Deficiencies in managing the tsunami threat to Hawaii last month are leading to planned improvements that include manual traffic intersection management, fewer broken warning sirens and safety information websites that don’t crash under high demand.
There also should be better public messaging from emergency management officials as to what the public should and should not do under a regular or extreme tsunami warning.
Planned improvements were shared Thursday with members of the state House Committee on Public Safety, who wanted to know what lessons were learned from state and county emergency management responses to the July 29 tsunami warning that led to widespread evacuations.
Evacuations from tsunami danger areas were deemed a success, but in some places resulted in three hours of traffic gridlock when the public had four hours to react before the projected arrival of a potential first wave.
Ed Sniffen, director of the state Department of Transportation, said a draft plan that includes improved evacuation messaging and management is to be finished by November.
The plan, he said, will have expanded options for reversing traffic along key roadways, and informing the public about such changes that are implemented.
Sniffen also said that before the public is told to leave evacuation zones, unless they can move to at least the fourth story or higher in a building at least 10 stories tall, emergency responders will be deployed to manage intersections that are key to a faster exodus.
What turned out to be an evacuation drill on July 29 was successful, given that no traffic remained in a danger zone by 7 p.m. that day when the possible first wave was expected to arrive at 7:17 p.m. Still, Sniffen said, “It can be a lot smoother. A lot smoother. … Congestion was significant.”
Some congestion was due to people evacuating when they didn’t need to, or trying to drive when they could walk. So improved instructions for the public are in the works, Sniffen told the panel.
“A lot of people (took) about an hour and a half to leave their parking structures from their downtown offices, and they could have just went upstairs in a hardened structure and they would have been evacuated,” he said. “They would have been at high ground already.”
Sniffen also said that in Waikiki many people could have walked three blocks to a safe area. “It would have taken them 10 minutes, and they would have been fine,” he said. “But they jumped in their vehicles and added to the traffic as well.”
Some of the planned new messaging also will urge the public not to go shopping for supplies or to the gas station when there is an emergency need to evacuate. “Let the people who got to evacuate actually use the roadways,” Sniffen said.
Another issue with congestion during the recent tsunami threat was many people not being told or understanding that only those in the regular tsunami inundation zone identified in red on maps were supposed to leave, and that those in extreme inundation zones that are shown in yellow and apply to danger from an extreme tsunami were not meant to evacuate.
City and County of Honolulu officials have previously said they intend to increase public education and communication on this distinction.
On July 29, however, not only was this message sufficiently lacking, but some state and city websites showing the maps crashed due to overwhelming demand.
James Barros, administrator of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, told the panel that HIEMA has identified the weakness in its website, which he said was due to older computer coding. The agency is expected to test a fix next week.
Another shortcoming exposed during the tsunami threat was many outdoor warning sirens that weren’t operable. HIEMA tests sirens once a month, but repairs to broken units can take a long time due in part to procurement rules.
On Thursday, 92 of 418 sirens statewide were not operational, including 13 in coastal areas of Oahu.
Barros said HIEMA is prioritizing fixing sirens in inundation zones and trying to accelerate repair work after failing to convince the state Department of the Attorney General that it would be OK for Gov. Josh Green to issue an emergency proclamation allowing HIEMA to bypass procurement rules for repair work.
“We recognize that there are some sirens that have been broken for a long time,” he said.
Rep. Della Au Belatti, chair of the committee, said the briefing, which also touched on other disaster management and mitigation topics, was important because past events can help improve outcomes in future ones.
“This is not just something that we engage in from threat to threat,” said Belatti (D, Makiki-Punchbowl). “It’s actually something that we can plan for, and I’m a big believer in planning. We have so much we need to do, and we always can be learning. The plans can always be improving.”
Source: The Garden Island
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