Monday, August 13, 2007
Hurricane Flossie: How to follow
by Larry Geller
I dug through my growing bookmark heap to dredge out this useful weather site originally mentioned on Ian Lind's blog post of March 2, 2006. Just leave it in one browser tab and you can easily check in on Flossie whenever you want. The collection by Edward Dung has stuff like this on the page. As I look at the picture at about 6 p.m. on Monday evening, it looks like we're doomed! The newspaper reports look so innocent, saying the eye of the storm will pass to the South of us. This picture should send you straight to the store to buy water, batteries, etc. Get yourself prepared. Here it comes!
Guess what--the broken sirens aren't working yet, and as far as I know, auxiliary power isn't available for additional radio stations. You'll remember that during the power failure following the October Big Island earthquake it turned out that KSSK was the only station still on the air, and they didn't have information until quite late. Doug Carlson urges citizens to monitor the performance of radio stations this time around. If your power is out and there's no TV to watch, why not do just that and report to Doug anything you observe that worked well or needs improvement.
Finally, in the August 6, 2007 West Hawaii Today paper, columnist Reed Flickinger flames Big Island Mayor and former civil defense director Harry Kim rather severely. Along the way he refers to the "criminal rate of failure" of the emergency warning sirens, which would have gone on had not the media brought the issue to the public's attention. Indeed, as Flossie approaches, as far as I know, much of the public still won't be served by sirens that are broken or not installed yet. Flickinger also blasts Kim for "local radio stations broadcasting dead air." Well, we had the same problem here on Oahu. It's part of not being prepared.
So here's Flossie to test us. I hope all goes well. If we discover more lapses in preparedness I hope we won't forget as soon as Flossie blows out to sea.
I dug through my growing bookmark heap to dredge out this useful weather site originally mentioned on Ian Lind's blog post of March 2, 2006. Just leave it in one browser tab and you can easily check in on Flossie whenever you want. The collection by Edward Dung has stuff like this on the page. As I look at the picture at about 6 p.m. on Monday evening, it looks like we're doomed! The newspaper reports look so innocent, saying the eye of the storm will pass to the South of us. This picture should send you straight to the store to buy water, batteries, etc. Get yourself prepared. Here it comes!
Guess what--the broken sirens aren't working yet, and as far as I know, auxiliary power isn't available for additional radio stations. You'll remember that during the power failure following the October Big Island earthquake it turned out that KSSK was the only station still on the air, and they didn't have information until quite late. Doug Carlson urges citizens to monitor the performance of radio stations this time around. If your power is out and there's no TV to watch, why not do just that and report to Doug anything you observe that worked well or needs improvement.
Finally, in the August 6, 2007 West Hawaii Today paper, columnist Reed Flickinger flames Big Island Mayor and former civil defense director Harry Kim rather severely. Along the way he refers to the "criminal rate of failure" of the emergency warning sirens, which would have gone on had not the media brought the issue to the public's attention. Indeed, as Flossie approaches, as far as I know, much of the public still won't be served by sirens that are broken or not installed yet. Flickinger also blasts Kim for "local radio stations broadcasting dead air." Well, we had the same problem here on Oahu. It's part of not being prepared.
So here's Flossie to test us. I hope all goes well. If we discover more lapses in preparedness I hope we won't forget as soon as Flossie blows out to sea.
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