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

[Robert Bunge]

My understanding is the hurricane didn't really have that much to do with the winds that day... at least not at the level that much media reporting suggested.  

You can also find some pieces that have described how locals were concerned about the fire risk in the area for a number of years; since the sugar plantations had shut down and the nature of the former cane fields had changed and were no longer being managed.  I'm pretty sure there was a red flag warning in effect at the time and NWS had been noting the dry downslope wind risk (similar to Santa Ana winds in some parts of CONUS).

What I heard the now resigned EM say was he didn't trigger the sirens because they had trained/educated the citizens that the sirens were a tsunami warning system; that he was afraid people would run the hills and into the fire.  I'm Monday morning quarterbacking, but taking one of your key warning systems and making it single use, might not have been the best idea.  This might be an important lesson learned in the EM community. Perhaps in a Tsunami event, they didn't feel there would be time for residents to check another source since in some conditions the wave can be arriving in a matter of a couple of minutes.

NWS has a warning coordination meteorologist position in each office.  One of their jobs is to sound the local drumbeat of their services to the various warning channels.  I might suspect that in years past, when radio stations had more human resources it was more common for someone at the station to have at least some regular or semi-regular contact with the local government officials in the warning business.  That loss of regular human contact might also be a player; especially since, as others have mentioned, many EMs have been distracted by newer, shiny objects.  

Bob

On Tue, Aug 22, 2023 at 9:58 AM Kelly Alford alfords at seanet.com> wrote:
>But how does one anticipate, let alone predict a hurricane hitting an island
>that doesn't include any moisture in an unusually hot and dry year?  There
>are likely millions of scenarios just like this one that can't be
>anticipated, let alone planned-for other than based on history of a
>particular geography.  Emergency planning and associated funding is all
>based on history and trends.   

>-----Original Message-----
>From: EAS [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Clay Freinwald

>Bill Ruck wrote -

>While I don't think it is fair or even reasonable to Monday Morning
>Quarterback the emergency services people in Maui it is also extremely clear
>that they were not up to the job.

>I suspect there is some ' Because it's never happened, it won't'  Thinking
>going on.

>Clay Freinwald

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