Next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting is expected to bring worldwide attention to Hawaii as well as $120 million into the state’s coffers, but the government has been slow and spotty in advising residents of disruptions they can expect. A better effort is needed to advise people of closures and traffic disruptions that can be expected to alter their everyday plans.

The U.S. Secret Service and the State Department are setting forth security plans for the event, but word is slow to make it to the general public for the Nov. 7-13 summit. Particular attention — with few details — is being given to those who reside or customarily work in or visit Waikiki, where leaders of 21 major economies and their staffs will fill 11 hotels. A comprehensive list of road closures and other inconveniences should be publicized no later than this week — and planners are urged to keep citizens updated early and often as fluid situations gel.

"We greatly want to reduce our footprint for the APEC summit, but with that being said, security is paramount," Secret Service spokesman Max Milien told the Star-Advertiser’s Allison Schaefers. That is understandable, as is the summit being designated a National Special Security Event, but the government has had months to prepare a plan that would be helpful to people who live here while providing security for summit visitors.

The planned use of the Hawai‘i Convention Center, the Hale Koa Hotel and, on the summit’s final day, the J.W. Marriott Ihilani Ko Olina Resort & Spa as meeting sites has been known for some time. People could have made plans avoiding those facilities but may not be aware of collateral interference of their routine activities.

For example, the World Invitational Hula Festival was being planned for Nov. 10-12 at the Waikiki Shell, as it has been for 20 years over the Veterans Day holiday. Paulie Jennings, the festival’s 81-year-old executive producer, said she was comfortable after being advised that the Shell would not be used for APEC, but she wasn’t notified until Sept. 30 that APEC would take over all of the Shell parking stalls during the summit. She is scrambling to save the event.

"If they didn’t think that we all lived in grass houses, they would have let us know much sooner," Jennings said.

In other cases, the APEC meeting is a head’s up. John Moore, a Waikiki Neighborhood Board member, should not have been surprised to learn that he would not be able to park at Hale Koa, where he usually parks his car, but Moore said he learned only recently that the entire Fort DeRussy would be "locked down." Other Waikiki workers await instructions at this late date.

Most of the leaders’ arrivals will be subject to the "normal flow of traffic" upon their arrival on Oahu, Honolulu police Maj. Clayton Kau told the neighborhood board last week. The exceptions are Presidents Barack Obama, Hu Jintao of China and Dmitry Medvedev, for whom roadways will be closed.

Oahu residents, and especially those in Waikiki, would be wise to heed officials’ warnings of temporary inconvenience and requests to be patient and cooperative. Soon, websites including www.ho-nolulupd.org and www.ho-nolulu.gov will start posting APEC’s official security plan. Let’s make it sooner: In this age of digital dissemination, planners must use technology to their advantage and give particulars in a timely manner to help things run smoothly.

As for residents, check regularly for updates and pay attention — show the world that Hawaii is, indeed, capable of hosting and dealing with a world-class event with grace and aplomb.