[EAS] Maui sees ghosts from Californias past

[Bill Ruck]

There are too many points to make.

1.  Public Service / OES / Emergency Services have been seduced by 
vendors that sell reverse 911 and cell notification systems and other 
"state-of-the-art" systems.  Those vendors have very good sales teams. 
They disparage old technology like EAS.  They also make a lot of money 
from those sales.

2.  Most of those systems work very well in tests and look good to 
agency management.

3.  Most of those systems depend on utility power which can impact VoIP 
and cell service.  So when the power goes out what still works?

4.  I remember an APCO presentation after one of the big CA fires the 
dispatchers told stories about people calling 911 to get the fire 
department to open their garage doors so they could escape.  They did 
not know how to open the garage door without power.  The dispatchers had 
to tell them the FD is busy.

5.  Experience is that when something bad happens people resort to what 
they usually do.  In San Francisco it is to turn on KCBS, the last 
all-news station here.  What they do NOT do is to find something else.

6.  There is no perfect public warning system.  All of them have issues. 
  IMHO the best solution is not to be picky but to use ALL of them. 
Even at that point there will still be members of the public that will 
claim "Nobody told me".

7.  I have a lot of sympathy for OES or Emergency Managers.  Every year 
at budget time they get interrogated "Why are you asking for more money? 
  Our last (pick one) fire, flood, earthquake, volcano, etc. was dozens 
of years ago."  Then after years of losing staff and not getting 
training and no new technology something bad happens and the result is 
"It's your fault".

And as I said before, "Been there done that and the t-shirt wore out a 
long time ago".  Like 1989.

Bill Ruck
Curmudgeon
San Francisco