October 21, 2006 - Saturday

It appears that a group calling itself "Yes on 3" is pushing to support Honolulu Charter Question 3, which asks:  “Should one percent of annual property tax revenues be appropriated to fund for land conservation and affordable housing?”

By voting YES, 1% of existing real property taxes on O’ahu (city & county of Honolulu) that you already pay would be set aside for natural lands and affordable housing.

Crystal Young from the Kokua Foundation is organizing a "Pau Hana for a Purpose" for "Yes on 3" on Thursday, October 26 from 8-12 p.m. at Lulu's in Waikiki (located on the corner of Kalakaua and Kapahulu across from the Zoo where Denny's used to be; so there's good parking). Admission is $20, and $25 at the door.  Hawaiian music by Niu Valley from 8-10, and DJ sounds from 10-12.  Beer and pupus included.  If you want to buy or can sell tickets, please let Lisa Keala Carter (524-8562 or lisa.kealacarter@tpl.org know. All proceeds will go to the Yes on 3 campaign.  

We're trying raise enough funds to send an educational mailer about Yes on 3 to each address with a registered voter.  We've been able to cut down the number of mailings to avoid multiple mailings to a single address, and made deals with printers.  We need about $30,000 to send out one educational mailing to all of O'ahu.   We've raised a little over $15,000  and have a ways to go!  Please help out by attending the fundraiser, selling some tickets, or donating money to the cause.  Non-deductible checks should be made out to "Yes on 3" and mailed c/o 212 Merchant Street, Suite 320, Honolulu, HI 96813.

After hearing a National Public Radio interview with the producer of this audio what-if (i.e., what if Ray Charles had recorded with Count Basie), I saw it at Costco and brought it home. From my perspective, it's a dynamite recording, although I see from reviews that "serious" students of either artist might be appalled by the electronic sleight of hand involved.

The recording of Charles dates from a 1970's performance, which was then enhanced and mixed with contemporary back-up by the Count Basie Orchestra. It may be the equivalent of Photoshop, but it seems to me that it has created real art.

I would love to hear this done to allow Raiatea Helm to record with her uncle, George Helm, a musical genious whose life was cut short when he was lost at sea while trying to return from a protest trip to the island of Kahoolawe in 1977. Both are wonderful musicians and hearing them together, even if only through the wonders of technology, would be a quite a treat.

Now we're waiting for enough like to check out the weather. They've been predicting thunderstorms and heavy rain, neither of which materialized overnight, although we collected all the cats in preparation for the wet weather. By the way, that is not a recipe for a sound sleep.

October 20, 2006 - Friday

KITV has probably not gotten its fair share of attention for coverage of Sunday's earthquake. The station began broadcasting live coverage at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning and continued for twelve hours.

Although the blackout meant that we never had a chance to see its coverage, lots of folks around the world did via CNN, which simulcast the KITV broadcast throughout much of the day.

According to former Hawaii journalist Karen Waygood, now with CNN:

Around 2pm (eastern time), I called Keoki Kerr at home and he was our first "beeper," talking to anchor Fredricka Whitfield for several minutes. A friend of Brock's was sending him IMs from the Big Island, he was forwarding to me at CNN and were were getting those on the air. Within an hour we were broadcasting KITV's coverage. In the 8pm et hour, we still had KITV on the air.

We also had other station's reporters on air, before CNN took KITV's coverage. I saw a reporter I didn't recognize from KHON.

As a result of the national exposure, I've heard that KITV's web site recorded a whopping 2.3 million page views on Sunday alone, far surpassing the Advertiser's already impressive record of just under a total of two million pages over two days.

In future outages, I have to remember that my battery-powered laptop can connect to the Internet via cell phone and then catch streaming video from at least some local television stations, even if Oceanic's cable service is disrupted. That option didn't occur to me on Sunday.

Alex Salkever (Hawaiirama.com) raises another very interesting question of homes built without the benefit of permits:

You general contractor friend is too kind in his assumptions of residential construction on the Big Island and Maui since the 1980s. A significant percentage is non-permitted and probably not up to code. This is a problem that continues today -- the Hawaii Carpenters union has long complained about the state's wink-wink approach to enforcement on this matter. Permitting is seens as optional by many, particularly on Outer Islands but also here. If we got hit by a really big quake of 7.0 or greater close to an island, I think there would be a lot of dead people.

And, still on the earthquaker issues, after wondering about what role could be played by the state's Commission on Transportation, I made a request early on Tuesday morning for an opportunity to inspect two years of minutes from commission meetings. My request went to the Department of Transportation's public affairs office, which responded relatively promptly by that same afternoon: "I am forwarding it to the Statewide Transportation Planning office for their review."

Okay, although under state law quick access to minutes should be a no-brainer. Here's the relevant law:

92F-12 Disclosure required. (a) Any other provision in this chapter to the contrary notwithstanding, each agency shall make available for public inspection and duplication during regular business hours:

...(7) Minutes of all agency meetings required by law to be public;

Now it's Friday morning and no word back on the availability of these minutes. I suppose that it's about time for a polite reminder.

Thanks to Helen Altonn for her obituary last week of artist Ben Norris, who played a prominent role in Hawaii before moving to New York in search of wider artististic recognition. We crossed paths with Ben in several ways over the years, both directly and indirectly. Last month, coincidentally just a week or so after Ben's death, I scanned photos of a small 1971 peace demonstration in Honolulu and noted him among the group. And a year later, I had my camera along when a group of us used his studio to print posters for the upcoming trial of the "Hickam 3", Honolulu men arrested for civil disobedience in opposition to the war in Vietnam. We also have several of his art works, including a personal drawing we inherited from a close friend, although we've tried without success to find one of his vibrant early watercolors that reflect so well the lushness of the islands.

I don't know that the Advertiser ran an obit of Norris, and one does not appear either in a search on its site or via Google News.

And congratulations to Advertiser reporter Rob Perez, who has a two-page story prominently featured in the current issue of the IRE Journal, the publication of Investigative Reporters and Editors. Rob describes his detailed reporting on the problems behind several instances of malpractice at Tripler Army Medical Center.

October 19, 2006 - Thursday

Demonstrators opposing Gov. Lingle's support for the war in Iraq are planning to confront contributors at the gov's fundraiser in Hilo tonight.

According to the Malu Aina Center for Nonviolent Education and Action:

This is a closed reception for her supporters but we can make a strong presence/statement with our peaceful sign-holding on the sidewalk near Sangha Hall on Kilauea Ave next to Starbucks. Linda Lingle has supported President Bush unflinchingly in his war of aggression in The Middle-east. When asked for a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq, she has stated that we can have no timetable.

CodePink, an organization of women opposed to this war, will also be there with a display of "dozens of little shoes representing Iraqi children who have been killed in the war," according to Janet Codispoti of CodePink - Hilo-Puna.

Now, back to continuing earthquake fallout. A friend and former Big Island contractor now living in the Bay Area had this thought:

Knowing the housing stock on the Big Island as I do, having been a G.C.(general contractor) in Kohala 1981-87, I can't help but think the residential damage is much greater than has been reported to date--not as a deficiency in reporting but simply because the data will take time to collect.

The problem is that the building codes regarding seismic safety were very lax for decades in Hawaii--true of most other states, too, of course. In Hawaii, until fairly recently, no "positive connection" (i.e. a steel tie of some sort) was required between the little concrete foundation pads (nicknamed "tofu blocks") and the wooden posts holding up the house. This means it doesn't take much to vibrate the house off the blocks. No such connection was required in the 80s, escept by FMhA (Farners Home Loan program homes). Other framing, such as bracing in carports, etc. was very minimal. Termite damage is also an issue, i.e. "the only thing holding up da house is da termites wen hold hands."

The resiliency of the hotels along the Kona and Kohala coasts shows that in large, poured concrete structures, codes have done their jobs. No doubt recently built houses did OK too but there should be a review by some governmental agency of how older residences performed in the quake.

Here'a another issue to watch: Condo meltdown. Many of the damaged structures are apparently condominiums, which is likely to dramatically complicate the repair and recovery process. In a condominium, repairing structural damage and damage to common areas is the responsibility of the owners' association, while damage to the interior of apartments might be left to individual apartment owners. This means that major repairs face the added layer of politics and power within those condominium associations as well as the difficulties of assigning responsibilities to the right parties. Whether the association is controlled by residents or investors can make a big difference in how repairs are approached and whether corners are cut in the process. This issue will be one to check back on in a few months.

I'm with the civil defense guys on the question of sirens. Sounding the sirens under the circumstances would have been a bad idea. But getting information out quickly in every possible form? Should have been done and wasn't.

I was watching the short special on KGMB last night and couldn't believe the state telecommunications official who defended Sunday's performance by saying that an emergency message had been broadcast at 9:57 a.m. By my reckoning, that was two hours and 49 minutes after the big quake, and nearly that long since power had gone out statewide. Way too long, guys.

Doug Carlson has done a public service by starting a blog with the long name, "Citizens helping officials respond to emergencies", or CHORE. Today he wonders: Why did HECO's computer system select the "dump the generators" option instead of the "shed the customers" option on Sunday morning when the load suddenly exceeded the carrying capacity of the power plants? And yesterday he posed the question of why the public isn't represented on the governor's "comprehensive communications review committee"? In Doug's view, it's not really comprehensive if the public's perspective isn't represented. Thanks for all the work on this, Doug.

Larry Geller (www.DisappearedNews.com) reminds that we ran into the same communications issues when the freeway was shut down last month, and after that disaster he recommended a process for following up.

Ah, a bit of calm in the storm. This was one of those quiet September mornings in Kaaawa. Just click on the photo for my full September selection. Thanks for viewing.

October 18, 2006 - Wednesday

The Honolulu Advertiser web site had more than a million page views for the first time ever on Monday, according to editor Mark Platte.

Platte made the disclosure while correcting information he supplied yesterday, which had confused "unique visitors" with "page views".

On Sunday, we had 146,000 unique visitors, not unique page views. Not sure where I came up with that terminology and maybe nobody cares but you know the difference. On Monday, we had 133.000 unique visitors.

On Sunday, we had 930,000 page views and on Monday, 1,078,685 page views. We'd never gone over the 1 million mark before so this was a big deal. The unique visitors and page views were for all stories, not just earthquake-related stories but obviously the earthquake coverage had a lot to do with it.

Meanwhile, the quake continues to reverberate. One reader, a former Star-Bulletin reporter, noted:

Catherine Toth had a brief story on the Tizer Web site very soon after quake hit. I wrote her thanking her for the first information I was able to find about what had happened.

Before my laptop battery died I was also able to find live streaming video coverage by Shawn Ching on the KITV Web site.

Another reader weighed in with a similar viewpoint:

I don’t see how the Bulletin’s down site gets an F while the Advertiser’s coverage only merits a D-. The Advertiser had the most complete coverage out of just about any news outlet, certainly among those accessible to those without TV and cable (Internet gets a big yay for staying up). As far as I know, you don’t have to register to view breaking news items. At any rate I was accessing it with my cell phone and did not have to register for any of that information – something someone sitting safely with power on the mainland would not know. It turned out to be my main source of information, since us young technogeeks have little use for a portable radio … the old timers know better!

The Advertiser site performance wasn’t without glitches. But the bottom line is I was able to get my information just about exclusively from it.

As to the Star-Bulletin, it's web site didn't get back online until power was restored Sunday evening.

A friend in Texas had her own connection to the quake:

Dan was actually IN Waikoloa Village on the Big Island during the earthquake Sunday morning. It was his first night there at the Hilton, and we had talked only a short time before (at dawn, when all of the birds were exceptionally loud). He called me, obviously shaken, to report the earthquake - the strongest he'd ever experienced. Drawers were all open, stuff shaken off of the counters, etc. We lost the connection and he called me back after the first aftershock 7 minutes later, and he got out of the building asap.

By then, I'd started searching on the web for info, and had already posted a tip to the CNN web site about the earthquake. Found the USGS site, which rated the first quake at 4.6 w/out seismologist review, but there was no news anywhere about it. The second quake one appeared on the USGS site a few minutes later (at around 4.2). With two cell phones on two separate networks, we were fortunate to keep in close communication, and as during Hurricane Rita here in Central Texas, I was in the role of relaying accurate info as I could discover it on the web, including the number and duration of the aftershocks, the fact that NO tsunami was expected (a lot of folk were in a panic about that), and anything else I could find (including the entire shutdown of the electrical grid and the involvement of other islands).

In Katrina and Rita, we folk in Texas had a lot of 'lessons learned' about disaster preparedness and recovery. Probably one of the most important was that communications are absolutely key to keeping people safe and allowing them to take appropriate action to protect their lives. Even in this quake, it was obvious that there was a plethora of bad information 'on the ground'. Getting access to resources who can help with communications outside of the affected zone can make an enormous difference.

And please excuse the length of this next item received from Baron Sekiya, photographer with West Hawaii Today, who explains how they were able to gather photos and video on Sunday under very difficult conditions.

Yup, quite the time on quake day. I was on Maui, since I'm on vacation, when the earthquake struck. Power immediately went out, I got online with my PowerBook via my cellphone and got the locations and intensities of the quakes from the USGS website and text messaged that to staff members in Kona since I knew the power was out on the Big Island and they would need the info.

I was scheduled to fly back to Kona late morning and flew back on time (on an earlier flight which had been delayed two hours). Maui was without power, insane drivers on Maui zoomed through intersections instead of treating them like 4-way stops, a few courteous drives did stop and show the aloha spirit.

Got back to Kona about noon, went home to survey damage (nothing but fallen objects), took my PowerBook, still photo and video gear and headed out on the road. Shot photos and video in Kailua Kona, Waikoloa Village then headed for Kohala. The road was closed so I grabbed all my gear and just walked over the closed & damaged bridge to meet fellow staff photographer Michael Darden trapped on the Hawi side. I drove his car, he edited his still photos on my laptop. We transmitted images back to West Hawaii Today via my cellphone. I was dropped-off, hoofed it back over the bridge and headed into WHT. I edited my still images for the paper. I edited my video for ABC-TV.

I had a security camera in my empty apartment go off when the quake struck, the video from that led Good Morning America Monday and was played several times throughout the day there and on KITV. Video I shot Sunday evening from Kohala ran on World News Tonight.

It wasn't easy for media dealing with North Kohala. Access was cut-off to vehicles. Cellphone service is very spotty on a normal day and worse on an emergency day like this. No power in the area meant no high speed internet access.

Quite an end to my vacation. And now we have Ironman coming up this Saturday. You can see some of the video and photos on my blog

October 17, 2006 - Tuesday

Looking over the reader's comments yesterday regarding online coverage of the quake, it seems to me that the comparison to the extraordinary performance of the Times-Picayune's may be "the current gold standard for coverage under duress:, but it probably isn't the standard for comparison with Sunday's coverage here. New Orleans had days of warning that a major storm was approaching and so didn't face the problem of mobilizing resources from scratch, as Honolulu media did on what would normally have been a minimally staffed Sunday.

Star-Bulletin writer Erika Engle commented:

It would be most interesting to see how your mainland-based armchair quarterback/media expert would run his/her own news operation with absolutely no power -- either in the newsroom, in reporters' remote locations -- or in viewers', readers' and listeners' homes by which to access the Internet, cable television, etc.

Advertiser editor Mark Platte also weighed in:

I have to take exception to your Mainland observer who gave honoluluadvertiser.com a poor grade for its online report Sunday. We were posting within an hour of the quake, even with no power. With small generators, we issued dozens of news bulletins throughout the day.

The result was 140,000 unique page views on Sunday, a phenomenal number. Most of those page views were generated from the Mainland, particularly the two coasts.

We also had excellent newspapers Monday and Tuesday. I'm sorry your media observer had to fill out a simple registration form that asked for age, gender and ZIP code. That should have taken all of 10 seconds. It's easy to make anonymous and disparaging comments but frankly, our staff worked all day and night and did a hell of a job in print and online.

I should say that our Star-Bulletin was not delivered yesterday, so I can't comment on the S-B's print edition. I have to agree with Platte that the Advertiser's coverage was excellent, with both on-the-scene details and scientific/policy backgrounders.

The Advertiser's front page story by former S-B writers Rob Perez and Rick Daysog reporting on the automated system that shut down Oahu's power grid was a great bit of critical work on short notice, and one reader says it is getting special attention on the west coast:

You might be interested to hear that some travel journalism types (and some plain old journalism types) in San Francisco are weighing the merits of publically scolding Honolulu for not having infrastructural issues in hand. After the sewage mess last year, people here are really taking interest in Daysog and Perez' story about a power system apparently designed to fail the entire island of O'ahu for many many hours when confronted with a 12% capacity loss.

Both the mayor and governor also seem to now recognize the poor performance of the system for getting information to the public in a timely manner, according to today's Star-Bulletin.

Crystal Kua notes: "The mayor said Sunday's event also showed the need for the city to play a greater role in disseminating information about disasters on Oahu to speed up getting that information to the public, some of whom complained on the radio that it took a long time to get definitive reports from officials."

And Richard Borreca reports the governor's view:

Another weakness exposed by the quakes, according to Lingle, was the inability to get information to the public.

"There are a lot of rumors that take place in the first hours after a disaster, and they need good, solid information and the ability to deal with rumors," she said.

Lingle said the state might consider operating a radio station to broadcast information during emergencies.

It would be interesting to know what was happening in those oceanfront hotels in the immediate aftermath of the quake, when it was not known whether a tsunami would be generated. Were guests moved to higher floors or out to higher ground just in case? What is the emergency protocol in such instances?

The debacle at Honolulu Airport that left thousands of stranded visitors without toilet facilities simply underscores the serious and chronic mismanagement of that facility, marked by the long-term failure of repair, maintenance, and modernization, along with a generous portion of corruption. The airport is in need of the kind of management shakeup that's underway at the stadium, and it needs to be done before the upcoming round of major investment. Perhaps there's a need to reinvigorate the state transportation commission to add a layer of public visibility and acccountability to the management of our highways, harbors, and airports, traditionally a bastion of backroom decisions and deals.

October 16, 2006 - Monday

With power finally back on after 18 hours and a relatively good night's sleep, things look a lot better this morning.

A friend on the Big Island pointed me to the photo gallery at West Hawaii Today for a good look at that island's earthquake damage, which appears widespread.

Meanwhile, the Star-Bulletin's online edition appears but has been acting strangely so far this morning, apparently still impacted by a server crash yesterday. Hopefully they'll wrestle it into shape soon. The Advertiser site appears to be running fine.

Yesterday was another story. There was almost no news from official sources during the key hours after the earthquake. The breakdown in communication wasn't complete, but it came close. After the earthquake, the aftershock, and the loss of power, we walked took our fresh pot of coffee over to a neighbor's house. They had a radio and were trying to find news. At that point, even KSSK--the designated emergency broadcast station--was playing what sounded like a pre-taped talk show with no apparent acknowledgement of the news everyone was hungry for. Later, the station relayed anecdotal reports form individual listeners and only occasionally a substantive pronouncement from an official source.

And once power began to be restored, even KSSK went back to regular programming, leaving those of us who were still without power or news in the dark, both literally and figuratively..

Obviously, we've got a serious problem in secure communications between official agencies and then in getting information from them to the public under emergency conditions. And this was with little actual damage on Oahu and on a Sunday, so fewer people were out to be directly impacted. If a more serious emergency hits, we're in for real trouble.

A reader on the mainland offered up his own assessment:

I have some very tart comments about the horrible local electronic coverage of today's earthquake near the big island and impacting the whole state.

It will be interesting to read your reports on print edition coverage.

From my computer screen on the mainland, My initial grading is as follows.

Your site, an big E for effort with your cell phone update, and the fact that you are a private site.

The following comments exclude yourself.

The state Civil Defense site gets a F, based on no usable updated information on their site. They are still talking about the London incident.

The StarBulletin gets an F for having no backup plan for a power failure that took down the server site.

The Tizer gets a D-. They had stories added all day, but not really much given the alleged depth of their news staff. To get to the information, you were REQUIRED to answer a survey requesting personal information before gaining access to critical emergency information.

In utilizing the internet web sites for getting information out, the Tizer, the Star Bulletin and the State Civil Defense site can only be issued a big "Shame on You" for not getting information out.

My opinions are based on what The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, La accomplished during and post hurricane Katrina. The Times-Picayune is the current gold standard for coverage under duress.

But it's Monday and I can hear the calming hum of the refrigerator. Time to move on.

It looks a lot like a little Stonehenge, but it's really part of the remains of the old sugar mill at Kualoa built in the mid-19th century. I stopped along the highway last week and took a series of photos. This morning I have to hope that the remains have survived the quake. In any event, click on the photo to view the whole series.