December 01, 2004

This is a Civil Defense Alert....

Lava flow racing to the sea! HVO photo

Today is the first day of the month and I await the noon hour with anticipation... I am listening to Rush Limbaugh, and usually he is at a major point in the discussion and Mayor Harry Kim breaks in,and in his quiet way he reads the monthly announcement...

"This is a Civil Defense Alert and the Monthly Test for the Emergency Warning System. Each Month The Hawaii County Civil Defence runs a routine test of the Emergency warning system. Should you hear this warning....(at about this time a errie howling sound emerges from loudspeakers all over the island... think air raid sirens)...you should tune into your local radio stations for news and official information... This is only a test..."

However, our poor visitors walking down the streets of Hilo do not know what in the world this is. Is Osama acting out? A tsunami rolling in? Mauna Loa spouting off? They are visibly shaken and I have to run out and let them know its ok. Yes its been pouring down rain, flooding many of the highways, and Mauna Loa is inflating but this is a test.... Once a lady asked me if I was sure... Sometimes Im not...

I was on the phone yesterday with my friend Claudia who moved from here to Oahu, and she asked me if I had been to the emergency meetings like their friends in Kainaliu, near where Woody used to guard the transfere station on the Kona side...

"No, Claudia...Meetings?...for what?"
"Civil Defense... Mauna Loa is going to errupt..."
"Yes...eventually... they are having meetings?"
"Hoku! Mauna Loa is INFLATING and going to errupt, there are earthquakes and stuff and people are concerned..."
"Well Claudia, I know, I feel them but what can you do? Just the other night during the lightning storm, I heard the huge boom and thought "Oh Crap, Mauna Loa is blowing her cork and I still own my house ! There goes the neighborhood!""
"Its not funny...."

I laughed a lot...

In my minds ear I can hear that hooting siren and I know that things happen... I think about that map that shows the Lava Zones, Tusnami zones, Flood Zones... The silly airport with its shoddy security...

So I have done a bit of reasearch on Disaster preparedness. Woody thought it was a good idea since most people here are pretty blase about it. (My research tells me that Hawaii is about as bad on the disaster scale as anyplace else, and that 1960 was a really bad year for the Big Island... Not only did it become a State but the natural disasters were pretty spectacular!) So I have a really interesting link for the Pacific Disaster Center as well as the Hawaii County Website which had some interesting links...

So if you are on the Big Island, and hear a 45 second blast on a siren followed by a minute of silence and another blast make sure that you ask what disaster is currently under way. That will tell you where to run, unless you live where we do. One road in and one road out... You can run from the forces of nature but you cant hide...