tsunami, which naturally will strike at the least convenient time when there's only a skeleton crew at the PTWC -- in the dead of night, one staffer unexpectedly out sick, one on vacation, etc. (Think Murphy's Law.) So maybe one staff person is supposed to call these 15 countries, one after the other, to be sure they've received and actually read the warning e-mail -- in addition to the scientific analysis that must be accomplished.

And if they don't get through for whatever reason -- what then? Or even if they do, has the warning actually reached the people with a need to know? No, it's reached an office, and by reaching an office, "mission accomplished" it isn't, because the mission of a warning center is to actually warn people at risk.

Is this plan smart? Is it modern? Does it reflect creative thinking, lessons learned, common sense?

Every NOAA and PTWC official lives in a radio universe, bombarded every second of their lives by frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. It's safe to say every one of them relies on radio and television newscasts repeatedly each day. Every one of them would rather have access to radio and television bulletins about an approaching tornado or hurricane than sit by a telephone hoping for a call from Civil Defense.

It seems incredible that after all the discussion, critiques and after-action reports, NOAA and the PTWC still don't get it. They still refuse to acknowledge the potential for a telephone call to one or two major news networks to spread the word at the speed of light around the world and save lives.

Tsunami warning are meant for populations -- not offices! People rely on the broadcast and cablecast media for information, yet the media are virtually ignored as first-tier tools in the warning protocols.

On December 28, 2004, Chicago Tribune writer James Janega began his story on the tsunami warning fiasco:

"Chicago -- With a killer tsunami bearing down on Sri Lanka and India at airliner speeds, an effort to save thousands of lives came down to a handful of overworked employees in Hawaii trying to telephone government officials they did not know and did not know how to reach."

Sixteen months later, we're told the big safeguard in the PTWC's warning protocols is "a list of English-speaking offices they can telephone in the region that are operated around the clock."

"Sketchy" isn't the word for it.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

Taking Stock of Tsunami Warning Capabilities After One Year of Writing About the Need

2006-01-02T12:00:00.000-10:00

Today is the first anniversary of this web log’s initial post, which was headlined: “No Tsunami Warning – Why?” The question was prompted by an emerging awareness that the news media were not contacted proactively by scientists when they first detected the Indian Ocean earthquake and probable tsunami.

The next day, we asked: “What’s in the Communications Plan?” when innumerable news reports ignored the issue of why victims received no warning via existing high-speed communications networks (CNN, AP, BBC) before the waves struck many Indian Ocean nations. The January 7th post was topped: “More Critics Are Asking: Why Weren’t the News Media Called?” That question was asked repeatedly during the following months.

The Indian Ocean catastrophe shook up NOAA’s thinking about its role in the world. One example of the shift is that the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center no longer sees events beyond the Pacific Rim as outside its area of interest and sphere of influence. The PTWC is working cooperatively more than ever with Indian Ocean nations after reevaluating its mission and retraining its personnel on appropriate action to take after major earthquakes are detected anywhere in the world.

New SOP in the Works

Today, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is implementing a new Standard Operating Procedure to activate warnings via the news media following major earthquakes that may trigger tsunamis. The SOP includes procedures not in place on December 26, 2004.

The West Coast Tsunami Warning of June 14, 2005 has been studied and evaluated for sufficiency, and an After Action Report on that warning contains numerous recommendations for changes in media notification procedures. NOAA’s National Weather Service will soon issue its assessment on the report.

From our perspective, much has been accomplished in the past year to make the world’s populations safer after mega-earthquakes and tsunamis. What remains to be accomplished, judging from the available evidence, is any high-level coordination by senior personnel at NOAA with the major media networks. Now that the PTWC and other warning centers have gone to an around-the-clock staffing model, it's only logical that the public affairs side of NOAA's house should reach out and proactively ensure that its links with the major media are solidified.

This blog will continue advocating for these contacts and will report on them if and when they occur.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

NOAA: It “Makes Sense” that Lives Could Have Been Saved with Proactive Warning to Media

2005-12-15T11:04:00.000-10:00

Fifty weeks after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami, it seems this web log’s message has gotten through, judging from a letter just received from NOAA public affairs chief Jordan St. John.

Responding to my posted comments on the agency’s new tsunami notification SOP, Mr. St. John says in a December 8 letter:

“This SOP was developed to accomplish dual purposes. The first and most important is to certainly assist in saving lives. You have taken the position that had a more proactive media outreach effort taken place during the Indian Ocean event, many lives could have been saved. In hindsight, that makes sense, but we also believe that until that fateful event, many in the media would not have taken the warning seriously.”

This blog also has taken the position from its inception that coordination with the news media most certainly would have to be accomplished to achieve life-saving warnings via their international networks. While I’ve criticized the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center for not engaging those media proactively on December 25th (Hawaii time), in hindsight it’s because they and others at NOAA apparently had not thought ahead to consider how important pre-coordination with the media might one day be. (That's why the many "we did everything we could" comments by Center personnel in the weeks after the tsunami were so objectionable. By not reaching out to the major news media that day, they hadn't done everything they could.)

It’s safe to say they see the importance now. Mr. St. John’s letter continues: “Today, because of this tragic event, the media are much more sensitized to the danger of tsunamis, and have reacted very quickly to the information issued by both Tsunami Warning Centers. We expect these procedures to improve.”

I dare say, NOAA and the Centers are themselves much more sensitized to the danger of not having a solid media-notification SOP in place – an SOP that has been coordinated and game-planned with the major news media to ensure they know how to react when a Center believes a devastating earthquake and tsunami event has occurred somewhere in the world.

Mr. St. John notes that “the SOP is designed to remove (the media-contact) burden from Center staff and place it on our public affairs staff that is better equipped to manage the media onslaught.” That makes sense, and there are parallels throughout the business world. Power grid operators don’t talk with inquiring reporters during a blackout; the utilities’ public affairs personnel do.

The key point that must not be lost, however, is that NOAA’s public affairs personnel must be brought into the loop IMMEDIATELY after a potential tsunami is detected, and they should be empowered to IMMEDIATELY contact the major media using rehearsed channels of communications.

We’re talking minutes here – those precious minutes when media with globe-circling communications networks can transmit, broadcast or cablecast their warning messages BEFORE tsunami waves arrive.

That obviously was not pre-coordinated last December, and it’s not at all clear that this coordination has yet happened. If not, NOAA should call CNN, the Associated Press, the BBC and other candidate media to begin a dialogue leading to a truly live-saving capability.

In less than two weeks the world's media will carry one-year anniversary stories about the tsunami tragedy. This blog was created and did most of its proselytizing early in 2005, anticipating the delayed acknowledgement that now seems to have come that more could and should have been done to save lives on December 26.

We’ll keep this communications channel open next year with the hope that there will be reason to comment about a new public-private tsunami warning collaborative -- freely entered by government agencies and public-spirited media -- that will be a credit to all concerned.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

New Tsunami Warning Procedures Appear To Be Improvement; Proactive Media Contact Is Still Goal

2005-12-08T15:51:00.000-10:00

January 16, 2005 post on this web log: “If a mass media response had been written into NOAA’s crisis communication plan, one phone call to the Associated Press or CNN could have been leveraged to produce a warning to millions of people before the tsunami arrived on the beaches of some Indian Ocean countries.”

You won't find specific instructions for NOAA's personnel to reach out aggressively to the major news media in the new Tsunami Warning Center Communication SOP, which is found in its entirety here -- at least, not in the manner recommended by this blog since its inception and summarized in a January 16 post, above.

But according to a NOAA spokesperson, that's NOAA's goal, and things have changed since the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to improve media notification procedures. "December 26th was a wake-up call to the world," he remarked today during a telephone call about the new SOP and its ability to engage international news media in issuing timely life-saving tsunami warnings.

At the risk of coming down too severely on this draft SOP, here's one paragraph from the "Regional Public Affairs Officer(s) Responsibility" item (see earlier post today) and the comment sent today to NOAA about that paragraph:
• Write media advisory and distribute via PR newswire (see template; messages: reiterate warning; indicate media will be notified when more information becomes available; advise that briefing will take place once the danger passes/event occurs)
COMMENT: This is an entirely misguided approach. “…once the danger passes/event occurs…”??? Tsunami notification to the news media should not be business as usual via PR Newswire or something that waits for the danger to pass! When a potentially significant life-threatening event occurs, someone at the appropriate TWC has to trigger an alert in a duty officer’s or communication professional’s office or home; that person’s job is to initiate proactive media contact according to a prearranged protocol. If that means a Duty Officer must be on station at NOAA’s headquarters around the clock, so be it. You’re making those provisions at the TWCs, so it can be done for communications professionals. This is about establishing a system to save lives – potentially hundreds of thousands of them – so the system that’s implemented must be bold and imaginative and something far different than relying on PR Newswire as the channel to communicate these messages to the media.

Following the phone call with NOAA's spokesman, I'm willing to concede that the comment above may have been a bit strong, but I believe it is still appropriate to keep the focus on NOAA's intentions vis-a-vis outreach to the major news media.

The NOAA spokesman said public affairs personnel already are assigned around the clock to be responsive to Tsunami Warning Center personnel, and they are prepared and rehearsed to reach out to appropriate news media -- especially local media when a local tsunami event is detected.

What remains to be coordinated, it appears, is a procedure that involves rapid notification to media with international communications capabilities whenever a huge December 26-like earthquake strikes anywhere in the world. Quakes of that magnitude in tsunami-prone regions of the planet ought to automatically kick in a procedure to inform the media that have global reach -- or so it seems to us.

According to NOAA's spokesman, the American Meteorological Society will hold a meeting in late January in Atlanta, GA, home city of one of those worldwide media companies, CNN. The spokesman said the meeting may be an opportunity to raise these issues with CNN executives, at least one of whom has expressed interest in the problems addressed by this blog since its inception.

'Veil of Secrecy' Lifted on New Tsunami Warning SOP; Draft (Posted Here) To Be Adopted Soon

2005-12-08T15:39:00.000-10:00

NOAA Public Affairs representative Greg Romano today informed this writer that I'm free to publicize and comment upon the draft of NOAA's "Tsunami Warning Center Communications" Standard Operating Procedures. That draft is presented below; comments will be made in a subsequent post. ~DC
Draft *** Draft *** Draft *** Draft

Tsunami Warning Center Communication Procedures

I. Introduction

Whenever either of the two Tsunami Warning Centers issues a bulletin (warning, watch or informational) regarding potential tsunamigenic activity, the following procedures shall be used to coordinate response.

II. Tsunami Center Staff Communication Activity

The following relates specifically to media response ONLY. It does not pertain to any other procedures required of the Tsunami Warning Centers

• Notify by telephone the appropriate Regional Director

• Update voicemail to include brief information on event and direct media inquiries to regional public affairs (script to be provided and possibly have remote access for updates)

• Notify by e-mail/text message NWSH public affairs staff (Regional public affairs officers will also contact HWSH public affairs staff by telephone)

• TWCs shall focus on the event and answer public phone lines to which media have access as time allows.

III. Regional Director Responsibilities

• Notify Regional Public Affairs – if unavailable, notify NWSH Public Affairs

• Work with regional PAO to develop message points/liaison with TWC

• Participate in news briefings

• Conduct one-on-one media interviews in coordination with regional PAO

IV. Regional Public Affairs Officer(s) Responsibility

As soon as possible following issuance of a bulletin:

• Notify NWSH public affairs by telephone

• Write media advisory and distribute via PR newswire (see template; messages: reiterate warning; indicate media will be notified when more information becomes available; advise that briefing will take place once the danger passes/event occurs)

• Follow-up with phone to major media outlets in potentially impacted areas reiterating the content of the media advisory

• Ensure all media at the Tsunami Warning Center are confined to a designed location (i.e., a conference room) so as not to impede operations

As soon as possible when above is completed

• Arrange media briefing for post event/ dangers passes (drafts talking points, coordinates logistics)

V. Headquarters (NWS, OAR, NOS) Public Affairs Responsibilities

• Support/back-up regional PAOs as directed by NWSH public affairs director

• Pitch after event briefings/interviews with national and regional media using national spokespeople as necessary

Note: In the event of a destructive event, HQ PA will immediately send additional staff to assist regional PAOs on site.

The Draft SOP for Notifying the News Media About Tsunamis Is in Circulation -- but Now What?

2005-12-07T13:53:00.000-10:00

To give Jordan St. John of NOAA his due, his email transmitting the draft SOP for "Tsunami Warning Center Communication Procedures" has been sitting here in my in-box since November 17. As Mr. St. John noted in a September email, "the tsunami public affairs team has been developing a set of media notification and response procedures for the two NOAA tsunami centers."

But that note still gives pause: "I'd be happy to share the draft with you for comment, provided you not release nor comment on it publicly until the final procedure is put in place," he wrote.

I agreed to that restriction in order to receive the draft SOP, and I'm continuing to abide by it for now. I'll also provide Mr. St. John with my reaction to his new media-notification procedures.

But what's with the secrecy? Does NOAA really believe that restricting dissemination and comment on the draft will produce a better product in the end? What's the downside for public comment on a media-notification SOP for the tsunami warning centers?

What I can say at this time without violating our agreement is that Mr. St. John and his NOAA colleagues are encouraged to re-read some of the posts to this web log (if they've read any of them at all) -- especially the ones in the first quarter of 2005 that decried the lack of proactive warning center outreach to the news media with worldwide communications networks when a potential tsunami is detected.

My premise is stated time and again in this blog, so it should be easy to find -- a point of view that still seems not to be understood or appreciated by NOAA.

In addition to commenting on the SOP, I'll urge Mr. St. John to relax this prohibition and will leave the issue there for now.

Except for this: Has NOAA invited the international news organizations with instant communications capabilities to tsunami-threatened populations to comment on the SOP? I've asked that question of Mr. St. John and others at NOAA without receiving a response.

If no such sharing has occurred, this SOP has more problems than are already evident to me.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

Patiently Waiting for NOAA's New Plan

2005-11-09T13:24:00.000-10:00

One day at a time, the wait continues for the draft of the new NOAA emergency notification plan, as promised by public affairs chief Jordan St. John.

His offer to review the draft was appreciated, but one can only hope not much more time goes by before something reviewable is presented.

Surely they'll act several weeks before December 26 -- won't they?

Tsunami Lawsuit Over Inadequate Response Gains Media Attention Again as Prosecutors Begin Probe

2005-10-04T06:35:00.000-10:00

Seven months ago today, New York attorney Ed Fagan reportedly filed a lawsuit naming a French hotel chain, the National Weather Service, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) and others as defendents alleging that they failed to adequately warn victims of the December 26 tsunami.

The lawsuit has more or less disappeared from public view, as Fagan faced allegations about his own conduct in unrelated matters. But several stories about the lawsuit have found their way onto the internet in recent weeks, and it appears this lawsuit has been filed and refiled again.

TheAge.com carried an Associated Press story on September 6 saying the lawsuit was filed that day; the story carried no dateline, but the location evidently was Paris, as reported several days later by FindLaw.com. FindLaw's story said prosecutors had opened a preliminary inquiry. An earlier story at News24.com carried Thai authorities' denial that they were negligent "when they failed to issue warnings ahead of December's Indian ocean tsunami...." The Bangkok-datelined story said the plaintiffs' lawyers had filed suit in US District Court for the Southern District of New York on July 29; that assertion will prompt more internet searching in light of the initial reports that the lawsuit was filed in March.

These recent stories did not mention the PTWC as a defendent, but another AP story posted on Honolulu television station KHNL's web site today says the lawsuit alleges the Center "did not do enough to protect people from the December 26th tsunami...."

The lawsuit may just be the inevitable sideshow fallout one expects after nearly every disaster, but it conceivably could affect the revision of NOAA's media-notification procedures when tsunamis are suspected by the PTWC's personnel. We're still waiting for the draft of those new procedures (see September 22 post below).

NOAA Public Affairs Chief Says New Tsunami Warning Procedures Are Nearly Completed

2005-09-22T16:05:00.000-10:00

This web log has been in a holding pattern for the past four months as we've waited on information on the status of NOAA's new procedures to spread the word when a tsunami is suspected. We feel the case has been made for including a few of the major networked news media outlets -- AP, CNN, BBC, Reuters -- in the earliest notification (see everything back to January 2 on this blog).

That wait ended today with the receipt of an e-mail from Jordan St. John, the agency's public affairs chief:

My apologies for not responding earlier. As you know from your
conversations with Greg Romano, the tsunami public affairs team has been developing a set of media notification and response procedures for the two NOAA tsunami centers.

I believe he also indicated that a draft was under operational review.
Based on that review, we are modifying the procedures slightly and
expect to have an initial operational buyoff sometime in the next few
weeks.

At that time, I’d be happy to share the draft with you for comment,
provided you not release nor comment on it publicly until the final
procedure is put in place.

Thank you for your interest in NOAA and this important issue.

Jordan St. John

It remains to be seen what "slightly" modified procedures look like. Would including the news media in early notification be a slight shift in policy? It would seem to be bigger than that, so this initial piece of news isn't all that encouraging.

We look forward to seeing the draft and will abide by Mr. Jordan's request to not publicize it , even though we responded to him urging transparency in the process. More rather than fewer eyes on the draft communications policy presumably would craft a better product.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

New Tsunami Communication Plan Is Making the Rounds; Katrina's Lessons Become Obvious

2005-09-01T15:30:00.000-10:00

• For a new companion web log on Hurricane Katrina's lessons, go here.

Hurricane Katrina's unbelievable aftermath has the full attention of NOAA's personnel, and that's certainly to be respected. My public affairs contact nevertheless took a moment to e-mail the news that the first draft of a new communications protocol to handle tsunami information dissemination is under review by NOAA's Hawaii and Alaska regional directors. He hoped for feedback by September 2, but that may be too much to ask due to the hurricane.

The new web log referenced above poses questions that might well be addressed to any community's disaster planning experts after they're modified to fit local circumstances. The New Orleans experience suggests that despite all the hoopla about pre-planning to handle any emergency, all that planning produced dreadful results.

NOAA's tsunami experts worked long and hard to justify their actions after the December tsunami, and this web log has suggested alternative actions that may have saved lives. There's zero chance Gulf Coast disaster management personnel will get away with a similar performance, and critics have every right to press hard for explanations.

Perhaps Katrina's legacy will be an end to the we-have-it-handled attitude that disaster planners always seem to evoke after natural disasters. Never again should citizens blindly accept those assurances. Katrina surely tells us that much.

NOAA has been busy, I'm told, but not to worry; new guidelines are coming, new guidelines are...

2005-08-12T08:25:00.000-10:00

It's been two months since a letter was dispatched to NOAA's public affairs chief inquiring about the agency's new and improved tsunami media-notification procedures, and still no response. This seems somewhat remarkable in light of the fact that NOAA's administrator was much speedier in his response to similar inquiries.

Nevertheless, I'm told by a NOAA public affairs spokesman that my letter hasn't simply been brushed off. "We've been extremely busy" is the explanation, and something may be coming out soon on NOAA's new procedures, which are long overdue.

This web log has said pretty much everything it needs to say about the need for new procedures. Visitors are invited to grind your way through the rationale, beginning with the first post in early January.

NOAA is invited to refresh its collective memory, too. It's all there -- especially details on the failure to have a Standard Operating Procedure in place to contact the mass media as a logical communication channel to a mass audience scattered around the Indian Ocean.

If the new and improved procedures don't include direct contact with the major international mass media, NOAA had better have a good explanation, because not only this writer but residents of the nations where thousands perished will want to hear it.

Six Weeks Later, No Response from the PR Guy

2005-07-25T13:57:00.000-10:00

We've taken a six-week break from Tsunami Lessons for some travel and had hoped to have a letter from Jordan St. John, NOAA's public affairs chief, in the accumulated mail upon our return. No such luck.

So we'll attempt to prod a response from Mr. St. John with some answers to the questions posed in our letter. They're legitimate quetions and deserve a response from the spokesman for this public agency.

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

2005-06-10T15:24:00.000-10:00

• 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

NOAA Chief Says Communications Policy Is Under Review, May Lead to Improved Media Contact

2005-05-22T10:21:00.000-10:00

•Report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (March 26)

In a letter dated May 17, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr. responded to most of the questions sent to him in early April requesting clarification on NOAA’s communications policies for issuing tsunami warnings using the major mass media.

The letter reiterates some of what we already knew about how NOAA and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) react to suspected tsunamis by issuing bulletins over a large network of electronic services.

But Lautenbacher also states: “Since the December 26, 2004, tsunami, NOAA’s Public Affairs 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.”

It’s possible I missed it in the past five months, but this is the first definitive statement I can recall that mentions what likely is a sweeping reexamination and revamping of NOAA’s communications protocols.

This obviously is a positive development and should temper somewhat the criticism directed at Lautenbacher and his agency for their early defense of protocols and procedures in place on December 26, 2004. On January 11, in a visit to the PTWC, Lautenbacher called the staff’s actions “excellent” and, according to a Honolulu Star-Bulletin story on his visit, faithful to the warning procedures in place.

It now appears new warning procedures are in the works, which is the bottom-line outcome this web log has advocated since January 2.

Lautenbacher’s letter follows; my comments are not inserted between his paragraphs but instead are referenced where appropriate within his text and listed following the letter.

Dear Mr. Carlson:

Thank you for your letter regarding the tsunami of December 26, 2004, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) media response.

NOAA recognizes the media as an important conduit of information in times of natural disasters. The Pacific and West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Centers, like all of NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) offices, maintains procedures for communicating watches, warnings, and bulletins to the media via high speed electronic means.

Many members of the international media receive bulletins and warnings through our Family of Services subscriptions, NOAA Weather Wire, the Emergency Managers Weather Information Network, and through the Emergency Alert System. Warnings and watches are delivered with the highest priority on these systems. Customers, including the media, set subsequent priority for viewing, alerting for, or displaying products. [1]

Information in bulletins, particularly words capable of causing a public response, is crafted with the help of civil authorities in the potentially affected areas. In the case of international products, NOAA must be especially diligent about coordinating the wording of bulletins and warnings to avoid interfering with the sovereign authority of foreign governments. This is especially true with the tsunami products. Compared to severe weather events, the science of tsunami warnings is still imprecise. [2]

No NOAA or NWS policy prohibits a forecast office or center from proactively contacting media regarding a watch, warning, or bulletin. However, NOAA policy requires our offices to treat all entities “fair and equitably,” (to view the policy, see http://www.noaa.gov/partnershippolicy/). A pool operation of the type you mention is used by NOAA’s National Hurricane Center. [3]

We must remember not all countries in the Indian Ocean transmit tide gauge data, and only a few water level gauges transmit data from the region. Without such data, or a tsunami-detecting buoy, NOAA scientists have no way to detect or verify whether a tsunami was generated.

Since the December 26, 2004, tsunami, NOAA’s Public Affairs 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. [4]

With respect to your question about the decrease in lag time between the earthquake events of December 26, 2004, and March 28, 2005, and their respective tsunami information bulletins, the difference is due to a number of changes, including the following:

• Affected countries in the Indian Ocean requested, and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) as well as the Japan Meteorological Agency agreed to provide, interim warning guidance to the region until it establishes its own warning capabilities;
• The initial estimated magnitude for the March 28, 2005, event was 8.5. The initial estimate for the December 26, 3004, event was 8.0, reevaluated at 8.5, 65 minutes after the earthquake occurred. [5]

The initial bulletin issued on March 28, 2005, indicated the earthquake had the potential to generate a tsunami. The additional procedures designed for the Indian Ocean and implemented by the scientists at the (PTWC) on March 28, 2005, are appropriate given our experience with the December 26, 2004, event and our long experience with international tsunami warning responsibilities in the Pacific. [6]

We share the same goal of saving lives. I appreciate your concerns and comments. Should you have any further questions, please contact NOAA’s Public Affairs Director, Jordan St. John, at (202) 482-6090.

Sincerely,

/signature/
Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr.
Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere

cc: Senator Daniel K. Inouye

Comments

[1] Inarguably, NOAA and the NWS have a vast array of electronic networks with which to disseminate tsunami bulletins, but as noted in the list of questions sent to Lautenbacher, there’s reason to question whether the media act universally upon the bulletins after they’ve been sent. One Honolulu journalist says the PTWC’s bulletins are inserted automatically and unobtrusively into the news wire that services Hawaii’s media, including broadcast stations, with no special notification to alert newsrooms. Lautenbacher’s letter does not answer the question pertinent to this issue: “Are urgent tsunami-related messages differentiated in any way from the routine?” The ultimate differentiation for warnings about impending calamitous events would be a telephone call made under pre-coordinated and rehearsed protocols to a handful of key media outlets with world-wide communication capabilities. Point [2] below shows that considerable coordination would be required internationally.

[2] March 23 and 25 posts to this blog highlighted the “control” issue. The final communiqué of the early-March Paris conference on the creation of a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean included this paragraph: “Agree that the Member States should have the responsibility to have control over the issuance of warning within their respective territories….” On its surface, this point seems like a reasonable acknowledgement of a Member State’s sovereignty, but does this mean that media such as the BBC and CNN are not to carry confirmed reports of a tsunami that is approaching the shores of a Member State? More thinking on the “control” issue is indicated.

[3] Lautenbacher disavows the existence of a NWS policy that “won’t allow” the PTWC to directly contact the news media via the telephone. Center Director Charles McCreery first alluded to a possible prohibition during my March 25 visit, a report of which is linked above. Since we must take Lautenbacher at his word that no such prohibition exists, we’re left to examine what his admonition “to treat all (media) entities ‘fair and equitably’” really means. I don't think it means that since you can't call everyone, you can't call anyone. His acknowledgement that media pools already are standard fare for NOAA at the National Hurricane Center should result in NOAA considering them for the issuance of tsunami warnings.

[4] This is the letter’s most important paragraph in my estimation. NOAA clearly has backed away from the mindset that drove Lautenbacher’s testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation at its February 2 hearings on S.50, The Tsunami Preparedness Act of 2005. As noted in a February 3 post, Lautenbacher’s testimony contained the following in a space of four paragraphs on page 4: “It is not the Center’s responsibility to issue local tsunami warnings from seismic events outside of the United States.” “NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers have no authority or responsibility to issue tsunami warnings for the Indian Ocean basin.” “As the Indian Ocean is outside the NOAA tsunami area of responsibility, NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers have no procedures in place to issue a warning for this region.” Authorized or not, NOAA obviously has a different stance today than it did within the first two months after the tsunami. The ongoing review of its procedures is a good development.

[5] and [6] Not to hammer this point to death, but as noted in a March 30 post, scientists acknowledged after the March 28 earthquake that quakes of 8.0 magnitude are generally known to be potentially tsunami-producing. I respectfully recommend that NOAA put less energy into explaining away its actions on December 26 and vigorously pursue the aforementioned policy review.

Summary

Admiral Lautenbacher has clarified some points and opened other issues for continued examination. The fact that a policy review is ongoing suggests there’s still time for outsiders to influence the outcome.

The issue of Member States’ sovereignty over tsunami warnings within their territories is thorny, but national sovereignty in this century isn’t what it used to be. Giving here and there on that point in favor of allowing life-saving messages to be transmitted into one’s country might just be the most noble thing a president or national sovereign could do for his or her people.

I thank Admiral Lautenbacher for addressing most of the points in my April letter. Now that the policy review has been officially mentioned, it can be the focus of this blog and the efforts of others to improve tsunami communications. I invite readers to post your comments on Lautenbacher's letter by clicking the link below.

Restating the Tsunami Warning Issues & Questions as NOAA Shifts Focus to '05 Hurricane Season

2005-05-17T09:44:00.000-10:00

•Report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (March 26)

As the December tsunami continues to fade into the background buzz, NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher Jr. and his associates have been all over the media this week with their forecasts for hurricane season, which begins in three weeks. Regions vulnerable to hurricanes – the Gulf and East Coast states and Hawaii – are well served by NOAA’s work in hurricane forecasting and tracking.

I’m sure NOAA has not lost interest in learning the lessons of the tsunami so procedures can be improved. Any perceived criticism of NOAA here is not directed at the agency’s scientific capabilities. We’ve been focused on what NOAA does with the information gathered from its science – specifically, whether current policies and practices allow communication of tsunami warnings via the news media, which arguably represent the fastest channel to populations in danger thousands of miles away.

Because we have reason to believe policies do exist that prevent the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) from directly contacting the news media (see report on my visit to the Center, linked above), the following 10 questions were sent to Admiral Lautenbacher in April. I trust that someone is attending to the answers, even as the agency works to raise awareness about the hurricane threat.

Here are the questions in the April 5 letter to Admiral Lautenbacher:

• Is there a policy that deliberately curtails PTWC contact with the media?
• If so, where is that policy to be found in writing?
• 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 Honolulu journalist in a position to know says PTWC bulletins are inserted automatically and unobtrusively into the Associated Press's "state" wire, with no special notification 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. Did a policy change at NOAA, NWS and/or PTWC result in the shorter time?

NOAA In No Hurry To Respond, but Get This: Inouye's Office Has Been Waiting for 3.5 Years!

2005-05-11T16:37:00.000-10:00

"I'll check." That was the totality of a NOAA staffer's response to my inquiry about when to expect an answer from Admiral Lautenbacher to my April 5 letter. Call me crazy, but I thought the issues we've been discussing had an urgency about them and that an answer might come rather quickly.

But then I got this note from a staffer in Senator Daniel Inouye's office about what to expect from NOAA: "...the senator would be pleased to make an inquiry on your behalf, but please keep in mind that I am still waiting on NOAA reports the senator asked for about 3 1/2 years ago."

Three and one-half years? Is that the way it works in Washington these days? One of the Senate's longest-serving members has been waiting three and one-half years to get a report out of NOAA?

And I'm getting antsy after five weeks. That's almost funny.

Honolulu's Mayor Weighs In, Says He'll Write Senator Inouye re NOAA Media-Contact Reform

2005-05-04T17:08:00.000-10:00

•Report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (March 26)
•May 9 Update: Still waiting on Lautenbacher letter (see April 28)

Office of the Mayor
City and County of Honolulu

April 27, 2005

Dear Doug,

Thank you for your letter of April 17, 2005. At your suggestion, I will be happy to write Senator Inouye asking him to support communications reform within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC).

Given the devastating travesty that occurred in the Indian Ocean region on December 26, 2004, any way to improve early warning should be instituted.

Thank you for alerting me to this opportunity, as I am pleased to assist.

Sincerely,

/signature/
MUFI HANNEMANN
Mayor

MediaChannel.org Boosts this Blog's Visibility**

2005-05-02T10:57:00.000-10:00

•Report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (March 26)

Danny Schechter is a television producer and independent filmmaker who writes and speaks about media issues. He’s editor and "blogger in chief" of MediaChannel.org.

The TSUNAMI LESSONS blog came to his attention after he published a March 30 column on his NewsDissector.org site titled Tsunami Questions, Few Answers. One question we're both interested in is how the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center uses the news media to communicate tsunami messages to populations in danger. Turns out, it doesn't. (See above link to the report on my visit to the Center.)

Danny has enthusiastically supported our search for answers and asked me to write a commentary for MediaChannel.org. It’s currently (5/2) headlined at that site’s home page, with a link to the commentary: The Media Are Excluded from Transmitting Tsunami Warnings, and They Don’t Care.

** FOR EXAMPLE: Saying "it still rankles to know that the deaths could have been prevented," Indian Online Journalism quotes the MediaChannel.org commentary in an item titled "the death game".

Mahalo for your support, Danny.

Meanwhile, the wait continues for Admiral Lautenbacher's response to the request he revoke policies that inhibit direct distribution of tsunami warnings to the news media (see April 28 post). (UPDATE ON 5/5: Still waiting.)

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

No Response Yet from NOAA's Lautenbacher on Reported Prohibition of Direct Media Contact

2005-04-28T12:59:00.000-10:00

•Report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (March 26 post)
•Qualifications to write about this stuff (see January 13 post)

It’s been three weeks since NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher, Jr. was sent a letter about his agency’s alleged prohibition of direct (telephonic) media contacts to issue tsunami warnings. We’re left to wonder whether his response will repudiate communications protocols that actually prohibit telephone calls to major international news media to issue urgent warnings.

I would hope reporters everywhere would react the way I did upon learning of this policy – with incredulity. Newcomers to this site are encouraged to read the letter here as well as the questions it contained at a separate posting.

For a two-part report on my March 25 visit and meeting with the director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center that first revealed the policy, click on the link above.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

McCreery Reports on Informal Mauritius Talks; Officially, Media Bulletins Still a Distant Goal

2005-04-26T15:26:00.000-10:00

•Report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (March 26)
•Letter to NOAA’s administrator with Eleven Questions (April 8 & 3)
•National Weather Service "won't allow" phone calls to media (March 31)
•Qualifications to write about this stuff (see January 13)

Pacific Tsunami Warning Center Director Charles McCreery is back in Honolulu following the Mauritius tsunami warning conference. He reports a growing awareness among people in tsunami warning circles that direct contact with the media soon after a tsunami is suspected should be the subject of more discussion.

As noted here, international agreements seem to discourage media involvement in disseminating tsunami warnings to local populations (see March 23 and March 25 posts). But McCreery said yesterday that after he raised the issue at the Mauritius meeting, several attendees approached him and agreed that involving the media in tsunami warnings more than they are now is an important issue.

McCreery told his Mauritius audience that since the media are going to learn about tsunami warnings and bulletins anyway, perhaps it’s better to communicate directly with them to exert influence over how the warning is handled. “If you’re concerned about not having the public unnecessarily alarmed,” he said, “maybe what we need to do is craft language that specifically goes to the media that would spell out the uncertainties and refer them to the national authorities.”

The meeting’s final report is expected to include language on the media-contact issue that was drafted by McCreery. That report will be available around May 10.

The Associated Press -- ready to report the news

Today’s lunch with the Associated Press’s Honolulu bureau chief covered issues we’ve previously kicked around only in e-mail and phone calls. Dave Briscoe said the AP won’t be a party to an “official tsunami warning system,” and that’s understandable. The AP is a news-gathering organization, not a partner with government.

Briscoe affirmed the AP’s obvious role as a reporter and disseminator of news, and if McCreery’s Center wants to improve its communications links to the media for future tsunami warnings, the AP could only welcome the effort.

Chip McCreery: If you’re reading this, the number for the Honolulu AP bureau is 536-5510, but since he probably isn't, I’ll be in touch.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
April 26, 2005

Not Much Is Happening, but Stand By....

2005-04-22T16:07:00.000-10:00

•Report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (see March 26 posts)
It’s been eight days since this log’s latest post -- the longest gap since we started down this path in early January. Sometimes it’s best to just shut up and let events develop as they may. For example:

• Pacific Tsunami Warning Center Director Charles McCreery was due back in Hawaii today after attending meetings in Mauritius and Thailand. We’ve not yet connected, but I’m anxious to follow up on his e-mail (see April 14 post) and learn more about his colleagues’ reaction to the issues he raised last week at the tsunami warning conference.

• A NOAA representative e-mailed today that Admiral Lautenbacher’s office will get off a response soon to my letter that had about a dozen questions regarding NOAA’s communications protocols (April 8).

• Also percolating is a response to my previously unmentioned April 15 letter to Senator Daniel Inouye asking his position on the alleged prohibition on direct media contact by the Warning Center (March 31) and on recommended amendments to S.50, The Tsunami Preparedness Act of 2005 (February 12). Support by Hawaii’s senior senator will be crucial to changing communications procedures to include the international news media in sending tsunami warnings.

• About 170 Hawaii business leaders have been asked by letter to visit this blog and, if they agree that a bit more common sense is called for in how warnings are disseeminated, to write Senator Inouye noting their support. (No illusions here about how many will follow through, but maybe we'll get a few more pairs of eyes on this site, and that can't hurt.)

• The Associated Press's Honolulu bureau chief and I are having lunch next week to chew the fat.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

Breakthrough in Mauritius? McCreery Talks Up Media Involvement for Issuing Tsunami Warnings

2005-04-14T16:41:00.000-10:00

•Status of letter to NOAA's Lautenbacher: Awaiting his response (see April 8 post)
•National Weather Service "won't allow" phone calls to media ( March 31 post)
•Report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center ( March 26 posts)
Could it be we’re actually getting somewhere?

Dr. Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, writes today from the Tsunami Warning Conference in Mauritius that he has introduced the idea of partnering with the media to issue tsunami warnings. As noted in numerous posts here, the media essentially are not in the loop under current communications protocols.

McCreery responded to an e-mail I sent earlier today asking if he still intended to raise the subject, as he indicated he would when we met on March 25 (see post immediately below). He said there has a been a cautious – but not negative – response from his colleagues. A representative from the World Meteorological Association reportedly said the agency has been working on this issue for years regarding major weather events and that tsunami scientists might benefit from their experience.

“Breakthrough” is too strong a word, but “progress” isn’t. Chip McCreery has made a move in Mauritius. He’ll have more to report either by e-mail or when he returns to Hawaii.

Postscript

We're about half-way through "Tsunami Awareness Month" in Hawaii, and the news media are pretty much ignoring it. They're also apparently ignoring the questions e-mailed to 28 Hawaii journalists, the answers to which would be helpful in understanding just how the PTWC sends its tsunami warnings to the media (see April 3 post).

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

New Month, New Meeting; Mauritius Conference Focuses on New Indian Ocean Warning System

2005-04-14T10:17:00.000-10:00

•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

NOAA's Lautenbacher Urged to Clarify Media Contact Policy & Revoke Any Existing Prohibitions

2005-04-08T05:25:00.000-10:00

(see March 26 posts for report on a visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center)
The danger for one-topic web logs like this one is that they end up saying the same thing a couple hundred times, with variations here and there. The topic here concerns ensuring that the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has common-sense media-contact policies that save lives, so I don't mind if you don't.

Here's the heart of the issue, as posted since March 26: Do policies actually exist that prohibit the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center from using the mass media to transmit urgent warnings to countries and populations thousands of miles away? Hard as it may be to believe, that's what I was told by the Center's director during my March 25 visit.

A list of questions prompted by that visit is now headed to NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher, Jr. Here's the letter:

Dear Admiral Lautenbacher:

On March 25 I visited the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center at the invitation of its director, Dr. Charles McCreery. I have been writing for the past three months (see web log address above) regarding the absence of a media strategy to issue a tsunami warning to the Indian Ocean region following the December earthquake.

I'm aware that the region is outside the Center's traditional area of responsibility; however, the tremendous loss of life seemingly calls for a policy review and change that would ensure the involvement of major international news media in the issuance of tsunami warnings to populations in peril many thousands of miles away.

Since news organizations such as the Associated Press, CNN, Reuters and the BBC have worldwide networks and are equipped to transmit information quickly, their involvement soon after the December earthquake quite likely could have alerted some Indian Ocean nations to the onrushing tsunami in time to save lives.

Dr. McCreery responded to my inquiries about the absence of a proactive media-contact strategy (i.e., no telephone calls with urgent messages) by saying the National Weather Service “won't allow” such contact. He said the Center would not want to exclude some media in making a limited number of calls. I did not argue the issue but could have noted that the media routinely engage in “pools” to cover events.

If a policy truly does exist that inhibits the rapid transmission of tsunami warnings using the news media, I urge you to personally revoke it. Dr. McCreery's assertion raises other questions about NOAA's media strategy and policies that have been asked by numerous sources since December, and I respectfully ask that your office address the following:

(see April 3 post for the questions)

You and I and everyone else concerned about tsunami warnings have the same goal - to save lives - yet nothing the PTWC knew or did in December achieved that goal. As I wrote in a letter to The Honolulu Advertiser published on December 30, the Indian Ocean tsunami deserves as much reflection as people of goodwill can possibly give it. To do anything less than an exhaustive after-action analysis would be both irresponsible and disrespectful to the dead.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

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

2005-04-03T10:00:00.000-10:00

(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

Following Quake-Related Flurry, Attention Turns to NOAA and NWS Media-Contact Policy

2005-03-31T15:12:00.000-10:00

(see March 26 posts for report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center)
Media reports this week revealed heightened tsunami awareness in the Indian Ocean region. An Associated Press dispatch from Bangkok: “Within minutes of the earthquake, the word went out: Radio and television stations repeated government warnings, workers at beachfront hotels pounded on doors to awaken guests, and police used loudspeakers to urge residents away from the sea.”

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reacted differently, too, as noted here in a March 28 post. Its first bulletin mentioned a possible tsunami just 19 minutes after the quake, or three-quarters of an hour quicker than in December. And judging from tons of media coverage, PTWC scientists were more successful this time in alerting colleagues and government agencies through e-mails and telephone calls.

This blog continues to speculate, though, about how the Center contacted the media on Monday. We have to speculate because we don’t know much about its media-contact protocols.

What we do know is remarkable

During my visit to the Center on March 25, Director Charles McCreery told me the National Weather Service “won’t allow” the Center to make telephone calls to the news media – i.e., no calls like the ones they made to their scientific colleagues in the region on Monday (see PTWC Visit, Part 2).

The reason, McCreery said, is that if you call some news media, you have to call them all. That reason won’t hold water, of course, and any competent news professional could map out a plan in minutes that would satisfy this alleged concern. The media “pool” their efforts all the time.

A policy that inhibits the transmission of tsunami warnings is indefensible. Maybe McCreery is misinformed or inadvertently misinformed me, but his assertion is on the table and must be addressed. Here are questions I’ve sent to a NOAA communications representative in Silver Springs, MD:

• Is there a policy that deliberately curtails PTWC contact with the media for the stated reason or any other?
• If so, where is that policy to be found in writing?
• Is there a 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?
• Just how does the Center send tsunami alerts to the news media?
• 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 messages differentiated in any way from the routine? If so, how is attention drawn to them?

On second thought, these questions should be directed to NOAA's leadership. I'll route a letter to Admiral Lautenbacher through Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye's Washington office.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

PBS's "NOVA" Show Disappointing; Tsunami Program Offers More Hand-Wringing, Little Else

2005-03-30T00:05:00.000-10:00

(see March 26 posts for report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center)
This was the depth of last night’s NOVA program -- “Wave that shook the world” -- about the December tsunami:

Near the end of the show a seismologist intoned that an effective tsunami warning system has three parts – buoys, public education and research. Buoys we understand, public education seems obvious enough and maybe so does research.

But where does the actual “warning” part fit in this list? Where’s the proactive effort that saves lives, the part missing on December 26?

I listened closely and took notes and don’t think I heard “news media” or “radio” or “television” mentioned once. Why? Because this was a show about and by scientists, and it’s obvious by now that the scientists who own the tsunami warning system don’t think the media have a role in the warning plan.

As for hand-wringing, we’ve seen it all before – the lack of Indian Ocean points of contact, nobody to call, nothing to do, we did all we could, etc. In light of 300,000 dead people in the region, this line is getting more than a little old. It appears a great deal of time has been spent on explaining why scientists couldn’t save lives on December 26, with little effort focused on what they might have done had a media plan been in place.

Again, the question must be asked: Where are NOAA's communications GS-whatevers and what are they doing to improve low-tech media-related tsunami warnings? If they have a work plan for improved communications, what is it, and how are they spending their time?

Which brings me to……

If the Media Are Great at Telling PTWC's Story, Can't They Do the Same for Tsunami Warnings?

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center’s response to Monday’s earthquake was much better than in December. Just ask the staff.

Reporters did ask, and the results are on hundreds of Internet news sites.

Not to be too cynical about it, but if the media can be used to transmit PTWC’s story all over the world, shouldn’t they have a role in transmitting tsunami warnings, too? Can it be, as suggested by the Center's director last week (see March 26 posts), that the PTWC is prohibited from engaging the media more energetically? It seems implausible, but that's what he said...and it's a subject worthy of follow-up with NOAA and the National Weather Service.

The PTWC may believe the system worked better this week, but there are still gaps in getting the information to the ultimate consumers – men, women and children on the ground. The Christian Science Monitor’s on-line story today makes that clear:

“Among the countries with quicker responses were Thailand and Sri Lanka. Thai police with loudspeakers fanned out to order thousands of residents and tourists to evacuate. Slower on the draw were India and Indonesia. India's tsunami warning came at 11:30 p.m., nearly two hours after the quake. In Indonesia, thousands of coastal residents didn't wait for government warnings. They felt the quake and fled.”

Two-hour delay? The news media can move tsunami alerts and advisories to radio and television stations in affected countries within minutes. The story also describes the success of “low-tech” methods in Phuket, Thailand. “People were telling each other and banging on doors…. It worked pretty well, even though the warning system isn’t in place yet,” said a newspaper editor.

Here’s a simple communications model: PTWC contacts Media Agencies which transmit to their Broadcast Clients which broadcast to the Public. That might take 15 minutes at most.

NOAA’s communications professionals – who are doing a good job polishing PTWC’s image – would presumably do an equally fine job creating communications plans built around that model.

Aftershock – A Sea of Bafflement

Judging from on-line stories filed since Monday’s earthquake, a major media theme is the bafflement, puzzlement and amazement of scientists that the quake didn’t generate a tsunami.

Anyone who has watched more than a few hours of the Science Channel might be amazed at their amazement. Even lay people know horizontal shifts in the earth’s plates or quakes deep in the mantel -- as NOVA reported Tuesday night -- might not trigger tsunamis.

More to the point, scientists freely acknowledged this week that earthquakes of 8.0 magnitude or more usually generate major tsunamis. Their each and every quote keeps alive questions about why that general understanding didn’t immediately trigger a tsunami alert in December, why it took 65 minutes for a bulletin to mention the possible tsunami for the first time.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 30, 2005

Q: To Contact a Fishing Village, What’s Faster – an E-mail to an Official or a Radio Broadcast?

2005-03-29T07:23:00.000-10:00

(see March 26 posts for report on visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center)
Yesterday’s earthquake produced no killer tsunami, but it could have reinforced a mindset among Pacific Tsunami Warning Center scientists that may impede the flow of information to distant populations.

The big story today coming out of the PTWC is that it was perfectly able to communicate with the Indian Ocean region. The Honolulu Advertiser’s story quotes a geophysicist:

“We had phone numbers and we had e-mail addresses from places that had contacted us after the big December earthquake so we had lots of numbers. This time around we had people to contact and we called everybody very quickly. Instead of having no one to talk to we had lots of people to talk to.”

But if the whole point of the communications effort is to inform potentially endangered people and save their lives, how sensible is it to rely exclusively on intermediaries in the system without also using the mass media?
A Honolulu Star-Bulletin story quotes PTWC Director Charles McCreery as saying the Center had more success in communicating with the Indian Ocean region after Monday's quake than it did in December "...so they can take some action and get people out of harm's way."

A suggestion for the mainstream media: Ask authorities in the region how or if they did that. How many of the e-mails carrying the PTWC’s first bulletin at 11:29 p.m. local time in the region were read at that hour? How many phone calls got through to their intended targets around midnight? And if they did get through, what did those recipients do with the information at that hour – sit on it or pass it on? And if they passed it on, how long did that take, what form did it take and was the information useful to individual citizens?

Asking the “What If?” Question

There was no tsunami of consequence, but what if there had been? Would populations at risk have been alerted to their peril at midnight? What systems were in place for those recipient agencies to communicate to the ultimate consumers of the PTWC’s information?

This may be at the heart of the matter: If you ask the PTWC who it serves, the first answer is the Member States in the Pacific Tsunami Warning System. Since December 26 there’s been a grudging acknowledgement that although it’s not the PTWC’s job to alert “outside” nations, they also can benefit from PTWC-generated information.

But judging by PTWC officials’ comments, that’s where it stops. They don’t see the individual in the seaside village as a link in the official communications chain. And that’s why early involvement of the international news media doesn’t have much of a priority within NOAA.

The mass media must be engaged early to ensure that life-saving information can flow throughout a threatened region no matter what happens in government agencies there. The danger is that the apparent satisfaction that all went well on March 28 may delay the PTWC's stated intention to open a dialogue with the media (see March 26 posts).

Aftershocks

Each one of these incidents prompts questions that deserve downstream attention by mainstream media. For example:

PTWC Director McCreery expresses surprise in the Advertiser article that Monday’s 8.7 earthquake didn’t generate a tsunami because, he is paraphrased as saying, earthquakes 8.0 and stronger usually generate major tsunamis.

But three months ago this expectation about 8.0 and higher earthquakes seems to have been absent. NOAA’s timeline for the December 26 earthquake says that 11 minutes after the initial shock the PTWC “initially underestimated the size as around a magnitude 8.0.” Yet no mention was made of a possible tsunami until 65 minutes after the quake, and scientists were quoted repeatedly saying they first learned of the tsunami from news reports.

Why did scientists wait 54 minutes before transmitting their presumed expectation of a tsunami in a bulletin? Has the PTWC adjusted its procedures since December? What other adjustments have been made in the Center’s standard operating procedures?

The Advertiser story reinforces the widespread notion that PTWC scientists telephoned their colleagues even before the December tsunami reached some countries in the Indian Ocean region:

When the earthquake struck on Dec. 26, the warning center staff said it frantically tried to contact Indian Ocean nations of a potential disaster. But with only two clients in the Indian Ocean – Australia and Indonesia – and no contact list, valuable time was lost. They worked for hours, sounding warnings as the tsunami swept across the vast ocean basin with deadly results.

Here again is the description of scientists who suspected a tsunami unsuccessfully trying to contact people in the region before the tsunami arrived.

PTWC Director Charles McCreery adamantly disputed a similar point I made during my March 25 visit to the PTWC (March 26 posts). Are all these reporters making it up? Not likely. Are they relying on a new “urban legend” about the the December tsunami? Maybe so, but to fully understand the recent past, the issue deserves to be clarified and resolved.

Yesterday’s earthquake thankfully did not generate a tsunami and it hopefully did not sweep away questions that must be answered about the PTWC’s communications readiness.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 29, 2005

Today's Quake Was Predicted 2 Weeks Ago

2005-03-28T12:30:00.000-10:00

Seismologists are getting better at calling their shots:

Paris (March 16) - Seismologists say there is a heightened risk that a major earthquake may soon strike the western coast of Sumatra as a result of the monster quake that generated the December 26 tsunami. The Indonesian city of Bandar Aceh, which was already badly hit by the killer wave, could be at risk from a quake measuring up to 7.5 on the Richter scale and there is a potential for a tsunami-making 8.5 quake offshore, they warn.

Now that he has our attention, Professor John McCloskey is saying today another massive quake is to be expected in the region.

Today’s Earthquake – A Chance to See What Changes, if Any, Have Been Made Since December

2005-03-28T10:45:00.000-10:00

The Indian Ocean has now had two 8.7 or higher earthquakes in the past three months. It’s only natural to ask whether procedures to warn the region of a potential tsunami were different for today’s quake than they were in December.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center's first mention of a possible tsunami today was contained in its first bulletin, issued just 19 minutes after the earthquake. First mention of a possible tsunami in December didn't occur until one hour and five minutes after the triggering quake. (See this UPI report for a similar comparison.)

The much earlier warning is evidence of shifts in emphasis and perhaps policy within NOAA. What else has changed? With my PTWC visit as background (see the March 26 post), here are questions I’d like to ask its director, Dr. Charles McCreery:

• In addition to the earlier mention today of the tsunami potential, were there any other changes in the NOAA and PTWC warning protocols in effect for today's earthquake?
• What message about today's quake was sent to the news media and in what form? How long did it take for this product to be transmitted to the media? What's the media contact list?
• Was Tsunami Bulletin Number 001, issued at 6:29 a.m. HST, the primary message intended for the media? (See below)
• The warning contained in Bulletin Number 001 (emphasis added below) wasn't given much prominence; in newsroom terms, it was “buried” inside the bulletin. Was any other message sent to the media that accentuated the warning about a potential tsunami?
• What communication channels exist or have been established recently to facilitate messages from the Indian Ocean region back to the PTWC?
• If a meteorological agency in the region knows a tsunami has been created, does the PTWC receive a message from that agency – by telephone, e-mail, fax or other means?
• If such a message were received, how would the PTWC react? Would it relay that information to other agencies, to the news media, to anyone?

Today’s first bulletin was issued 19 minutes after the earthquake:

TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 001
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 1629Z 28 MAR 2005

THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN EXCEPT ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.

... TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ...

THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING OR WATCH IN EFFECT.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS

ORIGIN TIME - 1610Z 28 MAR 2005
COORDINATES - 2.3 NORTH 97.1 EAST
LOCATION - NORTHERN SUMATERA INDONESIA
MAGNITUDE - 8.5

EVALUATION

THIS EARTHQUAKE IS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC. NO TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS TO COASTLINES IN THE PACIFIC.

WARNING... THIS EARTHQUAKE HAS THE POTENTIAL TO GENERATE A WIDELY DESTRUCTIVE TSUNAMI IN THE OCEAN OR SEAS NEAR THE EARTHQUAKE. AUTHORITIES IN THOSE REGIONS SHOULD BE AWARE OF THIS POSSIBILITY AND TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION. THIS ACTION SHOULD INCLUDE EVACUATION OF COASTS WITHIN A THOUSAND KILOMETERS OF THE EPICENTER AND CLOSE MONITORING TO DETERMINE THE NEED FOR EVACUATION FURTHER AWAY.

THIS CENTER DOES NOT HAVE SEA LEVEL GAUGES OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC SO WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DETECT OR MEASURE A TSUNAMI IF ONE WAS GENERATED. AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME THE DANGER HAS PASSED IF NO TSUNAMI WAVES ARE OBSERVED IN THE REGION NEAR THE EPICENTER WITHIN THREE HOURS OF THE EARTHQUAKE.

THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.

THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE BULLETINS FOR ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.

PTWC Visit (Part 1): Understanding the Mission, Agreeing to Disagree

2005-03-26T12:33:00.000-10:00

My visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center came off as planned yesterday, the three-month anniversary of the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami. Dr. Charles McCreery, PTWC director, and I talked for two hours and noted at the midpoint that the earthquake had struck at 2:59 HST. McCreery is an effective representative – and sometimes defender – of the PTWC and its procedures, but I came away thinking he is open to improving tsunami alert procedures. It may be a slow process, because some of his comments suggest the PTWC’s collective hands are tied due to policies imposed by superior organizations.

I spent a fair amount of time on the basic premise of this web log – that although PTWC scientists suspected a potentially killer tsunami, there was no mechanism in place to issue a warning directly to people in harm’s way; by extension, 300,000 people died. He made two primary points: 1) the PTWC provides advice but isn’t in a position to know what’s really happening out there in the world. “We have no magic here,” he said. They do their best to interpret, but it’s really an imprecise science when it comes to tsunamis; and 2) it’s not even the PTWC’s responsibility to be watchdog for the whole world. They have neither the resources nor the capability to alert the nations bordering the Indian Ocean. My main point, of course, is that media notification, had it been pre-coordinated, could have been the channel for a warning to the region. Another point is, if not the PTWC, who? The world looks to the building we were sitting in as the leader in tsunami warning capability. As he noted (below), the rest of the world may not be eager for a bigger U.S. role, notwithstanding the PTWC’s expertise.

What Did They Know, When Did They Know It?

McCreery flatly disputed my assertion (made yesterday and throughout the past three months on this log) that PTWC scientists called colleagues in the region before the waves struck Sri Lanka, India and points further west. I told him that was the obvious inference to be made from numerous interviews they’ve given to media all over the world, and I recalled some of the reports.

The very first story that caught my attention in this regard was in the December 29 Honolulu Advertiser; it prompted my initial letter to the editor the next day, leading a few days later to creation of this log. The reporter wrote that PTWC scientists “frantically worked the phones…trying largely in vain to warn Indian Ocean nations of the incoming tsunami disaster.” The most striking description of the scientists’ actions that I’ve found was in the lead of a Chicago Tribune story (posted on January 14): “With a killer tsunami bearing down on Sri Lanka and India at airliner speeds, an effort to save thousands of lives came down to a handful of overworked employees in Hawaii trying to telephone government officials they did not know and did not know how to reach.”

The clear implication is that they did know enough to start making phone calls, but to the wrong people, in my view. McCreery essentially said all these inferences by the media were wrong. He said he constantly is asked by reporters about this alleged “failure” to send a warning, and he says he always straightens them out.

But consider NOAA spokesperson Delores Clark’s comments reported by UPI Pentagon correspondent Pamela Hess and linked from my January 8 post: "The watch standers first learned of the tsunami through the media almost four hours after the earthquake.” (That was Clark’s quote in January and that’s McCreery’s assertion today, but according to NOAA’s timeline, scientists first mentioned the possibility of a tsunami in a bulletin 65 minutes after the earthquake and 41 minutes before the waves arrived in Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. More telling is the continuation of Clark’s statement.) “Following the realization that a massive tsunami had been generated, they did the best job they could to contact authorities. But they were fixed on reaching agencies that have responsibilities for warning such as weather offices or disaster management offices."

NPR’s Christopher Joyce’s report for “Morning Edition” on December 28 included the following: “Other U.S. scientists who monitor earthquakes say when they realized how big the quake really was there was no clear way to get the information to authorities who might have been able to warn people in time." One of his sources said on tape: "There was knowledge that a tsunami was being generated and that information was available, but the problem we ran into was that there were not appropriate agencies in places like India and in Somalia on the East and the Horn of Africa region. There was no system set up by which we could take that information and translate it into actions that the public could react to."

Over and over again scientists have been quoted in apparent exasperation at their inability to translate what they knew or suspected into a usable warning before the waves struck because no system existed to alert the Indian Ocean. I, of course, said the media represent that system and recalled another Delores Clark quote from the UPI story: “Not only was the center focused on warning agencies, it does not have an official list of media contacts.”

Continued.....

PTWC Visit (Part 2): Identifying Areas for Change, Starting with Policy

2005-03-26T12:23:00.000-10:00

Reacting to my repeated assertions about the importance of contacting the media, McCreery made one of his more notable comments: The National Weather Service (NWS) won’t allow the PTWC to call the media; the media have to come to the PTWC. This policy apparently is based on a concern at NWS and NOAA that if the PTWC calls some media, it would have to call them all. So right there is a major policy problem. The PTWC is prohibited by the NWS and possibly NOAA from using the news media as an improved warning channel over what exists today.

That policy needs focus and change. I put it to him: If tomorrow the PTWC detected a 9.5 earthquake in a subduction zone region of the Indian Ocean that assuredly had generated a tsunami, would the PTWC do anything different than what it did on December 25 HST? I.E., have lessons been learned? Are media notification protocols being rewritten? What are NOAA’s communications professionals doing to ensure lives are saved after tomorrow’s earthquake because of what the PTWC knows and does?

Maybe he was just wearing down after nearly two hours along this line, but McCreery started making observations that were encouraging. Without putting him on the spot here in this web log, I think McCreery sees the appropriateness of attempting to warn people when the PTWC detects an imminent danger.

I read him a quote from the Communiqué of the early-March conference in Paris on the establishment of a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean region – “Agree that the Member States should have the responsibility to have control over the issuance of warning within their respective territories;” – and asked McCreery what that means to him. He said the so-called Member States don’t want evacuations within their territories without first having an ability to evaluate a warning from the PTWC or any other source. That’s understandable, but doesn’t this requirement to receive and evaluate warning information simply delay transmission to coastline inhabitants? Couldn’t McCreery raise the implications of the Communiqué at the next planning meeting in Mauritius in April?

McCreery said he indeed could raise the issue and ask the Member States’ representatives what they could live with in the way of alerts from sources such as the Associated Press, CNN, etc., coming into their territories. That truly is encouraging, as the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission -- the United Nations agency coordinating the new tsunami warning effort -- may not deal with the media-notification issue without prompting from someone like McCreery.

We talked about the problem of reaching out to the news media efficiently. Telephonic contact seems unlikely due to the PTWC’s workload, staffing level and the great number of media that logically would need to be reached. McCreery noted that electronic messages are sent routinely to the media about earthquakes and potential tsunamis within the Pacific, so he feels the media already are covered. I told him that the media may receive dozens of such messages a day, so a truly urgent message would need to stand out. Also, a message intended for the Indian Ocean region that requires immediate attention might well be lost in the chatter, which is why I’ve been fixated on telephone contact.

McCreery then asked whether there’s a better way to issue a warning for a tsunami or earthquake outside the PTWC’s priority area. On his own he suggested that perhaps a special electronic product could be created and coordinated with the media – a product that would be used only in extraordinary circumstances to cover situations that aren’t within the PTWC’s normal area of responsibility, such as the Indian Ocean.

The Bottom Line

McCreery seems willing to consider improvements in the warning protocols. When it was put to him that maintaining the status quo in alert procedures would be inconceivable in light of 300,000 deaths in December, he agreed. He asked for the number of the Associated Press’s Honolulu bureau and apparently intends to make at least an initial introductory call that we’ve been urging for several weeks. Contact with CNN for preliminary discussions also seems likely.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 26, 2005

The "Control" Issue May Be Biggest Obstacle

2005-03-25T12:14:00.000-10:00

In less than two hours I'll ask Pacific Tsunami Warning Center Director Dr. Charles McCreery about several fundamental aspects of the tsunami warning issue. One of them is the issue of "control."

Dr. McCreery attended the Paris meeting described in the March 23 post; a report on the meeting linked here contains the following paragraph in the Communique section:

11. Agree that the Member States should have the responsibility to have control over the issuance of warning within their respective territories;

The wording is murky. Does "should have the responsibility to have control" mean "should control", or does it mean something else? Whatever it means, "control" is probably what it's all about.

How can a global tsunami warning issued by one or more international news organizations coexist with this agreed-to control provision of the Communique? Maybe it can't. Maybe the ability to issue an ocean-wide warning minutes after a tsunami is suspected is undercut by the requirement for Member States "to have control over the issuance of warning (sic) within their respective territories."

If that were the case, "control" would seem to trump "effectiveness." Let's hope my visit to the Center today -- exactly three months to the minute after the Indonesia earthquake and resulting tsunami -- dispells that notion.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 25, 2005

Fly in the Ointment: Tsunami Warning Centers Have No Role in Contacting the News Media

2005-03-23T14:46:00.000-10:00

Scores of tsunami and crisis management experts gathered early this month in Paris for a conference on creating a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean region. Buried in the conference report is a description of how tsunami warnings are to be issued – a protocol that this web log believes does not improve on the ineffective warning procedures that were used on December 26.

The International Coordination Meeting for the Development of a Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System for the Indian Ocean within a Global Framework has made its report on the March 3-8 conference available here. Page 43 of the PDF document (#37 in the report itself) makes a statement about the issuance of tsunami warnings that runs 180 degrees counter to the thrust of this web log (emphasis added):

“Tsunami Warning Centres issue warnings based on scientific information, but do not provide instructions to the public for action. This is the responsibility of NDMO (each nation's National Disaster Management focal point/Organization). The NDMO must be able to interpret the warning information to provide clear, simple, and concise instructions to first responders and the affected public. Recipients of warning information include policy and decision-makers, emergency management and emergency responders, media, and the affected public….”

In other words, tsunami instructions/information for the general public must come from an agency within each country that receives the tsunami center’s warning.

Let’s leave that alone for a minute and jump to how the media are treated in this report. Page 15 of the PDF (#9 in the report) states:

“The mass media have a crucial role in assuring wide and effective warning dissemination and awareness raising. Education and training for the media is required….” (The authors must have liked that sentence so much they included it twice, one sentence after the other.)

So while the mass media are considered crucial in disseminating urgent warnings to mass audiences, the tsunami warning centers “do not provide instructions to the public for action.” Information about an approaching tsunami must come from another agency down the communications chain.

In the Indian Ocean region, that means 27 NDMOs will be critical links in that chain in transmitting tsunami information to the hundreds of millions of people living near the ocean in those countries.

There’s a Better Way

As this blog has consistently advised, the international news media should be contacted by warning centers as soon as the centers suspect a tsunami has been generated. One call to the Associated Press and/or CNN – authenticated for trustworthiness – could result in the dissemination of a tsunami warning over international electronic networks and radio broadcasts to distant populations WITHIN MINUTES!

Contrast that speed with the mish-mash of warnings that likely would emanate from 27 disparate nations around the Indian Ocean – from Australia to Yemen, with Madagascar, Mauritius and Myanmar in between.

A Visit to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center

I intend to press this point when I visit the Center on March 25 at the invitation of Dr. Charles McCreery. His graciousness in light of the criticism his Center has received from some quarters (particularly the lawsuit's attorneys) over the past three months is appreciated. I hope one outcome of our conversation will be a dialogue between the Center and the Associated Press office here on how best to transmit a warning through the AP’s globe-circling network.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 23, 2005

Suggested Call for Pacific Tsunami Warning Center: 808-536-5510

2005-03-20T11:27:00.001-10:00

Three months after the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami, events have settled into a predictable pattern.

Indian Ocean governments have vowed to establish a high-tech tsunami warning system, which was not in place when approximately 300,000 people died on December 26.

Scores of tsunami, meteorological and all sorts of other experts have met in Tokyo, Bangkok, Paris, Moscow and Jakarta and soon will convene in Italy, India and Mauritius for tsunami-related conferences.

The news media have written X number of words about those conferences and 1 million times X about the tsunami itself, with X being a number too high to contemplate.

Some of those words were about the lawsuit filed on March 4 on behalf of tsunami victims. The media will write even more words about that lawsuit regardless of whether it progresses or is tossed out. It represents conflict, and that surely is news.

Comparatively speaking, though, the media haven’t written much about the general focus of this web log – the advisability of integrating direct telephonic media contact into the tsunami warning protocols of NOAA agencies, particularly the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Hawaii.

Frankly, I’ve not done a particularly good job of pressing the issue with either the PTWC or the media. Yes, I had a few contacts with the Associated Press, which seems to me, at least, to be a major link in distributing time-sensitive tsunami warnings to communities thousands of miles away. I’ve had a couple telephone calls with someone at CNN International, but I’ve yet to talk with a decision-maker there.

And I’ve exchanged some phone calls and e-mails with Dr. Charles McCreery, the PTWC’s director, who has been attending several of the aforementioned international conferences. Dr. McCreery was in Indonesia last week but is expected back in Honolulu this week.

And that brings me back to the telephone number shown above. It’s for the AP’s Honolulu bureau. Dr. McCreery should dial that number soon and talk with bureau chief Dave Briscoe.

They both know the subject of that call: What is the fastest and most efficient way for PTWC scientists to issue a usable warning to the AP for eventual transmission to endangered regions of the world when a tsunami is suspected?

I.E., what phone number in which AP office should the PTWC’s scientists call to alert the world the next time a tsunami-generating 9.2 earthquake cracks the planet?

Mr. Briscoe and the Associated Press needn’t worry the AP will be helping “make the news” by taking that call and providing the requested information. The agency already tells the general public the number to call with news tips. The only difference is that this number wouldn’t be published in a directory available to the public. There’s precedent for the news media to give “insider” information such as unpublished telephone numbers to personnel who have messages they need to communicate urgently to the media.

This call should happen soon, because it apparently didn’t happen at any time before December 26. It needs to happen so attorneys like Edward Fagan don’t file lawsuits the next time a warning fails to arrive on distant beaches before a tsunami does.

The stage is set for this call. With Dr. McCreery back in town and Mr. Briscoe anticipating it, let’s hope it happens this week.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 20, 2005

Sri Lanka Offers ‘Lessons Learned’ Advice on Using The Media; NOAA, Are You Taking Notice?

2005-03-15T09:23:00.000-10:00

The world would do well pay attention to the "lessons learned" advice coming from Indian Ocean region countries hit by the December 26 tsunami. As much as western nations want to prevent future tragedies on this scale, these nations want it more.

In Sri Lanka, for example, more than 30,000 people died and one million were left homeless in a population of 19 million. A web site maintained by LIRNE.NET, the Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies in Sri Lanka, asks: “Could the tsunami have been avoided? No. Could this extent of human loss have been avoided? Yes.”

LIRNE.NET says casualties could be limited with a society-wide reform of Sri Lanka’s emergency preparedness system, including communications:

“Public warning is a system, not a technology. The identification, detection and risk assessment of a hazard, the accurate identification of the vulnerability of a population at risk and finally the communication of information to the vulnerable population about the threat in sufficient time and clarity so that they take action to avert negative consequences constitute the system of public warning. Warning allows people to act in order to prevent hazards from becoming disasters. Effective public warning saves lives, reduces economic loss, reduces trauma and disruption in society and instills confidence and a sense of security in the public. It is an important component of the foundation of a sound economy.” (emphasis added)

Here’s what LIRNE.NET says about the integration of the broadcast media into the warning network – something this web log has advocated since January 2:

“The telecommunications and electronic broadcasting industries play crucial roles in the effective dissemination of warnings. Action to ensure optimal contributions from the telecommunications network of networks should be ensured through the collective efforts of the operators, facilitated by the regulator. Government should also work collaboratively with the electronic broadcasting industry to ensure effective contributions to early warning at national and local levels.”

Good observations from people who paid too high a price for a communications breakdown on December 26. If NOAA and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center have done a similar review to improve tsunami warnings through media contacts, we haven't yet found it and certainly look forward to reading it.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 15, 2005

Lawsuit Turns Spotlight on Officials' Rationale for Why No Effective Tsunami Warning Was Issued

2005-03-13T11:51:00.000-10:00

The tsunami victims’ lawsuit filed on March 4 (reported today for the first time in The Honolulu Advertiser) seems destined to use U.S. officials’ own words against them. They can be found in hundreds, if not thousands, of web postings.

Here, for example, an Associated Press story quotes NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher: “Folks out there (at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center) tried to contact people that they thought would be interested….” But they didn’t try to contact the news media.

Here, one of those scientists is quoted: “At the time, given what I knew, there wasn’t a system in place to save these people and I feel very, very bad.” He refers to the lack of a high-tech system in the Indian Ocean, but there also was no low-tech system in place in Hawaii to alert the media that a devasting tsunami probably had been generated.

And here, a professor from Sri Lanka reports on his visit to the Island of Hawaii’s Emergency Operations Center: “They are engaged in a polite exchange with (Pacific Tsunami Warning Center) about the timing of the release of disaster information: if CNN carries the story before their phone tree is activated, they get a busy tone which bothers them. I tell them it’s possible to give them priority numbers so their calls will go through. But they are not too keen about shedding ordinary people from the phone system.” Professor Rohan Samarajiva’s report hints at inefficiencies even inside the Hawaii emergency agency network.

Professor Samarajiva concludes his column with excellent post-tsunami advice for Sri Lanka that is equally applicable everywhere in the tsunami warning network:

“The core business of government is safeguarding the lives of its citizens; Let us train the people in the Railway Department to stop the trains going on the coastal lines when a tsunami warning is out; Let us train the Navy to communicate facts like massive waves battering the East Coast to the media; Let us train the staff of the Meteorological Department (with four alumni of the Bangkok course) and the National Disaster Management Centre (three trained, including Director, now retired) to wear pagers on holidays.

“And let’s make sure that the people who go to the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center actually attend the lectures and not go shopping or whatever else they do in Bangkok. And more than anything else, let’s make sure we have the right kind of organization to keep watch on behalf of our citizens; keep watch not only against tsunamis, but also against cyclones and flash floods and land slides and all the other hazards that turn into massive disasters in this little country. So the next time we’ll be ready and we’ll save ourselves and our children, despite the politicians who say that Sri Lanka had no reason to be prepared having only a few droughts as disasters. We need disaster education for politicians too. That might be the hardest task of all.”

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 13, 2005

Senate Panel OKs Tsunami Alert Bill; News Media Start to Notice the Tsunami Victims' Lawsuit

2005-03-12T10:12:00.000-10:00

Backed by two of the U.S. Senate’s more influential members, S.50, The Tsunami Preparedness Act, was approved by the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation this week. Chair Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Ranking Member Dan Inouye (D-Hawaii) are co-sponsors.

The improvement to the bill suggested here in a February 12 post isn’t included in the bill as currently written. According to Senator Inouye’s office, he won’t make changes to the bill until mark-up. One can still hope the final version will include early news media notification among the methods to issue tsunami warnings that are specifically mentioned in the legislation.

It’s a tad after the fact, but the Honolulu news media are starting to cover the lawsuit brought by victims of the December 26 tsunami against the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and its Honolulu-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The Honolulu Star-Bulletins story today doesn’t give the filing date, which was eight days ago.

Harvard Law School student Daniel Lyons has penned a column denouncing the lawsuit that so far has appeared in The Baltimore Sun, The Houston Chronicle and perhaps other papers. Whatever one's take on the suit, it's going to keep the focus on the Warning Center and presumably will at least moderately interest the Honolulu media.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 12, 2005

Paris Meeting Agrees on Tsunami Warning Net; Elsewhere, Ed Fagan and Friends File Lawsuit

2005-03-08T20:21:00.000-10:00

Two news items have hit nearly simultaneously about events that will ripple across the network of tsunami-related agencies for months and years to come.

The Paris conference sponsored by the UN's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission ended with a plan to create a tsunami warning network in the Indian Ocean region. An Agence France-Press story details the timetable to put the system in place by the end of 2006 (see the meeting's Communique).

And then there's the lawsuit that attorney Ed Fagan and associates publicized in mid-February at a Vienna, Austria press conference. He finally filed it in New York on March 4 and named the Thai government, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii among the defendants. The New York Post has dubbed the case $UE-NAMI.

The goal of this web log has never been to nail someone's hide to the wall, as Mr. Fagan appears intent on doing. Rather, we've sought to establish the importance of contacting the news media with tsunami warnings as quickly as possible after a tsunami has been detected. Mr. Fagan's lawsuit may ultimately prove more effective in driving home that concept within NOAA than anything written here.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 8, 2005

Tsunami Crisis Communications Plan Located; Too Bad It Ignores Contacting the International Media

2005-03-06T11:39:00.000-10:00

On January 3 this web log asked, “What’s in the Communications Plan?” at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. Now, we know.

A draft version of what appears to be the new “Communications Plan for the Pacific Tsunami Warning System (2005 edition)” can be downloaded as a PDF on the web site for a meeting now under way in Paris. This plan was made available to officials attending the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) meeting on creating tsunami warning and mitigation systems for the Indian Ocean (see text of e-mail to attendees, below).

The draft notes it was reviewed just four days ago by Francois Schindele of France, chairman of the International Tsunami Information Center in Honolulu, and Dr. Laura Kong, its director. It would seem to be the definitive word on how to get the word out about a tsunami.

So what's the plan for contacting the news media to issue urgent warnings?

The plan doesn’t say.

With two months hindsight on how the media were not contacted on December 26 and speculation that doing so might have saved tens of thousands of lives in the Indian Ocean region, this new draft ignores media notification with one minor exception.

The only reference in the entire plan to news media notification is within the context of what a “dissemination agency” should do – i.e., what the agencies of member governments should do when they receive tsunami watch or warning information from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center:

“Tsunami Watch and Warning information may be passed (depending on the time and facilities available) to the coastal population by any or all of the following methods: radio, television, sirens, bells, whistles, warning flags, mobile loud speakers, and personal contact.”

That’s all there is on using the media to communicate life-saving messages to populations in danger; the plan leaves that function up to “disseminating agencies” of member governments. Nowhere does it suggest or outline procedures for the Warning Center itself to contact the media and thereby shave previous minutes off the notification time.

It looks as if it's going to be a “long, hard slog” to get international tsunami experts to agree that immediate telephonic contact with the major international news media has a crucial place in the crisis communications plan.

Message to IOC Attendees in Paris

The following e-mail was sent on March 3 to more than 140 IOC officials who are included on the IOC Action Addresses list available at the web page linked above:

Ladies and Gentlemen, many of you are attending the International Coordination Meeting for the Development of Tsunami Warning and Mitigation Systems for the Indian Ocean in Paris. The rest of you share the goal of mitigating the loss of life in future tsunamis through the creation of effective warning systems.

Much of your deliberation naturally will involve high-tech solutions, but I urge you to not lose sight of the importance of low-tech media notification in sending useable warnings to populations at risk. As a private citizen living in Hawaii, I have maintained a web log since January 2 on this critical -- but overlooked — communications channel.

Based on media reports, it would appear nearly all tsunami experts are focused on technology-oriented solutions to the warning problem. Certainly they must be implemented, but you are encouraged also to consider how effective a simple yet timely telephone call can be when made to major news organizations, such as the Associated Press, Reuters and CNN. Thorough coordination with the media is necessary, of course.

I hope that even a small percentage of the people who receive this e-mail will take time to read some of my web log (below) and then include low-tech media notification in your plans. A great number of lives might have been saved in the Indian Ocean region if a warning had been disseminated in this fashion.

Sincerely,

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 6, 2005

Paris Conference Begins; Will Media Be in Plans?

2005-03-03T15:57:00.000-10:00

The world’s leading tsunami experts are in Paris for a week of meetings on creating a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. A USA Today story on the conference paraphrases Patricio Bernal, executive secretary of the U.N. Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission:

“Simple cards telling people to move to high ground after an earthquake would have saved thousands of lives Dec. 26, Bernal says.”

As Dr. Jerry Comcowich of the University of Hawaii said after reading this story: “Why can’t these people see that the media and especially radio are the best way to communicate tsunami warnings?”

We’ve been asking the same question for two months.

Associated Press's Senior News Executive Writes

2005-03-03T14:42:00.000-10:00

Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the Associated Press, responded to an e-mail I sent her yesterday with the same points made earlier in my e-mail to the David Briscoe, the AP’s Honolulu bureau chief. She said she had nothing more to add to Briscoe’s response on behalf of the AP regarding the suggestion the news cooperative could play a role in transmitting life-saving warnings about future tsunamis (see yesterday’s post).

I responded to Ms. Carroll and thanked her for her tacit reaffirmation that the AP is willing to provide information to U.S. government agencies that would facilitate warnings. My e-mail continued:

Since the AP’s Honolulu bureau is not manned 24/7 and since a tsunami could be detected in the office’s down time, one must conclude that there needs to be some higher level of coordination with the AP than the Honolulu office — perhaps with New York or a West Coast bureau that is manned around the clock and that has key decision-making authority to move bulletins on your primary wire.

I hope I’m wrong in having the impression that the AP seems needlessly stand-offish on this matter. Perhaps it’s because, as Briscoe suggested, news people don’t want to be seen as “making the news”. As a former reporter, I understand that, but it would be helpful if the AP appeared even slightly more interested than it presently does in facilitating communications channels that could save many many lives. Just today in USA Today a UN official is paraphrased as saying “simple warning cards telling people to move to high ground after an earthquake would have saved thousands of lives Dec. 26.” So would have radio bulletins and cable TV bulletins carrying information transmitted by the Associated Press.

It would be no violation of journalism ethics if the AP were to clarify for NOAA and the PTWC how they can best communicate their emergency messages to your organization. If you agree, perhaps you could help ensure that when Dr. McCreery does call or write your Honolulu office, he will be given information that will result in truly effective means for him and his scientists to contact your news agency at an appropriate level when minutes count.

That’s all I’m trying to accomplish. As the UN official said, thousands of people died — maybe tens of thousands — because an effective warning wasn’t given to the region. How can any of us be complacent knowing the news media have the ability to send information around the world at lightning speed?

Aloha, Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 3, 2005

AP's Cautious Response Opens Door for Improved Tsunami Warning Procedures

2005-03-02T11:20:00.000-10:00

It’s not a ringing statement and it’s not in writing, but at least we have the Associated Press’s official response to the view it has a role in helping save lives in future tsunami emergencies.

As noted in the February 27 post, AP’s Corporate Communications office bucked the issue back to David Briscoe, the AP bureau chief in Honolulu. After giving him a couple days to respond to my e-mail, I called him today after correctly concluding the agency didn’t intend to put its response in writing.

Here’s Briscoe’s spoken statement on behalf of the Associated Press:

“The official position of the Associated Press is that it’s the responsibility of government to devise the best warning systems for natural disasters, and it’s our job to report the news – including news of impending disasters – in as timely and accurate a manner as possible.”

Briscoe said the AP’s statement “doesn’t really go any further than that.” Unofficially, though, Briscoe made it clear the agency will provide information to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its Pacific Tsunami Warning Center that could help facilitate future warnings.

“We want to open as many channels as possible to disseminate news. There’d still a matter of judgment of what’s put on the wire and what’s not…. We’d want to disseminate news (about a tsunami) as far as we could. That represents a problem. Don’t overestimate the reach of any news agency. We have members and subscribers all over the world but don’t have them on every shore.”

This whole issue was prompted by the fact that an effective warning reached no shores around the Indian Ocean region on Decembeer 26. We can only do what we can do, and it’s encouraging that the AP is willing to provide information to NOAA and the PTWC on how to enhance transmission of tsunami warning messages to the agency.

That said, you have to wonder whether AP executives are a wee bit too focused on (drum roll, please) JOURNALISM ETHICS when what we're talking about is simple proactive engagement by a news organization in ways that quite easily could save lives.

Next Step: Encourage the PTWC to Call the Associated Press

The AP’s door is open. NOAA and the PTWC have to go through it. I’ll write Dr. Charles McCreery, PTWC director, suggesting he make a formal request to David Briscoe here in Honolulu for guidance on how to contact the agency in a future tsunami emergency. And although the Honolulu bureau if only a few miles from the Center, the best contact point probably is in far-off New York with someone who has the authority to approve transmission of a warning message on the AP’s global network.

Footnote:

Danette Johnson at CNN International (see February 24 post) said today she’s following up to see what can be done to help the PTWC get the word more efficiently to CNN in future emergencies.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
March 2, 2005

AP's New York Office Bucks the Issue to Honolulu

2005-02-27T10:26:00.000-10:00

Here's the complete text of AP Corporate Communications representative Jack Stoke's response to my February 25 e-mail:

"We've consulted with the appropriate people here and designated our bureau chief in Hawaii to respond to your query."

I'm looking forward to hearing from bureau chief David Briscoe, who sent an e-mail suggesting I telephone him. I wrote him today as follows:

David, thanks for your note. Since the Associated Press’s New York office has designated you as the conveyor of the organization’s view on this matter, I look forward to seeing what it is.

To review the issue, many observers have remarked since immediately after the December 26 tsunami that the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not attempt to communicate an urgent tsunami warning to the international news media with networks that reach into the Indian Ocean region.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s timeline of post-tsunami events suggests that had a message gone through pre-arranged and rehearsed channels to the major news media and had the media been prepared to recognize the urgency of the warning, tens of thousands of lives might have been saved.

In other words, we’re talking about whether lives were lost because there was no pre-arranged protocol or standard operating procedure that includes transmitting potentially life-saving messages to the major media, including the AP, CNN and other organizations.

The question is whether the AP sees a role for itself in mitigating future tragedies on the scale of the Indian Ocean tsunami. The AP certainly does participate in facilitating warnings when Mount St. Helens rumbles, when hurricanes bear down on Florida and when storms result in flash flooding in the Southwest, so it is inconceivable to me that improving communications channels to send tsunami warnings would be an inappropriate media role.

We are not suggesting the media should become a “partner” with the government; that would be anathema to journalists. What we do think appropriate would be conversations involving representatives of the AP, CNN, other media and NOAA on how government scientists can effectively communicate their urgent messages when they suspect a tsunami has been generated. As I said in our phone call on Friday, the fact that the AP publishes its numbers in telephone books is demonstration enough that it willingly enables newsmakers to conveniently communicate their information.

Congress is likely to endorse proactive media contact by NOAA’s agencies when it passes S.50, The Tsunami Preparedness Act (see 2/12 post on my web log, linked below), and NOAA will undoubtedly react appropriately. What I’m asking the AP to do is help close the gap – in the spirit of avoiding or reducing human casualties – by instructing NOAA on which communications channels it should use for future tsunami warnings.

Because the views you express on this issue will be the AP’s official response, a telephone conversation would seem to be too informal. I respectfully request that you convey AP’s position in writing for the record, and then we can discuss our views if you like. I’ve cc’d Kathleen Carroll on this message in an attempt to reach above the AP's Corporate Communications management level.

Aloha, Doug
--
Doug Carlson
(web log address)

BTW, a mutual recognition that we both have a good understanding of journalism ethics and practices may help our communication. Here are excerpts from my bio:

Journalism
Reported or edited for The Honolulu Advertiser; KGMB-TV in Honolulu; The Chicago Daily News and Westinghouse Broadcasting Company all-news radio stations in Philadelphia (KYW) and Los Angeles (KFWB). Earned bachelors and masters degrees in journalism from the University of Iowa and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism respectively.

Corporate Manager
Managed Hawaiian Electric Company’s communications programs and served as spokesperson 1981-1989. Responsible for media and community relations, crisis communications, internal communications, financial and customer publications, advertising and video production. Recognized by the Hawaii chapters of Toastmasters International ("Silver Gavel") and the Public Relations Society of America ("Koa Anvil for Emergency Public Relations").

News Media Call #2 Goes to the Associated Press

2005-02-25T10:25:00.000-10:00

The Associated Press's web portal doesn't easily reveal senior management identities. Only the Broadcast Service lists executives' names and numbers, but my call there was directed to New York's international desk, which passed me on to Corporate Communications. There I was told to send my concerns to info@ap.org. Despite misgivings about using such a generic address, I'm trusting that Jack Stokes in Corporate Communications will be on it. Here's my e-mail:

Good talking with you. As noted during our call, my web log (below) has concluded that the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not have usable crisis communications protocols in place (and probably still doesn’t) when the December 26 earthquake hit that would have enabled it to issue a usable tsunami warning via the AP, CNN, BBC, etc. Instead of calling the media at a high enough level to initiate a bulletin to the region, scientists are on record as having picked up their phones and called friends and colleagues in the Indian Ocean region starting about an hour before the waves reached Sri Lanka and India. A UPI story carried in the Washington Times and elsewhere on January 7 quoted a NOAA spokeswoman as saying the Center doesn't even maintain a list of media contacts. (See my blog’s January 8 post.)

I submitted testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation re S.50, The Tsunami Preparedness Act, which was offered by Sen. Daniel Inouye and Sen. Ted Stevens (see 2/1 post). I subsequently posted a suggestion to improve the bill’s existing language to specifically include “international news media networks with instantaneous transmission capabilities” in the list of communications channels NOAA would be instructed to use in future emergencies (see 2/12). (My 1/13 post has my so-called bona fides to offer these suggestions and criticisms.)

NOAA representatives have been attending conferences all over the world on establishing tsunami warning networks (Tokyo today, Paris next month). They also should make plans to meet with executives of CNN, AP and other news organizations to establish “flash-point” communications protocols. And if NOAA isn’t inclined to initiate those meetings, I would hope the major media would approach NOAA to start the necessary planning.

I look forward to staying in touch and would be pleased if my web log observations contribute to a workable crisis communications plan that involves The Associated Press. Once you read this, I’d welcome a response on which executive would be most inclined to carry the ball for the AP.

I should note here that I'm not suggesting the AP should crawl into bed with NOAA and become part of the government's news-generating apparatus. That would be objectionable to any news person, but it surely would be legitimate for the AP and other major media to discuss with NOAA how it can efficiently connect with the media when minutes matter -- as they did on December 26.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
February 25, 2005

News Media Call #1 Goes to CNN International

2005-02-24T16:23:00.000-10:00

I guess frustration showed in yesterday's post, and now I'm forced to contact the media myself or eat my words.

In fairness to NOAA, the agency may be disinclined to reach out to the news media to discuss new tsunami warning protocols because of what that might imply -- recognition, perhaps, that more could have been done to warn the Indian Ocean region before the December 26 waves reached some nations.

And then there's the alleged tsunami victims' lawsuit that was announced at a Vienna, Austria press conference on February 15th. Since the initial story, which was published at numerous on-line sites, there's been no further on-line coverage about it, but the threat might be enough to squelch NOAA comment and initiative.

Therefore, as noted yesterday, it's time for individual action. My media search began at CNN's web site, which helpfully provides links to bios of anchors, correspondents and executives. Working down the alpha list of executives, it took only three hits to reach Chris Cramer, managing director of CNN International.

Assistant Danette Johnson took my call and heard me out as I outlined my premise (see heading above), and she responded with encouraging news. She said CNN and other organizations are in fact sorting out what their role is in the communications chain between NOAA agencies and distant populations. I followed up with a fairly long e-mail to her referencing my Senate testimony on S.50, The Tsunami Preparedness Act, and subsequent suggestion to improve the bill by specifically mentioning the international news media among communications channels to be used for future tsunami warnings.

Suggestion to CNN: Propose a high-level summit involving the senior leadership of CNN, the Associated Press and NOAA to agree on the need for new crisis communications protocols -- details to be hammered out later.

Tomorrow, the Associated Press.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
February 24, 2005

The Wait Goes On for NOAA To Acknowledge the News Media's Role in Tsunami Warnings

2005-02-22T09:42:00.000-10:00

Help me out here. There’s only so much reading anyone can do on the web. What I want to know is:

Has anyone anywhere read anything by any NOAA spokesperson that even hints the agency believes the news media should be telephoned when a killer tsunami is thought to have been generated?

We’ve read about automatic e-mailed bulletins. We’ve read about the proposed high-tech warning system for the Indian Ocean. We’ve read about all of that, but we haven’t read anything about low-tech telephone calls to the media!

And wouldn’t you think by now someone within NOAA would have publicly acknowledged the media’s role is transmitting tsunami warnings? Or have I just missed it?

If so, please point me to the story in which a NOAA spokesperson is on record saying something like: “We have reviewed our crisis communications protocols and will ensure that proactive telephonic contact with the major news media will be used when we have reason to believe a life-threatening tsunami has been generated anywhere on the planet.”

Or would that be too low-tech for scientists? Is there something about making a telephone call to a news organization that is just too far outside the scientific method for scientists?

I can’t believe that’s the case, but I’m beginning to wonder, because it keeps not coming up.

Take yesterday’s page 1 story in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin: “Isle scientists work to expand tsunami alerts; Warnings about large earthquakes will be sent to Indian Ocean nations that agree to plug in”. (The headline writer got it right: the story’s focus is on electronic devices that will automatically transmit data to countries that are “plugged in” to a high-tech system.)

In a 791-word article in which a veteran journalist known for her thorough reporting quotes various NOAA and University of Hawaii scientists and spokespersons, the word “media” appears not once. New tsunami information centers are mentioned, tide gauges are mentioned and another trip by NOAA representatives to another meeting on tsunami warning and mitigation is mentioned (Paris, March 3-8), but nobody mentions the proverbial “elephant in the living room” – the fact that a telephone call to international news media might have spared many lives in the Indian Ocean region on December 26.

It’s Time to Call the Media

Since we don’t know whether NOAA has contacted the Associated Press and CNN to bring them aboard for the next tsunami alert, let’s assume it hasn’t. There’s no evidence to the contrary.

I’ll start making calls and writing letters and will report here on what happens. This will either be a humbling experience (“Who’s calling, from where and why, and I'm sorry, Mr. Big is in a meeting.”) or a productive one.

I’m counting on senior news managers and policy makers to endorse the media's obvious and traditional role in alerting distant populations to critical information – populations that could learn of tsunami warnings from cable television channels and radio broadcasts.

I'm counting on them to be the mountain that calls on NOAA if NOAA won't call on them.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
February 22, 2005

Japan, U.S. To Expand Tsunami Warnings; Also, What to Make of the Tsunami Victims' Lawsuit

2005-02-17T10:55:00.000-10:00

An Associated Press story is all over the internet today reporting that Japan and the United States will issue tsunami warnings to Indian Ocean countries “as a stopgap measure” until the region develops its own alert system.

The story doesn't say how those warnings will be generated, although there's a strong suggestion the methodology will be high-tech: “Japan and the United States have the world's most advanced warning systems. Japan's network of fiber-optic sensors feeds seismic activity data to a supercomputer, which can issue a warning of a deadly tsunami within minutes of a quake.”

Eight weeks after the tsunami tragedy, it's clear NOAA must revamp its crisis communications planning to involve the major international news organizations in issuing warnings once tsunamis are suspected. Low-tech phone calls -- had they been made to the major media on December 26 -- would have been nearly as fast as instantaneous electronic bulletins, and without question they would have been more effective. This blog's February 12 post proposed an improvement to S.50, The Tsunami Preparedness Act: Engage the major international news organizations in issuing warnings. That didn't happen on December 26.

The Lawsuit

News broke earlier this week that two attorneys intend to file a lawsuit on behalf of the Indian Ocean tsunami victims. The allegation will be that the defendants -- French hotel chain Accor, the Thai government and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii -- failed to warn the victims of the approaching tsunami.

NOAA isn't commenting until the lawsuit is filed, but the action undoubtedly has the agency's attention. One of the plaintiffs' attorneys is Ed Fagan of New York, whose legal history can be found in dozens of on-line stories that describe him as flamboyant, controversial and at times spectacularly effective. Fagan takes on the big causes; he extracted $1.2 billion from Swiss banks on behalf of Holocaust victims, and his other headline-making cases have targeted apartheid, slave labor, nuclear power plant accidents, "mad cow disease" and the like.

This case could turn into a wild ride for NOAA.

Call from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center

As noted in earlier posts, an invitation to visit the Center has been anticipated since the suggestion was first made on February 3 by a NOAA representative. Dr. Charles McCreery, PTWC director, called this week and said a visit should occur in late March after he returns from another trip. We discussed the general premise of this web log; he listened and I listened during what amounted to a good conversation on how the media might be integrated differently in future tsunami warnings. It also seems likely that representatives of the Hawaii congressional delegation will be invited.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
February 17, 2005

Improving S.50, the Tsunami Preparedness Act

2005-02-12T14:10:00.000-10:00

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

Scientists Support Communications as Means to "Get the Word Out"; Invitation Still in the Works

2005-02-08T08:06:00.000-10:00

The latest from NOAA is that the invitation mentioned in a February 3 post to visit the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center awaits confirmation on possible dates. I have asked NOAA to include representatives of Hawaii's congressional delegation in the visit, but there is no confirmation of that possibility as of yet.

In the meantime, it was encouraging to read an on-line report at the news@nature.com ("the best in science journalism") web site on a meeting of environmental scientists held in Washington, DC, last week. Headlined Environmental scientists told to 'get the word out', the story noted:

"Scientists knew about December's Indian Ocean earthquake within minutes of it happening. Yet no formal alert was sounded and the resultant tsunami killed hundreds of thousands."

According to the story, participants advocated greater openness among scientists in communicating the results of their work to the public at large. "All the technology in the world doesn't do a lot of good if you can't get the word out," said Charles Groat, director of the United States Geological Survey.

It is especially encouraging to see this quote from Dr. Groat. Two days after the tsunami a member of the U.S. Geological Survey staff was reported by National Public Radio as saying, "There was no system set up by which we could take that information and translate it into actions that the public could react to."

In light of Dr. Groat's recent comments, perhaps NOAA officials are warming to the use of the news media in issuing timely and effective tsunami warnings to affected populations.

Elsewhere in the story, Anthony Michaels, director of the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California, said the tsunami disaster highlighted the need for more communication by scientists. The story concludes:

Younger scientists are being trained in communicating science to the public and see it as a rewarding part of their job, says Michaels. "We are new to this kind of dynamic, and in some ways we are not well suited to it," he says. "The leadership at the universities and the young people are on board...and then you have all these old farts in between."

I trust I'll find none of the latter at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
February 8, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

NOAA May Issue an Invitation

2005-02-03T10:08:00.000-10:00

As relayed in a call from a NOAA representative in Silver Springs, MD, an invitation is coming for this writer to visit the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and meet with its staff. No doubt we’ll exchange views and information not previously known to one another, and it should be a valuable experience -- at least for me.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
February 3, 2005

Upon Further Review: NOAA Seems Reluctant to Publicly Acknowledge Media's Critical Role

2005-02-03T08:41:00.000-10:00

Yesterday’s enthusiasm over the Senate hearing is tempered somewhat by a careful reading of the prepared testimony presented for the committee’s record.

For example, although there've been five weeks of public comment and criticism of NOAA and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center for not issuing an effective tsunami warning via the news media, the word “media” appears exactly once in the prepared testimony of NOAA Administrator Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, Jr. (U.S. Navy, Ret.). The testimony refers only to “international media” reports on the tsunami’s destruction. (Among all the witnesses, only the prepared testimony of Eileen Shea of Honolulu’s East-West Center mentioned “media” as a participant in disseminating warnings: “As we move forward, we also need to more effectively engage the media as a critical component of an effective, comprehensive risk management information system.”)

“News” shows up once, also referring to post-tsunami “news reports”. Perhaps the world’s most ubiquitous communications tool -- “radio” – appears nowhere in his testimony. It’s ironic to note that when witnesses and experts speak of “wireless” communications, they’re referring to the relatively recent technologies of cellular phones and digital communications devices. Our grandparents called radio the “wireless”.

“Television” also is a no-show even though CNN, BBC and News World International among other networks transmit news to television sets all over the planet. “Cable” refers in three places to “cabled buoys” anchored in the ocean to detect tsunamis.

In his testimony, Lautenbacher bangs away on the theme that sending a warning to the Indian Ocean isn’t NOAA’s job. Page 4 alone contains the following within the space of four paragraphs: “It is not the Center’s responsibility to issue local tsunami warnings from seismic events outside of the United States.” “NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers have no authority or responsibility to issue tsunami warnings for the Indian Ocean basin.” “As the Indian Ocean is outside the NOAA tsunami area of responsibility, NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers have no procedures in place to issue a warning for this region.”

The last statement is why this web log was created on January 2. It was apparent from media reports immediately after the tsunami that no procedures exist to issue warnings to far-flung areas of the world.

Yes, local education is critical for populations to know what to do when a warning arrives, and yes, an effective tsunami warning system requires “an established local communications infrastructure for timely and effective dissemination of the warning and evacuation requirements” (page 5). But who else besides NOAA is qualified to get the word to those “local” communicators by engaging the international news media?

“It’s not my job” may have been the Rodriguez family motto on “Chico & the Man”, but that mentality doesn't contribute to saving lives. NOAA should consider shifting from its inside-the-Pacific-Rim-box thinking and accept responsibilities that it alone apparently is capable of assuming.

That would be an inspiration to the world.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
February 3, 2005

Senators Appear To Support Concept of Media Involvement in Tsunami Warnings

2005-02-02T19:17:00.000-10:00

The hearing conducted today by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation had some positive exchanges that appeared to reveal committee support for including the media in NOAA's tsunami warning plans. Thanks to modern technology, the entire two-hour, 15-minute hearing already is archived. (The hearing actually begins at 13:36 in the archived webcast.) The prepared statements of the witnesses also are available.

The unscripted questions and answers between the committee and panel members provided some of the more illuminating exchanges. The following involved Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, Chairman; Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, Ranking Member, and two witnesses; it begins at 1:12:38 in the webcast.

Senator Inouye: I have just one more question to any one of you. Within 24 hours after the disaster in Southeast Asia, major stations such as CNN and all the networks began criticizing and suggesting they should have been notified so they could used their offices and facilities to warn the people. Is that a valid criticism? Could that have been done?

John Marburger, III, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy: It certainly could have been done. I do not know what the protocol is for notifications, but the National Weather Service is notified instantly, and usually their information is shared immediately with the media.

Brigadier General John Kelly, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), Deputy Undersecretary, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Senator Inouye, it is my belief that many of those news organizations did in fact get the tsunami bulletin that was sent out from the from the Hagemeyer Warning Center in Hawaii. I think what they were asking for was some type of protocol be established wherein the watch officer might make a telephone call to them or somehow take an explicit step to get the information to them.

Senator Inouye: Is that a valid request?

BG Kelly: I think we have to do some analysis of it and what we are talking about. Now let's take the National Hurricane Center. When hurricanes are coming there is a large press presence in the Hurricane Center. Fortunately with hurricanes we have a bit more time to start alerting the public. With tsunamis, and while this earthquake, as Dr. (Charles) Groat said, was one of the more massive in the century, we had time to watch the tsunami perpetuate across the Pacific (sic). Frequently in Alaska and Hawaii you only have minutes, and I'm just not sure, given one watch officer on trying to issue bulletins, clarify the bulletins, that there's sufficient time frame to be talking to the press. There may be other arrangements that can be made with the press for them to get the information differently.

Senator Inouye: There was another criticism in that we did notify the countries involved, but the receiving facility was not operational. Is that a valid one?

BG Kelly: When you’re talking about the receiving, you’re talking about the receiving system in the in-country? (DKI: Yes.) As I said in my testimony, we have an agreement with 26 countries in the Pacific Rim to provide information to them, and they have the responsibility of developing their local warnings and distributing them to their country. No such system exists in the Indian Ocean, and so there is some truth in that countries were not prepared to deal with it. As I said in my testimony, tsunami preparedness has a number of variables in it. To my mind, the most important one is when you get the warning, have you got a way internally to get it out to your citizens, and have you educated them and work with them so they know what to do. Thanks to both of your help with the Tsunami Mitigation Program legislation in ’96 we’ve been able to do a fair amount of that work on the West Coast and in Hawaii.

Senator Inouye: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Stevens: Gentlemen, if necessary, Senator Inouye and I will send you a letter to each of your agencies for this request: We would ask that you report back to us in two weeks what it would take to establish a system to notify the entities that have been mentioned – specifically, 911, the Weather Channel, the emergency disaster systems that exist in the 50 states. We’re concerned primarily with this country because of our committee’s jurisdiction. I’m sure others will be asking the questions about the international aspects of the system to come. But right now, we thought we had a system, and we found when this occurred that half of it was dormant, was not working. And we think we ought to have a system that not only we’re notified if something’s gone wrong but we also have an adequate apparatus to detect a problem and get at it now!

Beyond that, though, I think the news media have a legitimate cause to object! There’s no reason why we can’t have an interconnection with 911 or with the Weather Channel or with the disaster system or FEMA. We also handle communications, gentlemen, and that can be done automatically. Once you press the button, it can be very ubiquitous and go throughout the country if it’s set up right. So we’d like to know what it would take to do that! And if you need money, the Appropriations bills are coming up. We’ll see to it you get it.

BG Kelly: Mr. Chairman, I may have misunderstood your question. I thought when you were talking about the press you were talking about internationally. We in NOAA work very very closely with the Weather Channel. We work very very closely with FEMA. We will provide the information requested. I will be surprised in fact if those organizations you talked about did not have information about this tsunami. The fact was, though, that the tsunami was not going to impact the United States and therefore some of their interest may not have been as great on it. But internationally, dealing with international press, I’m not sure what the arrangements are.

Senator Stevens: Because we’re talking here about one that might be coming our way, and our buoys are supposed to tell us that.

BG Kelly: That’s what I’m telling you. I believe a system is in place if this one would have affected the United States.

The several witnesses were forthcoming in their testimony and responded to the senators' inquiries with conviction. However, some of their comments above do reveal a lack of familiarity with operations or communications plans that call for person-to-person voice contact with news media that have a capability to disseminate warnings internationally. The plans simply may not exist, and that's what we hope to uncover with the eventual release of those planning documents.

As usual, there was a tendency in the hearing to emphasize the reliance on automatic electronic notification of the media. Perhaps it would be useful for NOAA's planners to spend some time in a high-pressure media operation, where the incoming messages by telephone, fax, e-mail, radio and other methods can be confusing and overwhelming. It isn't hard for electronic messages to be lost in the ever-present "chatter" of that environment.

Senator Steven's obvious interest in notifying 911 and the Weather Channel might well be expanded to include the major media discussed on this web log in many previous posts -- the Associated Press, CNN, BBC, Reuters, News World International, UPI and others. Each of these organizations has globe-circling communications networks already in place that could assist the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in disseminating tsunami warnings. The harried watch officer mentioned by BG Kelly certainly deserves all the training he or she needs to be able to handle the pressure of fitting life-saving telephone calls into the protocol, because a failure to communicate can lead to tragic consequences.

The hearing was a positive development and should lead to opening up a valuable dialogue between NOAA, Congress and others whose goal is to save lives through the issuance of effective tsunami warnings.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
February 2, 2005

Testimony to U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (2/2/05)

2005-02-01T14:39:00.000-10:00

Mr. Chairman, it is highly probable that tens of thousands of people died around the Indian Ocean rim on December 26, 2004 because an agency of the United States government was unprepared to issue an effective tsunami warning to the region’s population. This inference can be made with great certainty based on the public record and the statements of numerous federal government employees.

The warning failure occurred even though Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) scientists first suspected the existence of the tsunami as much as two-thirds of an hour before the first waves struck Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. That is clearly established in the tsunami timeline by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (Ref: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2358.htm)

It’s true that scientists did not initially know that a 9.0 magnitude earthquake had struck near Indonesia. They first calculated the magnitude at 8.0, which they felt would have triggered only a localized tsunami or no tsunami at all.

Others may wish to investigate the too-low estimate of the earthquake’s strength with a goal of improving early forecasting techniques. The intent of my testimony, however, is to demonstrate that the communications protocols that existed on December 26 were inadequate to issue an effective warning and that U.S. officials may not have been sufficiently trained or sensitized to the importance of calling on the news media for assistance.

We know from numerous media interviews with the scientists that about an hour after the earthquake they felt a need to alert people in the Indian Ocean region about a possible tsunami. We also know that they felt handicapped by the absence of a high-tech tsunami detection and alert-dissemination system in the region. Nothing around the Indian Ocean approximates the sophistication of the Pacific Rim tsunami warning network.

To their credit, the Center’s personnel wanted to take some kind of action to alert the region. According to the Center’s director, as quoted in The International Herald Tribune: “We wanted to try to do something, but without a plan in place then, it was not an effective way to issue a warning, or to have it acted upon.” (Ref: http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/28/news/warning.html)

Without a notification plan, the scientists resorted to telephoning their colleagues in south Asia, with virtually no success. What they did not do was telephone the major international news media, such as the Associated Press, CNN, the BBC, Reuters or any other news organization with world-wide communications capabilities.

In other words, in the 41 minutes between issuing a bulletin that mentioned a possible tsunami and when the first waves are now thought to have reached Sri Lanka, the scientists used the telephone to call one person at a time rather than call the mass media to help issue a warning through their broadcast and cable networks.

A NOAA spokesperson later gave what may be the most telling comment about the PTWC’s crisis communications preparedness: "Not only was the center focused on warning agencies, it does not have an official list of media contacts." (Ref: http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050107-050909-7208r.htm)

Would alerting the news media in those first critical minutes have made a difference in how many people died in south Asia? With proper planning and coordination of media protocols, I’m certain lives could have been saved.

And I’m not alone. Many others around the world have questioned the lack of an effective warning. A woman in Sri Lanka who lost her father, sister and niece was interviewed by National Public Radio: “Why didn’t we receive warning? We had two hours after Indonesian quake, and at least five minutes warning would have helped. Five minutes would have saved my father’s life.”
(Ref: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4277195)

On January 11, the day NOAA’s administrator visited the PTWC and met with the Honolulu news media, I posted questions on my web log site that I felt might well be directed to him. They are still relevant today:

• Will NOAA release the PTWC’s crisis communications plan? (If not, why not?)
• What liaison did NOAA accomplish with the major media (Associated Press, CNN, BBC, etc.) before 12/26 to ensure emergency phone calls to these media would produce timely warnings to their audiences?
• Are PTWC scientists trained to telephone the media to issue life-saving warnings?
• Is the PTWC too high-tech oriented? Do you think low-tech telephone calls have a place in your pre-crisis planning and emergency warning protocols?

• Have you ordered changes in the PTWC warning protocols since the tsunami?
• Does NOAA accept responsibility for an internal procedural failure that might have cost the lives of tens of thousands of people in south Asia?
• What is NOAA telling south Asia nations about its performance on 12/26?
• What are your personal feelings about NOAA’s performance on 12/26?

The administrator did answer many media questions that day, including a variation of the last one. According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, he called the PTWC staff’s actions “excellent” and faithful to the warning procedures in place. “This is a group that believes in saving lives and protecting property at all costs,” he said. (Ref: http://starbulletin.com/2005/01/12/news/index1.html)

The sad fact is the “warning procedures in place” on December 26 saved no lives and protected no property. Nothing PTWC scientists knew or did that day helped people in the tsunami danger zone.

I respectfully submit to this committee that the PTWC’s apparent inability to issue effective warnings is unacceptable. I have proposed a five-point program that would help NOAA shift its thinking and its culture to include meaningful media notification after future tsunami-generating earthquakes:

• NOAA should accept constructive criticism -- rather than deny -- that actions it could have undertaken likely would have saved lives in south Asia.
• NOAA should resolve to change its communications culture to include re-evaluating the scope of its information-disseminating mission -- i.e., whether its mission extends beyond the Pacific Rim.
• NOAA should rewrite its communications protocols to include early telephone calls to news organizations that have the capability of sending worldwide tsunami warnings.
• NOAA should accomplish high-level coordination with the management of these news agencies to ensure proper execution of the alerts when received by the media.
• NOAA should train its personnel to respond to suspected tsunamis by making direct person-to-person contact with major news outlets based on prior planning.

The media can be an efficient way to send warnings to threatened populations when time is of the essence, and NOAA would do well to integrate them into its crisis communications planning. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to your deliberations on this important matter.

Submitted by:
Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI

As Senate Hearing Nears, Other Voices Urge Use of News Media To Issue Tsunami Warnings

2005-01-30T11:31:00.000-10:00

A member of Hawaii's congressional delegation has assured this writer that his office will ask the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center to release its crisis communications plan, as was requested by this web log on January 27. An agency that prides itself on its quick-response capabilties should have no trouble honoring the request in time for the February 2 U.S. Senate hearings on NOAA's response to the tsunami.

Elsewhere, independent editorial voices are asking why scientists didn't use the news media to issue a warning before the tsunami struck Sri Lanka and other south Asia nations. Orlando Marville writes today in the Barbados Daily Nation:

"...what came across as the most horrendous experience was not the devastation caused by the tsunami, but a United States scientist virtually indicating on CNN that they knew that the tsunami was coming about two hours before it struck Sri Lanka, but that they had no mechanism for contact with local authorities to warn them. This was absurd. Anyone thinking – and I am not sure that scientists think as ordinary human beings do – could have contacted CNN or someone in Government to get in touch with their Embassy there to warn local authorities. Such advance warning would have given thousands of people the opportunity to run for the hills rather than face the death that came so unexpectedly."

The Navhind Times of India comments in a January 31 editorial on the conference just concluded in Phuket, Thailand on where to locate a regional warning coordination center. The editorial concludes:

"With such warning systems set up, we could hope that a significant tsunami is detected in advance, and warning is extended to the entire Indian Ocean Basin. Full use should be made of radio and television and the communications used by Coast Guard and other authorities to disseminate warning to the people, likely to be hit by the high tidal waves. We have realized how thousands of lives could have been saved if the official agencies had the means to monitor the tsunamis and communicate an alert to the people. Let us not allow the horrible tragedy to be repeated ever again."

It's not surprising that people all over the world are asking why the mass media weren't used to issue a tsunami warning; the mass media communicate with mass audiences, so it would seem to be common sense to engage the media in issuing warnings. Noticeably silent on the media issue is NOAA, but that silence will end on February 2 when the Senate committee begins looking into the details of the agency's crisis communications plans.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 30, 2005

Pacific Tsunami Warning Center Is Asked for Details of its Crisis Communications Plan

2005-01-27T17:13:00.000-10:00

(The following letter was sent today electronically and by regular postal service to Dr. Charles McCreery and Dr. Laura Kong, directors respectively of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the International Tsunami Information Center.)

References: Letter to the Editor, The Honolulu Advertiser, December 30, 2004; “Gathering Place” Commentary, The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, January 20, 2005; TsunamiLessons.blogspot.com, since January 2, 2005

Dear Dr. McCreery and Dr. Kong:

You may be aware from recent media coverage of my view that the news media could and should have been contacted to facilitate a warning to south Asia nations once the existence of a tsunami was suspected by Pacific Tsunami Warning Center personnel on Christmas Day, HST. I first made this view known in a letter to The Honolulu Advertiser on December 30, 2004 and have developed the theme on a web log since January 2. The referenced commentary in The Honolulu Star-Bulletin further expanded on my belief that pre-crisis coordination with international news media may have spared an untold number of lives around the Indian Ocean.

The intent of my continuing inquiry is to save lives in future tsunamis by supporting efforts to engage all possible emergency communications channels to issue tsunami warnings. I have a particular orientation toward so-called “low-tech” radio and television, having worked in and with those media as a journalist and later as a crisis communicator.

I therefore am writing to request a copy of your agencies’ crisis communications plans. I am particularly interested to learn the details of PTWC and ITIC protocols for direct person-to-person contact with the major international news media when its becomes clear a tsunami warning should be disseminated – not only within the Pacific Rim but outside it, as well.

Any information you can provide regarding your agencies’ ongoing coordination with the major international news media (Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, BBC, etc.) to facilitate emergency communications to threatened areas of the world would be pertinent to my inquiry. I also would like to know whether plans have been written or changed to take advantage of lessons learned from the Indian Ocean tragedy.

As you know, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation has scheduled a hearing for February 2 on legislation to improve the nation’s tsunami warning system. It undoubtedly would be useful to the committee if you were to make your crisis communications plans available to me and directly to the committee before that date.

Due to the tight time frame, I would welcome your electronic response sent to my e-mail address above. I apologize for grouping you together in a single letter, but it seemed to be the most expeditious way to write to you both. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and attention to my request.

Sincerely,

/signature/
Doug Carlson

cc: Senator Daniel K. Inouye
Senator Daniel K. Akaka
Representative Neil Abercrombie
Representative Ed Case

Hearing Set for Tsunami Warning Bill; Questions for Admiral Lautenbacher

2005-01-25T13:51:00.000-10:00

The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation today announced that a hearing will be held on February 2 on legislation to improve tsunami warnings.

Scheduled to appear is NOAA Administrator Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.). In light of Admiral Lautenbacher's strong defence of The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center's (PTWC) response to the Sumatra earthquake (see January 12 post), the committee might well ask him this previously-suggested list of questions:

• Will NOAA release the PTWC’s crisis communications plan? (If not, why not?)
• What liaison did NOAA accomplish with the major media (Associated Press, CNN, BBC, etc.) before 12/26 to ensure emergency phone calls to these media would produce timely warnings to their audiences?
• Are PTWC scientists trained to telephone the media to issue life-saving warnings?
• Is the PTWC too high-tech oriented? Do you think low-tech telephone calls have a place in your pre-crisis planning and emergency warning protocols?
• Have you ordered changes in the PTWC warning protocols since the tsunami? If so, what changes have your required?
• Is NOAA prepared to accept any responsibility for an internal procedural failure that might have cost the lives of tens of thousands of people in south Asia?
• What is NOAA telling south Asia nations about its performance on 12/26?
• What are your personal feelings about NOAA’s performance on 12/26?

These are legitimate issues that would get to the heart of whether NOAA is capable of issuing radio and television warnings once its scientists believe a deadly tsunami may have been generated anywhere on the planet. The February 2 hearing ought not to gloss over NOAA's performance on 12/26 and its state of preparedness today.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 25, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

Senators Sponsor Warning System Upgrade; Attention also Needed on Media Protocols

2005-01-24T13:52:00.000-10:00

Long-time U.S. Senate colleagues Dan Inouye of Hawaii and Ted Stevens of Alaska have joined with others to introduce The Tsunami Preparedness Act (S.50) to "modernize the nation's tsunami warning and mitigation capabilities", according to a press release issued by the Senate Commerce Committee today.

“The appalling scope of the Indian Ocean tragedy illustrates the importance and necessity of our work of the past ten years, and with stark clarity, we can see that despite our best efforts, much remains to be done,” said Inouye. “Now, as before, Senator Stevens and I have come together to lead the charge toward national and international tsunami preparedness.”

The Act's summary includes encouraging references to so-called low-tech communications methods as advocated by this web log: "This (NOAA research) program shall investigate, in consultation with the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and the Federal Communications Commission, the potential for improved communications systems for tsunami and other hazard warnings, including telephones, wireless and satellite technology, the Internet, television and radio, and any innovative combination of these technologies."

The senators are encouraged to immediately require NOAA to disclose its current planning to issue warnings over TV and radio after earthquakes that may trigger tsunamis. By its own admission, NOAA did not alert news organizations with global reach after the Sumatra earthquake and before the tsunami struck some Indian Ocean countries. This web log believes lives were lost because of the apparent absence of communications planning to issue alerts through existing technology, including broadcast and cable television and radio.

There's no reason to wait for these plans to be disclosed, and if they haven't even yet been written, Congress would do well to require NOAA's immediate compliance.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 24, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

Memo to U.N. Tsunami Warning Planners: Think Outside Your Traditional High-Tech Box

2005-01-21T10:13:00.000-10:00

Bickering, indecision, disputed priorities – they’re all emerging at the UN-sponsored conference under way on this date in Kobe, Japan on creating a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean.

While attendees agree something must be done, they seem to be focused exclusively on building their multi-million-dollar technology-driven system. That may be the right solution for the long term, but it can't meet the needs of the present.

None of the news stories on the conference I’ve yet seen even mention the necessity to include usable media notification to warn of approaching tsunamis in the absence of high-tech systems that have yet to be built.

The view driving this web log was summarized once again in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on January 2o in a commentary with suggestions to change NOAA’s warning protocols by including immediate proactive person-to-person media contacts. (BTW, if NOAA has media notification in its crisis communications plan, it hasn't surfaced in any of the reporting since the tsunami, and this writer has received no responses to the contacts he made with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.)

These media protocols shouldn’t be limited to NOAA. They're universally relevant. But what's with this massive blind spot about using the media for such alerts? Are scientists as a group the world over so dependent on “science” and “technology” that they can’t bring themselves to “stoop” to the level of the mass media to alert mass populations?

A high-tech warning system will take years to implement. U.N. dignitaries should immediately ask their governments' agencies whether they're prepared to disseminate potentially life-saving tsunami warnings on low-tech radio. Could they do it tomorrow? They obviously couldn't on December 26.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 21, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

Seeing Through NOAA's Blind Spot: What Business Can Learn from the Tsunami Response

2005-01-16T14:19:00.000-10:00

The Indian Ocean tsunami may become a case study in university communications classes one day, much as the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the Tylenol poisonings are today. But this web log is about learning communications lessons in the here and now; the next tsunami in an area on the globe unprotected by a high-tech warning system could strike at any time.

What can we learn from NOAA’s response to the earthquake and resulting tsunami? By now the world knows that despite suspicions at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center that a tsunami had been generated, scientists there failed to issue a usable warning to the Indian Ocean region.

This web log believes they failed because, by NOAA’s own admission, the Center doesn’t maintain a list of media contacts. By inference, there’s no media plan to issue warnings to mass populations using the mass media. (See earlier posts – especially January 8 – for development of this theme.)

Despite the failure to save any lives on December 26, NOAA’s chief has lauded the Center’s performance as “excellent”. It’s safe to say that NOAA has a collective “blind spot” about what a truly “excellent” life-saving response would have been that day.

There’s much for business to learn from NOAA’s response – and also from how NOAA is dealing with the post-tsunami criticism it’s receiving:

Lesson #1 – Don’t be defensive; be open to input that sounds like criticism. It takes courage to accept criticism of your organization without immediately rejecting the critical assessments of its performance. NOAA appears to be in “spin cycle” as of this writing. It may be human to defend your organization’s performance, but listening is a better way to learn than talking.

Lesson #2 – Evaluate with an open mind what you’re hearing from both inside and outside the organization. Almost every major unplanned event can and should result in modifications to the crisis response plan. Shutting out the negative comments won’t lead to positive change. Your harshest critics may just know what they’re talking about.

Lesson #3 – Make sure you build efficiency into your crisis response. The Warning Center’s response was far from efficient; once scientists there suspected a tsunami, they made telephone calls to individual offices and colleagues in south Asia – i.e., one phone call communicated with one person. If a mass media response had been written into NOAA’s crisis communication plan, one phone call to the Associated Press or CNN could have been leveraged to produce a warning to millions of people before the tsunami arrived on the beaches of some Indian Ocean countries.

NOAA should modify its procedures immediately so its personnel can engage in life-saving efforts – not futile ones – when the next killer tsunami strikes.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 16, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

What Do We Make of NOAA's "Job Well Done" Self-Assessment?

2005-01-14T09:37:00.000-10:00

How should we regard the performance of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center after the devastating Sumatra earthquake?

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin thinks the Center performed admirably (January 13 editorial, “Hawaii’s tsunami warning center performed its job”) and defended it from criticism in Thailand and elsewhere for not sounding a usable tsunami warning to south Asia.

Maybe the Center did perform its job and mission well, but that depends on what the definition of “its job” is. The scientists certainly were efficient and immediately left their families on Christmas Day to gather at the Center, analyze the initial data on the earthquake and dispatch a bulletin within minutes to the 26 Pacific Rim member countries of the tsunami warning system.

And they sent another bulletin about an hour later to those same countries, accurately predicting there would be no Pacific-wide tsunami but suggesting that perhaps one had been triggered in the Indian Ocean.

At that point, suspecting that a tsunami was racing across the ocean, they started making telephone calls to government agencies in the region, with no success. Scientists have given many interviews to the media about what it was like in those moments when the suspicion of a probable tsunami finally had sunk in. The Chicago Tribune reported:

“With a killer tsunami bearing down on Sri Lanka and India at airliner speeds, an effort to save thousands of lives came down to a handful of overworked employees in Hawaii trying to telephone government officials they did not know and did not know how to reach.”

In the end, the terrible truth about the Center’s performance on Christmas Day is that not one life was saved in south Asia by what the Center’s scientists knew and what they did.

That hardly describes a great performance – unless, of course, the Center’s “job” is narrowly defined as administrative. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Conrad Lautenbacher seems to prefer that interpretation.

In a press conference on January 11, Lautenbacher said the staff’s actions were “excellent” and faithful to the warning procedures in place.

“This is a group that believes in saving lives and protecting property at all costs,” he said.

But the Center did not save any lives on Christmas Day. It did not protect any property. What are we to make of this disconnect between what the Center’s staff suspected – that a killer tsunami might have been generated – and the fact that more than 160,000 people died around the Indian Ocean rim?

Questions arose following the tragedy about why no effective warning was raised beyond the Pacific Rim. Rob Hail asked in a January 2 letter to the Star-Bulletin: “Why in the world didn’t the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center have a plan to notify the appropriate international media….?” Having just returned from southeast Asia, Hail noted that CNN, BBC and other services are popular news sources in many areas hit by the tsunami.

Confirmation that the Center and its sister NOAA agencies apparently have no media communications plan came a few days later in a UPI story that quoted NOAA spokesperson Dolores Clark:

“Following the realization that a massive tsunami had been generated, they (the Center’s scientists) did the best job they could to contact authorities. But they were fixed on reaching agencies that have responsibilities for warning, such as weather offices or disaster offices.”

Then Clark dropped a bombshell: “Not only was the Center focused on warning agencies, it does not have an official list of media contacts.”

So there it was -- no media contacts, no media phone numbers and therefore no media planning by a U.S. agency that prides itself as being the world leader in tsunami preparedness.

What’s more, there apparently has been no thought given by the Center and the International Tsunami Information Center, both located in Hawaii, as to what they could do to save lives in the absence of a high-tech warning system in the Indian Ocean. They knew there was no such system, they knew tsunamis are a threat to the region and they knew a major quake one day might trigger a massive tsunami there.

Yet when all those known factors finally came together, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center was reduced to wondering how to send an effective warning to south Asia. It doesn’t seem right for Lautenbacher to be back-patting now.

What can NOAA do? I posted a five-point program on this web log on January 12 as a suggestion on how NOAA can shift its thinking and culture to include meaningful media notification after future earthquakes that may have generated tsunamis. The process starts with facing up to the Christmas Day failure to save lives:

1. NOAA will accept constructive criticism -- rather than deny -- that actions it could have undertaken on December 25 (HST) likely would have saved lives in south Asia.
2. NOAA will resolve to change its communications culture, to include reevaluating the scope of its information-disseminating mission -- i.e., whether its mission extends beyond the Pacific Rim.
3. NOAA will rewrite it communications protocols to include early telephone calls to news organizations that have the capability of sending worldwide tsunami warnings.
4. NOAA will accomplish high-level coordination with the management of these news agencies to ensure proper execution of the alerts when received by the media.
5. NOAA will train its personnel to respond to suspected tsunamis by making direct person-to-person contact with the major news outlets based on proper prior planning.

NOAA owes it to the victims and their families to learn the lessons of the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami. Businesses routinely search for lessons after being hit by major non-scheduled events. NOAA must do the same.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 14, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

Am I Qualified To Write this Stuff?

2005-01-13T09:34:00.000-10:00

There's been a spate of newspaper articles recently on "blog ethics" suggesting bloggers might well abide by a code of standards. I've not lined up with any such code but will volunteer my bona fides to comment on crisis communications.

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism from Iowa and Northwestern respectively. After five years in the Army in the late '60s, I worked with Westinghouse Broadcasting Company all-news radio stations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, at The Chicago Daily News on its copy desk and as a reporter for The Honolulu Advertiser and KGMB-T V in Honolulu. My crisis communications background includes nearly nine years as communications manager and spokesman for Hawaiian Electric Company during hurricanes and other island-wide power emergencies. I've been consulting with client companies since 1990 and on my own as a sole proprietor since 1993. See my web site below (click "Why Us?") for more background.

Yes, I do believe I'm qualified to suggest changes in NOAA's crisis communications protocols and will continue to monitor this issue up to and beyond the congressional hearings into NOAA's response to the earthquake and tsunami.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 13, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

Leading NOAA to Water: A Proposal To Improve Its Crisis Communications Response

2005-01-12T14:20:00.000-10:00

NOAA needs encouragement to accept that whatever it may say about executing its mission well and making heroic attempts to send a tsunami warning to the Indian Ocean region, nothing its agencies did in the first two hours after detecting the Sumatra earthquake saved a single human life.

This is an unfortunate but undeniable truth, and perhaps if NOAA can face it without feeling the need to make excuses, new ways of disseminating earthquake and tsunami information can be implemented.

This five-point proposal to NOAA was distributed as a press release to the Honolulu news media today and will be transmitted to the NOAA and Pacific Tsunami Warning Center leadership:
1. NOAA will accept constructive criticism -- rather than deny -- that actions it could have undertaken on December 25 (HST) likely would have saved lives in south Asia.
2. NOAA will resolve to change its communications culture, to include reevaluating the scope of its information-disseminating mission -- i.e., whether its mission extends beyond the Pacific Rim.
3. NOAA will rewrite it communications protocols to include early telephone calls to news organizations that have the capability of sending worldwide tsunami warnings.
4. NOAA will accomplish high-level coordination with the management of these news agencies to ensure proper execution of the alerts when received by the media.
5. NOAA will train its personnel to respond to suspected tsunamis by making direct person-to-person contact with the major news outlets based on proper prior planning.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 12, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

NOAA's Administrator Has Spoken, Denies Agency Could Have Done More To Warn South Asia

2005-01-12T13:52:00.000-10:00

NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher Jr. held his press conference in Honolulu yesterday and predictably circled the wagons around the Pacific Tsunami Warning center.

Lautenbacher congratulated the Center for its post-earthquake performance and sidestepped criticism the Center didn't do enough to warn Indian Ocean nations. He asserted the Center's mission is confined to issuing alerts to Pacific Rim countries.

Lautenbacher repeated NOAA's ongoing commentary that south Asia nations weren't preapred to receive an effective tsunami warning even after scientists suspected one had been generated. "It takes two people to make a warning work. You have to have a receptive audience on the other end," he said. "What we do is provide the front end. We broadcast it and the other side has to be set up to receive it. If they're not set up to receive it or do not have people on station to do that, then obviously the warning will not work."

It's as if the retired admiral has never heard of "the power of radio." This blog's author noted that the Center did not transmit the alert to and through the major news media when it first suspected a tsunami -- more than an hour before it ripped into Sri Lanka and India. "They did not do everything they could and should have. They had a responsibility as the world's leading authority on tsunami information and warning to do more. If the message doesn't get through, the sender has failed."

It's clear NOAA is not inclined to accept criticism being directed at it from sources around the world. Therefore, a better tactic may be to suggest a program to improve NOAA's communications protocols, as will be done shortly in another post to this site.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 12, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

Questions the Media Should Ask NOAA Administrator Lautenbacher During His Hawaii Visit Today

2005-01-11T08:19:00.000-10:00

The Honolulu Advertiser reports this morning that NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher Jr. will tour the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach, HI today.

Since the Center is right here in their back yard, here's hoping the Honolulu media finally start asking questions about the Center's performance following its detection of the December 26 earthquake.

A Lautenbacher press conference has been scheduled for 3 p.m. HST today; according to a NOAA press release, the focus would appear to be "...the importance of having an international early warning system in place for tsunamis and other severe weather events and climate phenomenon that affect global communities."

That's well and good, but again, the emphasis seems to be on high-tech issues and solutions. Here are some questions -- helpfully faxed to the Honolulu news media -- that need asking at the press conference about the PTWC's crisis communications protocols and its ability to issue effective warnings without spending a dime on anything but long-distance telephone calls to the media:

• Will NOAA release the PTWC’s crisis communications plan? (If not, why not?)
• What liaison did NOAA accomplish with the major media (Associated Press, CNN, BBC, etc.) before 12/26 to ensure emergency phone calls to these media would produce timely warnings to their audiences?
• Are PTWC scientists trained to telephone the media to issue life-saving warnings?
• Is the PTWC too high-tech oriented? Do you think low-tech telephone calls have a place in your pre-crisis planning and emergency warning protocols?
• Have you ordered changes in the PTWC warning protocols since the tsunami?
• Does NOAA accept responsibility for an internal procedural failure that might have cost the lives of tens of thousands of people in south Asia?
• What is NOAA telling south Asia nations about its performance on 12/26?
• What are your personal feelings about NOAA’s performance on 12/26?

Perhaps we'll have some answers later today.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 11, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

The Victims Ask: "Why didn't we receive warning? At least five minutes would have helped."

2005-01-10T17:39:00.000-10:00

It's one thing for critics to probe why no effective warning was given to the nations of south Asia before the December 26 tsunami struck. Now the victims are asking the question for which no satisfactory answer has yet been offered. From a woman in Sri Lanka who lost her father, sister and niece:

"Why didn't we receive warning? We had two hours after Indonesian quake and at least five minutes warning would have helped. Five minutes would have saved my father's life."

(As reported by correspondent Philip Reeves today for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered")

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 10, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

NOAA Must Now Coordinate with the News Media To Make Future Tsunami Warnings Possible

2005-01-09T13:19:00.000-10:00

Thanks go to MSNBC's Will Femia for mentioning this web log in his on-line blog column on January 7. Femia also linked other web logs that question why no media alerts were issued after the Sumatra earthquake. George Murray of Graz, Austria subsequently sent word that as early as December 27 he was concerned about the absence of a tsunami warning via the media. He included correspondence he's had with the BBC.

Femia writes that he has a hard time imagining the major media reacting to a call from a scientist by immediately sending out an urgent tsunami warning to their clients. The response, of course, is that all necessary coordination with the media must be done in quiet times, not in the middle of a crisis. As a former journalist, I'm convinced senior policymakers at the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, BBC and other agencies would have responded positively to NOAA's request to have emergency contact procedures in place.

As for Femia's skepticism that people in south Asia would have been monitoring the media as the tsunami approached, he might ask a few Americans where they get their news while traveling abroad. It's often in the kind of beachside hotels, restaurants and bars that were destroyed on December 26. As George Murray wrote to the BBC: "Is it unreasonable to think that some of the tourists in their hotels and/or hotel staff might have seen and perhaps heeded these warnings? Don't you have thousands of listeners in the affected countries?"

If it isn't happening already, NOAA must now launch an investigation into all of its agencies' activites once the Sumatra earthquake was detected. Plans must be made to issue potentially life-saving warnings to the media -- verbal warnings exchanged between people in addition to those sent to computers and fax machines. The news media must respond to these requests for cooperation by recognizing they can play a critical role in saving thousands of lives.

George Murray also reminded the BBC of Edmund Burke's observation: "No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." Maintaining a list of media contacts to call may seem like a little thing compared to multi-million-dollar high-tech detection systems, but it's a necessary thing.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 9, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

The Truth Is Out: NOAA Couldn't Issue a Tsunami Warning to the News Media Because It Didn't Have Their Phone Numbers

2005-01-08T11:47:00.000-10:00

The question this web log has been asking for six days finally has been answered by an official U.S. government source.

As incredible as it seems, NOAA and its subordinate agencies could not call the news media to warn Indian Ocean nations of the onrushing killer tsunami because they didn't even have a list of media telephone numbers.

By inference, that means NOAA's crisis communications plans don't include low-tech telephone calls to mass media organizations when a warning must reach a mass audience.

Confirmation of earlier suspicions came from a NOAA spokesperson as reported by UPI Pentagon correspondent Pamela Hess and posted on the Washington Times' site:

"The watch standers first learned of the tsunami through the media almost four hours after the earthquake. Following the realization that a massive tsunami had been generated, they did the best job they could to contact authorities," said Dolores Clark, a spokeswoman for NOAA. "But they were fixed on reaching agencies that have responsibilities for warning such as weather offices or disaster management offices."

"Not only was the center focused on warning agencies, it does not have an official list of media contacts," Clark said.

"Unfortunately, there was no system set up to accomplish this because the (Pacific Tsunami Warning Center) serves Pacific Ocean countries," she said.

So there it is. No media contacts, no media phone numbers and therefore no media planning by a U.S. agency that prides itself as being the world leader in tsunami preparedness. At least two NOAA agencies -- the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the International Tsunami Information Center -- knew there was no high-tech warning system in the Indian Ocean. They knew tsunamis are a threat to the region (see what they must have known below). They knew a major quake one day might trigger a massive tsunami there.

And knowing that, they did what exactly? How did they prepare to warn Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, India and other nations of a magnitude 8.0 or higher earthquake and the threat of a potential tsunami?

Maybe Senator Olympia Snowe's hearings will uncover plans that simply were not executed properly, but based on the latest revelations, NOAA's crisis communications planning appears to have been inadequate -- with catastrophic results.

What Did NOAA Scientists Know About the Threat?

Why did NOAA scientists conclude almost immediately after the earthquake that no tsunami had been generated? As experts, surely they knew (as the world has learned) that earthquakes in that region do create tsunamis.

The International Coordinating Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific held its Nineteenth Session in Wellington, New Zealand September 29-October 2, 2003. Four NOAA officials attended this conference. Page 30 of the session's report says the following about earthquakes and tsunamis in the Indian Ocean (click link for PDF file):

Due to its tectonic setting which is located at the junction of three major plates of the Pacific, Eurasian and Indo-Australian, and one minor plate of the Philippines, Indonesia has a high activity in earthquakes and tsunamis. Historical data show that many tsunamis in Indonesia are destructives (sic) and have affected neighboring countries such as Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, etc.

Page 48 of the document says: "...the Southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean has a significant threat from both local and distant tsunamis...."

One NOAA attendee has explained NOAA's decision to not issue a warning about a potential tsunami in the first two hours following the Sumatra earthquake this way: "Our business is not to guess, so we did not guess there would be tsunamis."

My guess is that NOAA deeply regrets that remark and that a massive review of the agency's crisis communications procedures -- including media notification -- is quietly underway.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 8, 2005
www.DougCarlsonCommunications.com

More Critics Are Asking: Why Weren't the News Media Called?

2005-01-07T11:24:00.000-10:00

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

Finally -- Others Agree

2005-01-06T15:22:00.000-10:00

The media have begun to notice what this web log has been saying for the past five days -- that not enough was done by U.S. scientists to send low-tech (telephone) messages to the major news media with global networks in time to save lives before the tsunami struck several Indian Ocean nations.

In a post dated 1/7/05 on its web site, The Guardian (UK) carries a report headlined:
US island base given warning; Bulletins sent to Diego Garcia 'could have saved lives'
The story contains the comments of Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa's Department of Economics:

"Professor Michel Chossudovsky of Ottawa University said the argument put forward by other experts that countries hit by the tsunami could not have been warned of the approaching waves because they had no sensors or special buoys in the Indian Ocean was a 'red herring'. Prof Chossudovsky, who helps run the centre for research on globalisation, added: 'We are not dealing with information based on ocean sensors. The emergency warning (sent to U.S. forces at Diego Garcia) was transmitted in the immediate wake of the earthquake based on seismic data.' With modern communications, 'the information of an impending disaster could have been sent round the world in a matter of minutes, by email, by telephone, by fax, not to mention by satellite television', he said."

Elsewhere, web posts continue to report on the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) response to criticism its agencies did not do enough to effectively warn Indian Ocean nations, as Professor Chossudovsky and this web log suggest. A post at GovEXEC.com quotes NOAA's web site and timeline as saying, "NOAA officials tried to get the message out to other nations not a part of its Pacific warning system to alert them to the possibility of a tsunami." Referring to NOAA's statement, the site says scientists "were attuned to the danger, but blind to it without a way to detect it."

Perhaps not sufficiently attuned on Christmas Day, HST. Although it took nearly three and one-half hours for the quake's true magnitude to be calculated (by Harvard University's Seismology Department), the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and other montoring sites presumably knew shortly after the quake struck that its epicenter was in a subduction zone -- an area where one of the earth's plates is pushing its way beneath another. These zones are notorious for tsunami generation.

Nevertheless, knowledge of a subduction zone epicenter wasn't sufficient to immediately suggest the potential for a tsunami to U.S. scientists. The timeline says it took another hour for that possibility to sink in. Phone calls started going out to colleagues and agencies in the region, but there still is no evidence that scientists attempted to reach out through the news media to communicate their fears.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 5, 2005

David Broder on Hearings & Need for Warning

2005-01-06T09:18:00.000-10:00

Perennially perceptive Washington Post columnist David Broder focuses his column today ("A Long-Term Gift: Enough Warning") on the need to avert tragedies with warning systems that can save untold numbers of lives.

Broder highlights how governments are investigating a high-tech system to alert ocean-bordering nations when tsunamis are generated by earthquakes. He notes Senator Olympia Snowe's criticism of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for failing to issue an effective warning to south Asia based on information that was available before the tsunami struck the region.

As noted in each post on this web log, a warning might well have been issued by U.S. agencies and scientists if they had immediately notified the major news media once they suspected a tsunami instead of making one-on-one telephone calls to colleagues in the region.

Retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher, head of NOAA, and John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, both told Broder that the lack of an integrated warning system in the Indian Ocean contributed to the lack of an effective warning. When the earthquake off the coast of Indonesia was detected, Broder writes, no one knew who needed to be called. "That was embarrassing," Marburger said.

It also was deadly. No senior government official has yet to address whether a low-tech warning -- telephone calls to the media -- was activated by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center or other government agencies. Senator Snowe has announced her intention to conduct hearings on NOAA's performance following the earthquake.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 6, 2005

Suspended for Failure To Warn

2005-01-05T13:01:00.000-10:00

Government officials in Thailand have dealt swiftly with a forecaster for failing to issue a warning of the onrushing December 26 tsunami. As reported in The Australian, Thailand's weather bureau chief has been suspended pending an investigation.

As this web log has noted in previous posts, the article also says the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued a bulletin that the earthquake could have caused a local tsunami "almost an hour before the wave hit many of Thailand's western beaches...." Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is quoted: "But why weren't there any alerts? I really want to know the truth."

CNN has posted a report that describes the weather bureau chief's actions once he suspected a tsunami had been generated. Interestingly, this scientist's crisis response appears to be exactly the same as what U.S. scientists did: They attempted only to telephone government officials and agencies and apparently ignored the news media, thereby missing perhaps the best opportunity to give an adequate warning to south Asia populations.

The report quotes the chief: "'I tried to call the director-general of the meteorological office, but his phone was always busy,' he said as he described his desperate attempts to generate an alert which might have saved thousands of lives. 'I tried to phone the office, but it was a Sunday and no-one was there....'"

Are scientists not trained and conditioned to notify the mass media in a crisis? Do they only call one another to spread word of an impending disaster? Do U.S. agencies include media notification in their emergency response procedures? Did U.S. officials have time to make a life-saving call to news organizations with international reach? Did they try?

More importantly, when the next massive earthquake strikes in a location that conceivably could generate a tsunami, will they try then?

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 5, 2005

Someone DID Call the Media -- in Kenya

2005-01-04T16:14:00.000-10:00

If you've read previous posts to this web log, you know that its focus is the failure of U.S. scientists to issue an effective warning to Indian Ocean populations in the first two hours after the Sumatra earthquake. The log's premise is that scientists could have used the major news media -- e.g., the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN -- to alert the region in time to perhaps save many many lives.

A January 2 post contains a link to a NOAA timeline showing that within 70 minutes of the quake scientists suspected a tsunami had been generated, but instead of notifying the media, they spent all their time unsuccessully trying to reach colleagues and government agencies in south Asia.

As noted in yesterday's post, scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii were "trying to telephone government officials they did not know and did not know how to reach." No article yet found has mentioned that anyone contacted the news media to issue a tsunami warning -- no article save one.

Perhaps the most compelling report yet found about actions immediately after the quake was written by Andrew C. Revkin of The New York Times; it was published here and on numerous other sites. Although this 5200-word article reports on interviews with scientists and government officials from Seattle, WA to Africa, the only mention of anyone attempting to contact the news media to spread the alarm comes from Mombassa, Kenya:

"The emergency plan was intended for things like oil spills or fires, not tsunamis. But it was all they had. The police were informed to evacuate the beaches. The news media were called to spread the word. The local authorities were mobilized up and down the coast. Radio messages were sent to commercial fishing vessels and ships. For the wooden dhows that are so common in Kenya and that lack radio communication, the looming danger was spread by word of mouth."

"The news media were called to spread the word." Unfortunately, well over 100,000 people had died by the time that apparently sole media call was made.

This web log will continue to search for evidence that U.S. scientists and officials used the media to warn of a possible tsunami. Knowing what's in their crisis communication plan would shed some light. The goal, of course, is to ensure that agency personnel include mass media notification in their emergency plans as the most effective way to communicate with mass populations.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 4, 2005

What's in the Communications Plan?

2005-01-03T11:31:00.001-10:00

The frantic efforts of U.S. scientists to alert the Indian Ocean region in the minutes following the December 26 tsunami have been described by journalists all over the world. By focusing on these fruitless efforts, however, the journalists are missing a key issue:

U.S. officials might have been able to warn the mass populations of the region in time to save thousands of lives if they had alerted the major news media, such as the Associated Press and CNN, about the onrushing tsunami.

Here is the lead paragraph of a typical story on this subject; it was written by James Janega of the Chicago Tribune and published on December 28 by numerous newspapers that subscribe to the Tribune's news service:

"Chicago -- With a killer tsunami bearing down on Sri Lanka and India at airliner speeds, an effort to save thousands of lives came down to a handful of overworked employees in Hawaii trying to telephone government officials they did not know and did not know how to reach."

As noted in earlier posts and confirmed by a NOAA timeline, the tsunami had yet to reach Sri Lanka and India when scientists first suspected a tsunami had been generated. Rather than contact the mass media, however, scientists worked the phones unsuccessfully as they tried to reach colleagues and counterparts in the region.

One of Janega's sources said: "We didn't have a contact in place where you could just pick up the phone.... We were starting from scratch."

This quote quite reasonably suggests questions about the crisis communications planning of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) and the U.S. Geological Survey. Picking up the phone to call the news media is standard operating procedure for corporations that must communicate timely information to the public; utility companies do it routinely.

A New York Times story by reporters Michele Kayal and Matthew L. Wald that was reprinted in the International Herald Tribune on December 29 quoted a PTWC official: "We wanted to try to do something, but without a plan in place then, it was not an effective way to issue a warning, or to have it acted upon."

Does the PTWC's communications plan provide for making calls to the news media when scientists determine there is a significant threat to human life -- inside the Pacific Basin or out? It's a question that must be asked as inquiries are conducted into how U.S. agencies initially responded to the worst natural diaster of this generation.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 3, 2005

Senator Snowe Calls for Warning Inquiry

2005-01-02T15:56:00.000-10:00

As reported in The Honolulu Advertiser on 12/31/04:

*****
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who heads the U.S. Senate subcommittee overseeing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has called for Congressional hearings on the failure (to issue an adequate tsunami warning), and on finding ways to ensure that the technological capabilities of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center are made available to the Indian Ocean, according to the Boston Globe.

The head of NOAA said his agency did all it was responsible for doing in warning 26 countries in the Pacific.

"We cannot watch tsunamis in the Indian Ocean," said Conrad C. Lautenbacher, the Commerce Department's undersecretary for oceans and atmosphere and a retired Navy vice admiral, noting that no warning system exists for all 11 countries where the death toll has now topped 117,000.

Lautenbacher said he had ordered an internal review of its response to the quake and tsunamis. He said he also has asked NOAA staff to look at creating a "rapid reaction" emergency team and a more global warning system.
*****

This internal review might well examine whether it is appropriate to expand the mission of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center beyond its traditional Pacific Rim responsibilities. I.E., if the Center's staff believes a significant tsunami may have been generated in any ocean of the world (based on calculations of the earthquake's magnitude and other factors), should not the Center take aggressive measures -- including using the mass media -- to alert nations bordering that ocean? This would seem to be a reasonable and humanitarian response; unfortunately, it didn't happen after the December 26 earthquake in the Indian Ocean.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 2, 2005

Typical Media Report on Lack of Warning

2005-01-02T13:55:00.000-10:00

National Public Radio correspondent Christopher Joyce's report for "Morning Edition" on December 28 is typical of the reporting in the days immediately after the tsunami regarding the professed inability of scientists to issue a warning to the Indian Ocean nations. At one point in his report Joyce said:

"Other U.S. scientists who monitor earthquakes say when they realized how big the quake really was there was no clear way to get the information to authorities who might have been able to warn people in time."

One of his scientific sources said on tape:

"There was knowledge that a tsunami was being generated and that information was available, but the problem we ran into was that there were not appropriate agencies in places like India and in Somalia on the East and the Horn of Africa region. There was no system set up by which we could take that information and translate it into actions that the public could react to."

This latter statement in particular leads to questions about the preparation of scientists to rapidly handle the dissemination of tsunami alerts to populations in peril. The Associated Press, CNN, News World International, Reuters and the BBC are some of the news agencies with world-wide networks. They might have been the scientists' link to the mass populations they worried about around the Indian Ocean. One has to assume that the AP, once convinced of the bona fides of a caller from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center or the U.S. Geological Survey, would have issued a "flash" bulletin to its clients that would have been broadcast on TV and radio -- perhaps in time to save tens of thousands of lives. Yet missing from all news reports found to date is any indication that U.S. scientists made an aggressive move to call the media and tell them what they knew at the moment they became alarmed that a tsunami had been generated. As noted in the NOAA timeline, U.S. agencies had knowledge of the possibility of a tsunami before the waves struck Sri Lanka and India.

(Another report by NPR's Joyce, broadcast in the December 30 edition of "All Things Considered", also reveals the tendency of U.S. scientists to focus on high-tech warning systems and apparently not think at all about using relatively low-tech media: "There is a severe frustration on our part," says one official. "We did everything we could. You just have to realize that, you know, these other links are absolutely just as critical, and we have them in the U.S. You know, they don't exist elsewhere."

This subject needs investigation -- not to lay blame but to ensure that U.S. agencies are suitably prepared with both the mindset and the means to alleviate tragedies around the world when they have the ability to do so.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 2, 2005

No Tsunami Warning -- Why?

2005-01-02T13:03:00.000-10:00

One week after the Indian Ocean tsunami, the death toll is approaching 150,000. A significant percentage of these people perished at least two hours after the triggering earthquake. It took at least two hours for the ocean seismic waves to reach Sri Lanka, India and other countries after the earthquake near Sumatra, Indonesia -- long enough, some say, for a warning to have been sent to the region. Could the victims in these distant countries have been warned early enough to save their lives? That is the question that prompts creation of this blog.

Media reports in the first few days following the quake cited the absence of an early-warning system of sensors in the Indian Ocean as the reason an adequate warning was not given to the countries’ populations. This condition has been contrasted to the warning system that connects all Pacific Rim nations with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Honolulu, HI.

Scientists and officials at this and other U.S. agencies were quoted in numerous media stories as having said they did everything they could to alert colleagues and governments around the Indian Ocean once they suspected that a tsunami had been generated.

As noted in my letter to The Honolulu Advertiser published on December 30, however, what’s missing in all these newspaper, radio and television reports is any indication that scientists ever initiated contact with the American mass media at any time following the earthquake. The question this blog will examine in the weeks ahead is whether early notification of the media might have saved tens of thousands of lives around the Indian Ocean rim and whether the PTWC and other U.S. agencies are prepared to use aggressive outside-the-box thinking to avert human devastation on the scale recorded on December 26.

Did U.S. scientists have the mindset – once they suspected the quake had triggered a tsunami – to make a low-tech warning phone call to the Associated Press, CNN, and other news organization with global networks, or were they so conditioned to high-tech e-mails and web postings that they missed the opportunity to use the mass media to warn mass populations of the Indian Ocean countries? Since several additional hours passed before the tsunami crashed into the African coast, were lives lost there and elsewhere because the mass media were not notified?

The Honolulu Advertiser followed up on this question in part on December 31 with a story headlined “World lacks global alert for disaster”. A tsunami timeline provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that accompanied that story noted that officials at the PTWC initially calculated the magnitude of the Sumatra earthquake at 6.6 and issued a bulletin to the Hawaii Civil Defense agencies 16 minutes after the quake noting that “there is no tsunami threat to Hawaii”. No mention was made in that bulletin of a potential tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

That assessment changed in the next 45 minutes, however, and a bulletin issued 65 minutes after the earthquake revised the magnitude up to 8.5 and advised recipients of the possibility of a tsunami near the quake’s epicenter (see official timeline).

The timeline next notes that 1 hour and 31 minutes after the quake the PTWC unsuccessfully attempted to contact the Australia Met Service but did reach Australia Emergency Management. The timeline’s next entry comes at 2 hours and 31 minutes after the quake and says: “Internet newswire reports of casualties in Sri Lanka provided PTWC with the first indications of the existence of a destructive tsunami. Indications are that the tsunami had already struck the entire area by this time, although we have not been able to obtain arrival times.” Fifteen minutes later, PTWC contacted the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii – some 2 hours and 46 minutes after the quake.

This timeline and the PTWC’s reactions noted in it are critical to the assessment of whether calls to American mass media outlets might have saved lives – presuming of course that the Associated Press would have reacted swiftly and issued a Flash bulletin to its clients. According to published reports in various media, the tsunami did not strike Sri Lanka, India and Somalia until two, three and nearly six hours respectively after the earthquake.

Official inquiries will be made into how it was possible, as asked in the December 31st Honolulu Advertiser story, that "in the age of wireless communications, the Internet and 24-hour news, a catastrophic wall of water was able to cross an ocean and devastate a dozen nations' coastlines without notice." This blog will stay focused on that question and do what it can to help ensure that U.S. agencies in a position to issue life-saving warnings do so in the most efficient and media-aware ways possible.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
January 2, 2005