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

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

• 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.