Samoa Survivor Says Radio Personnel Joked re Earthquake, Said ‘There’s No Tsunami Warning’

Honolulu weather anchor Malika Dudley (KGMB-TV) has received a disturbing report from a Samoa tsunami survivor about the conduct of a local radio station’s staff following the September 29 earthquake but before the tsunami waves struck the islands.

The station has posted the email on its website. Here’s the survivor's serious charge:

People turn to the radio for news and instead of being told the reality of the situation, these two DJs spent the morning joking and trivializing this very serious event. This was a time for them to instruct ALL people to move to higher ground right away. In fact, right before the tsunami hit, a man called in to the radio station and reported that people were running on the wharf and that the water was receding. Joey and Lupe were very condescending to this man, who was only trying to warn others but was instead met with skepticism and incredulity. I wish that the recording from that morning could be replayed for all to hear.

As we’ve said repeatedly at this website and our original Tsunami Lessons site, the media have a critical role to play in communicating tsunami warnings. The survivor’s email observed that people turn to their news media for information in a crisis. She also says lives could have been saved had a properly trained radio station staff issued a cautionary warning – even in the absence of an official communiqué from the Pacitic Tsunami Warning Center.

The survivor’s email shows that simply initiating a PTWC warning isn’t what saves lives. What is missing all too often is the mechanism that ensures people actually receive the warning.

Much more work remains to be done before it can be said the tsunami warning network is functioning properly.

Witness Says Villagers Waited for Evacuation Warning from ‘Middle Man’ that Never Came

As we noted in our first post to Tsunami Lessons 2, international protocol followed by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center requires tsunami warnings to be sent to local authorities, who then determine how and when to issue an alert to the public.

An online story at the Honolulu Advertiser’s website today shows why lives can be lost when protocol is followed rather than using the mass media to immediately issue a warning which is what we’ve advocated for five years since the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The story quotes Maui resident Cristiane Martins, who survived Tuesday’s Samoa earthquake and tsunami:

"While Western Samoa conducts regular training in tsunami preparedness, Martins said she understood that much of the training teaches people to listen for warnings and evacuation orders when there's an alarm. That decision might have cost some families their lives, because they decided to stay and wait for instructions after the earthquake, rather than run for safety. 'That's way too late,' she said."

If Martins’ account accurately reflects tsunami preparedness in Western Samoa, it seems pretty clear that the population has been ill-informed about what to do when a violent earthquake occurs.

All of which reinforces our five-year-old conclusion that the international mass media represent a tool that could save lives but instead is being ignored in the name of local sovereignty.

NOTE: if readers have any personal knowledge of how and whether the broadcast media were used to warn residents in Samoa about the tsunami, please include that information in a comment, below. Was a warning broadcast on the radio or TV before the waves arrived? What warning methods were employed?

Another Tsunami and More Deaths Prompt this Necessary Question: How Can We Save Lives?

Our Tsunami Lessons blog was started one week after the 2004 Indonesian tsunami. Here’s a one-sentence summary of the three years of posts you’ll find there:

Nothing scientists did immediately after issuing a tsunami warning saved lives. (The case essentially was made in the January 2005 posts to the blog.)

Scientists at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) knew enough to want to alert the region’s population of their peril, but they had never rehearsed a way to do so. They didn't have a plan.

After three years of investigation, our conclusion at Tsunami Lessons was that as a consequence of that lack of preparation, upwards of a quarter million people died.

Now comes the Samoa earthquake and tsunami, and again people died. It’s legitimate to ask once more what it was exactly that PTWC scientists did, who they informed and when, and how and whether their presumably improved warning protocols did any good.

It’s possible the wave followed the earthquake so quickly that no warning reached people in time, but based on what we learned after the Indonesian tsunami, the questions need asking.

Here are some of our conclusions following the 2004 tsunami:

• The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had no standard operating procedure in place to issue an effective alert using the international news media. Even though it was presumed a massive earthquake in the Indonesia region would be sufficient to trigger tsunamis (the 2004 quake measured 9.0), PTWC scientists were helpless to warn people in harm’s way.

• Since worldwide telegraph, radio and television transmissions have been in place for generations, the PTWC could have alerted populations in the tsunami zone by having procedures in place to “flash” media messages to the affected region.

That didn’t happen, and for an almost incomprehensible reason: According to the Charles McCreery, the Center’s director, the National Weather Service won’t even allow the PTWC to call the news media. The media have to come to the PTWC. That prohibition requires a thorough review, since it may be the reason tens of thousands of people died in 2004.

• Protocols endorsed by the United Nations require the PTWC to work through government agencies when a tsunami is forecast to arrive in the government’s jurisdiction.

In other words, a government agency “middle man” is built into the warning system, even though this requirement almost guarantees delay in delivering the warning to the affected population.

This point is made clear in virtually every Tsunami Bulletin issued by the PTWC. Here’s a portion from one of the Bulletins issued on September 29 during the Samoa tsunami incident:

THIS BULLETIN IS ISSUED AS ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ONLY NATIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE DECISIONS REGARDING THE OFFICIAL STATE OF ALERT IN THEIR AREA AND ANY ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN RESPONSE.

This must change. As we repeatedly urged in the original Tsunami Lessons blog (see particularly the 2005 posts), all parties involved in the warning chain must recognize that nothing short of the fastest possible warning is acceptable.

The electronic media are the means to deliver the fastest possible warning. Government agencies of various levels of competence must not be inserted between the PTWC and the people in peril.

The United Nations has it in its power to convene yet another of its many conferences to address this undeniable point: People continue to die during tsunamis despite huge expenditures in the warning networks.

If relinquishing local “authority” can save lives, it must happen.

NOTE: if readers have any personal knowledge of how and whether the broadcast media were used to warn residents in Samoa about the tsunami, please include that information in a comment, below. Was a warning broadcast on the radio or TV before the waves arrived? What warning methods were employed?