A sweet sound last week was the silence at 11:46 a.m. Thursday, when the state dropped the nuclear warning siren that had blared monthly since December along with the test of tsunami sirens.
Hawaii’s blundering venture into nuclear alerts was over — for now.
Officials suspended cell phone alerts after terrifying residents and tourists on Jan. 13 with a false alarm of an impending nuclear attack.
The decision to shut down nuclear sirens as well was a needed reset of a botched program that has zero public confidence.
HAWAII FOOLISHLY rushed ahead of other states into nuclear warnings, and we paid with the January fiasco that made us an international punchline and renewed worries about our state government’s competence.
It exposed not only disorganization in the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency’s control center, where an operator mistook a training exercise for the real thing, but also HI-EMA’s poor job of preparing the public on what to do in a nuclear attack.
The mass confusion that ensued on Jan. 13 was real, even if the North Korean missile wasn’t, and it’s senseless for the state to continue nuclear warnings until it thoroughly educates the public on what to do other than pray.
A report by Hawaii National Guard Brig. Gen. Kenneth Hara, requested by Gov. David Ige, sharply criticized the state for rushing into nuclear warnings without a plan for public education, coordinating with other agencies or even sending all-clear signals.
Hara recommended the state revamp its emergency plan not only for nuclear attacks, but also for chemical, biological and radiological threats, so people know “what to do, where to go, and when to do it.”
IGE’S REQUEST for $2 million for the review is getting blowback from legislators concerned that HI-EMA should have routinely done such planning and that the administration is moving too quickly past full accountability for Jan. 13.
Before the state gets too deep into further strategizing, it must answer the basic question of whether the state even should be in the business of issuing nuclear alerts.
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz says a nuclear attack on the United States is a national concern, and has introduced legislation along with Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo., to make it solely a federal responsibility to send nuclear attack alerts, with consistent procedures across the states.
“The people who know first should be the people who tell the rest of us,” Schatz said.
Hawaii U.S. Reps. Colleen Hanabusa and Tulsi Gabbard raised similar points in a letter to the House Armed Services Committee, saying, “When it comes to matters of national security, including whether a ballistic missile has been launched against the United States, one must question whether any state emergency management agency is best suited for that role.”
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
