[EAS] Radio and Maui: A Failure To Communicate?

[Gregory Muir]

Kelly,

It's not that radio is purported to be a "save all" but, rather yet another 
aspect that could have been more effectively used if emergency services had 
worked more closely with the Hawaii broadcasters.  After all, what 
transmission medium was still fully operational throughout the fire?

I don't know if you have been watching the follow-up news broadcasts of the 
fire but in several of them there were residents being interviewed who 
mentioned that they wished that they had received more information via radio 
after they found their cell phone service down.  There was also mentioned 
that they only found one or two stations that were actually broadcasting 
information relating to the fire.  So people were listening.

There was another instance where one broadcaster actually called emergency 
services begging to receive more information so that they could pass it on 
to the listeners.

So it is not that the people of Maui were totally ignorant of the use of 
radio but conversely that radio wasn't completely serving the needs of the 
people who were trying to use it as an information source.

As for the speed of the fire, yes it was a very unexpected issue.  And there 
may have been a different outcome if other readily available forms of 
warnings were implemented.  This is an incident of a magnitude that could 
not even be dreamed about when emergency planning is done.  And, again some 
residents had wished that the sirens would have sounded to give them a few 
more minutes time to escape.  Given that it is a solar powered system the 
aspect of loss of utility power becomes a moot point.  But when an official 
decides that using it is not applicable to the incident one has to be a 
little skeptical about the action taken.

Now we move on to the California hurricane flooding and reports of 911 
system issues that are beginning to surface.  Here we go again.....

Greg