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Hawaii has a robust emergency siren warning system. It sat silent during the deadly wildfires

Hawaii has a robust emergency siren warning system. It sat silent during the deadly wildfires | CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/12/us/hawaii-emergency-warning-system-maui-wildfires/index.html?amp;utm_source=cnn_Five%20Things%20for%20Sunday,%20August%2013,%202023&bt_ee=f/hBp5tYA/6xHKBr0F6zSWDVrSPgAMXZDZYXo32XL3VjAN3OFyp/UAUBsR4cLZp2&bt_ts=1691931210464

Some Maui residents are questioning the effectiveness of the emergency warning system employed as the wildfires spread rapidly across Lahaina and other parts on Tuesday. Hawaii’s attorney general is leading a review of the emergency response.

Hawaii has a robust emergency siren warning system. It sat silent during the deadly wildfires | CNN

Hawaii has a robust emergency siren warning system. It sat silent during the deadly wildfires::Some Maui residents are questioning the effectiveness of the emergency warning system employed as the wildfires spread rapidly across Lahaina and other parts on Tuesday. Hawaii’s attorney general is leading a review of the emergency response.

23 comments

AcesFullOfKings

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Is this the same system that incorrectly told the whole state that they were going to die to an incoming missile attack a few years ago?

Mtrad

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Wasn't that due to someone manually activating it because they thought there was an actual credible threat?

Might be misremembering though.

mr_tyler_durden

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Sort of, it was during an unscheduled drill and even though they said it was a test before the message they read said “this is not a drill” and an employee sent the message.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_alert

Mtrad

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Just think, the same mistake could've happened the opposite way.

SimplePhysics

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Don’t quote me, but I remember someone they were interviewing on NPR say the system wasn’t activated because it was a tsunami warning system, which tells residents to go to higher ground, and in this case going to higher ground would be suicide.

MaybeItWorks

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Yes, this is what gets me too. If they had sounded the sirens, people are taught to take a certain action. That action (get to higher ground) would have caused a different type of confusion. So I can understand that some government employees sat there discussing it and ruled it out because the action they needed people to take, was not going to happen with the siren. I really don’t know what they would have told me people to do. Everything was moving so fast that giving coordinated evacuation instructions would have been damn near impossible. I don’t think the warning systems really would have done much, when you think through it.

dethb0y

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It is always really interesting when a system like that fails, and Im curious to see what they come up with as an explanation for why.

Chup

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The siren system was just not used, I didn't see any reports that it failed.

Already days ago right after the fire, it was reported the fire services communicated to the public they had the fire under control. So it makes sense to not use the emergency siren system in such a case. But then suddenly - according to media and fire fighter reports - the fire started spreading super fast and it was no longer under control. But then it was too late for many.

anteaters

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"Sorry bro, better luck next time"

DragonTypeWyvern

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"What are the chances a volcanic island would have to worry about wildfires?"

archaix

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“Well as you can see there was no missile to warn about”

SaakoPaahtaa

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Willing to bet they added some useless checks and confirmations to systems like this after the nuke warning oopsie-daisie couple years back

autotldr

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This is the best summary I could come up with:

In fact, the state’s vaunted integrated outdoor siren warning system – the largest in the world, with about 400 alarms – was not activated during the fires, according to Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Adam Weintraub.

Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez will lead a comprehensive review of the emergency response with the goal of “understanding the decisions that were made before and during the wildfires,” her office said in a statement.

While Maui’s warning sirens were not activated, emergency communications with residents were largely limited to mobile phones and broadcasters at a time when most power and cell service was already cut.

Fueled by a combination of strong winds and dry conditions – and complicated by the island’s geography – the blaze virtually destroyed the tourist and economic hub of Lahaina and left authorities searching frantically for the missing.

May Wedelin-Lee, who also lost her home in Lahaina, said the wind shifted and smoke and flames overtook her community so quickly early Tuesday afternoon that people had less than 10 minutes to prepare.

Brock Long, who as former Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator from June 2017 to March 2019 coordinated the response to more than 100 wildfires, said the unpredictability of fires means decisions need to be made quickly.

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Retiring

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How is a system with 400 alarms the largest in the world? I couldn’t find the numbers for Germany but in Austria there are over 8000 sirens. Does anyone know more about that?

Kecessa

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It's the largest in the USA, therefore it's the largest in the world! Americans can't point their country on a map, you think they know what Germany and Austria are?

Retrograde

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Bashing Americans is all well and good but I'm pretty sure it's a specific type of siren system they're talking about and not necessarily comparable to old war/air raid sirens.

Retiring

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I did some research: It seems Hawaii boasts they hve the largest network of siren Alarms in the world. That cannot be true, even if you consider sirens per area. Hawaii has about one siren per 70(!!) square kilometer. Austria has about one siren per 10 square kilometer. European countries have extensive networks of warning sirens. Other examples are Switzerland with a siren per 9.8 sqkm (8200 total) and the Netherlands with one siren per 10.9 sqkm (3800 in total). I really don’t know which numbers would suggest that Hawaii has the largest system of Sirens in the world. If anything, the number of sirens seems excessively small. Also, for any Americans wondering: Air raid sirens in European countries trigger for natural disaster and other dangers to citizens too (like large fires)

drudoo

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Even Denmark has over 1000 sirens for warnings.

AssholeDestroyer

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Maybe its considering the size of the landmass, Maui is about 1.5 times bigger than Lolland.

sndrtj

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Netherlands too has over 4000 sirens.

Blamemeta

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I think its density. Maui is tiny.

Fester

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The claim in the article has a link to the state’s site, where it actually says:

Hawaiʻi has the largest single integrated Outdoor Siren Warning System for Public Safety in the world.

“Single integrated” is probably key here.

Retiring

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What does that even mean? I read the source, too, but I honestly don’t understand this sentence.

Squeak

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Maybe it’s referring to an early warning system specifically for fires?