My column today over at Civil Beat is a partial response to last week’s false alarm and resulting calls for a strengthened civil defense program (Ian Lind: Make Peace, Not War).
When I sat down to work on the column, I had intended to go in a different direction by pointing to our obvious interest in improving relations with North Korea, and then brainstorming the kinds of small, realistic actions that we could take in small groups with friends, in our churches, community organizations or even as individuals. It seems to me that we’re lacking examples of the kinds of direct actions that can build bridges between countries and peoples. We need to think little, rather than thinking only of the “big picture” and then giving up because creating any movement seems a herculean task.
But after scanning a number of other reactions, it became clear that first we need to address the issue of civil defense. And that’s where this column ended up focusing.
Rick Blangiardi at Hawaii News Now came to a similar conclusion in a commentary a few days ago.
Hawaii is never going to spend the billions it would take to build a shelter system and communications infrastructure capable of surviving a nuclear explosion. Especially for what is considered a remote possibility.
So, the Ige Administration built a warning system without giving people anyway to respond with anything other than fear and panic.
The governor says they have made changes to prevent false alarms and how to cancel them. It might be better to just suspend this nearly useless attack warning until it justified by an actual threat.
I’ll just have to return to the topic later for that brainstorming on the kinds of projects we could undertake to tackle the giant issue of relations with North Korea in small and accessible ways.
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Thanks, Ian. Good (and appropriate) perspective.
Our reaction (spouse and me): momentary disbelief, some anxiety for a couple of minutes, sympathy for our son who lives on the mainland and would lose the rest of his family, then resignation in face of the reality that there was little we could do to “prepare,” then calm, then going about our Saturday business.
Ian: a nuclear attack on Hawaii will not be survivable without a widespread system of shelters and 10-15 minute warning is inadequate time to get anywhere.
We need to vigorously and loudly oppose Trump’s war-mongering rhetoric. We also need to re-evaluate the denuclearization policy in favor of peace initiatives. North Korea lost over a million total civilians and soldiers in the Korean war. They regard their weapons as the only deterrent to another foreign invasion. They will eat grass and bark off the trees to keep their nuclear program going. Trying to stop their program has been a useless effort.
Can civilian peace delegations start people to people contacts in some way? Would it even be feasible? Food packages?
Ian: On the affirmation of what Blangiardi said in his piece on HNN, I am in complete agreement. It would seem as the investigation into the false alarm progresses, the fact is that the ballistic missile warning system was literally shoehorned into the current warning system, which was really only designed to deal with long-lead out alerts, such as hurricanes and even tsunami’s. The guy who sat across from the Governor, who told him that the best plan is to restart the ballistic missile warning is the one that needs to answer one basic quesiton: with you thinking this up, did you ever think that you needed to see through the implementation? Or did you just come up with the suggestion, the governor said yes and then left it at that.
Because it is not just about accepting that the system has to be developed, it is also how the system would be implemented. Learn how the gaps were ignored by those responsible for putting it together and then maybe come back with a recommendation to start up the system in the future.
But yes, the program needs to be suspended until then. hopefully permanently.
Rich Blangiardi said, “So, the Ige Administration built a warning system without giving people anyway to respond with anything other than fear and panic.” Can that possibly be true? Did the emergency management agency really have had no plan of action beyond sounding an alarm? If true, then how extraordinary!
Short but informative story about Big Island mayor Harry Kim’s comments on the fiasco in today’s Hawaii Tribune Herald:
http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2018/01/19/hawaii-news/states-missile-alert-program-rife-with-problems-kim-says/
Kim was the head of the Big Island’s civil defense agency for 24 years, and that’s where he made his reputation.
Oh, and here’s the website of the state Emergency Management Agency:
http://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/category/nuclear-threat/
What I found most disturbing is the lack of urgency to recall the false alarm.
I’m positive that the person — or people — who sent that message out knew within a minute or so that a big mistake was made.
Why did it take so long for Ige’s administration to correct that mistake? Why did Ige’s administration rely upon Twitter and Facebook to send a retraction when there are better modes of mass communication available to them?
They should have immediately called radio and television stations to get the word out if they couldn’t figure out how to get the corrective message out through the EAS.
In my view, the delay was due to a sense of panic within the agency directly responsible for this error. They froze and couldn’t think straight. And as a result thousands of people were unnecessarily stressed to the point of hopeless desperation and tears.