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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

(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

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

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

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

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?

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