There is a quite common "design feature" in official functions which says if you stick to a rulebook you can be covered for indemnity and if you divert from a rulebook you are on your own. It stops risky behaviour. It is designed to stop things like Chernobyl.
In some situations, it turns into a flaw. "Computer says no"
This played out in Queensland over a flood which had a dam release issue, and went to law between 2 agencies, the government overall, and the affected businesses and householders who were flooded. The case had to be tried in another states courts, to avoid systematic bias issues.
Of course you need to stick to the rulebook. But the rulebook needs to be written to handle unforseen situations, which might be hard, but not impossible. Put it up the food chain, or provide from some limited relief from risk.
So, the emergency sirens weren't used because "they aren't for this function" and now we have "can't approve the water release" -Sounds like the reaction of somebody who is concerned they will answer for a decision not explicitly covered in the rulebook.
Or, they simply didn't understand their role, and their authority to act. Which of course, should be explained in the rulebook.
[edit: people are pointing out there were huge risks in using the sirens, and the rulebook was really explicit, and the community understood their narrow intent. So, its probably a bad example of my hypothesised "rulebook says no" thing]
They weren't used because the website [1] specifically says that in the event of a siren you should "if you in a low laying area near the coastline; evacuate to high grounds, inland".
This would directly route people towards the fire not away. And given that tsunamis can sometimes trigger fire it easily could have caused confusion in some.
It definitely wasn't a clear decision as some like to make out.
None of these rulebook cases are. It's clear that some of the risks here were real, but it's also likely some of them are hypothetical. This will be argued out for a long time.
What often happens is the rulebook is amended. Add a new siren-tone, modify the instructions to turn on a radio or TV and get more specific advice, something changes, to reflect the new understanding.
Or not. Sometimes, you can't fix this. The sirens are for tsunamis and some other system is needed for wildfires.
Which risk do you think is more likely, and more consequential in the medium to short term? I don't know, I don't have the answers here. But I do believe, people in Lahaina probably wanted to be alerted, somehow to the risk.
Because it formed part of the legal defence of a decision to release water, and incur flooding, in consequence of which people went to law. I would imagine, perhaps wrongly, that in the case of Lahaina people who have suffered catastrophic loss will be considering if there was a state, or town, or other official who had a duty of care, and who may be taken to law, or their body taken to law for failure to act.
Whatever you thought it meant for your preceding comment?
Typically HN users don't write random responses to a comment they didn't understand. But if you were literally just putting some words down for the sake of replying with something, (for what reason?), then I'm not really sure how to take that.
> They weren't used because the website [1] specifically says that in the event of a siren you should "if you in a low laying area near the coastline; evacuate to high grounds, inland".
+1 to this. Everyone on the island knows those sirens. I was there in 2011 when the sirens went off to warn about the incoming tsunami from the Tohoku earthquake[0]. We packed sandwiches and water, and headed for high ground along with everyone else.
Misuse of the sirens on one occasion might also cause people to hesitate in the future if there were to be a tsunami. And you really don’t have time to hesitate in that situation.
> The sirens are only along the coast. Not mountain side.
the better to lure sailors onto the rocks!
(the word Siren comes from Greek mythology, Siren's were "humanlike beings with very alluring voices, they appear in a scene in the Odyssey in which Odysseus" stops "the ears of his crew with wax so that they were deaf to the Sirens. Odysseus himself wanted to hear their song but had himself tied to the mast so that he would not be able to steer the ship off its course."
in latin languages such as Italian, "mermaid" is "la sirena")
Unless the sirens can produce different sounds that are easily distinguishable, then you can't have one alarm with two meanings when the meanings are absolutely not the same. If you hear the siren, how do you know if you need to pack your things to get out of the way of a fire or to seek higher ground from a tsunami where both of them might not be visible to you at the time of the siren?
Unless the response to the siren is the exact same thing, you can't use the siren for more than one thing.
The Tsunami sirens in New Brighton (Christchurch, NZ) also have verbal output.
Does result in a strange "echo" because you hear other sirens talking delayed by the distance they are placed. But it does mean they can give extra info (e.g. during tests).
It's quite possible you are not familiar with how sirens work. The need constant air movement and make a continuous sound as the air is moving. These are the types of sirens that make the wind up sound before it gets to full speed, and then makes the wind down sound as they slow down. Think of air raid sirens from a WWII movie you might have seen. These are not the types of alarms you might be thinking of from your days in primary school
I think it’s normal procedure in California when an evacuation is ordered for the police to go door to door making sure everyone is out. Regardless of the sirens, depending on mobile phones, which in this case did not work, is not good enough. Even if the network were running, not everyone has a phone or it’s turned off or the battery is dead. You can’t just leave those people to die. Even just driving around town with a bullhorn would have saved a lot of lives.
>depending on mobile phones, which in this case did not work, is not good enough
Hawaii's use of mobile phone notifications do not have a good track record for those of us only hearing about how they don't work. At least they did not receive incoming nuclear attack messages to throw even more chaos into the situation
This, I think the reason for the large number of deaths in the event was that because there are no wild fires in Hawaii the government and people were unprepared for it. they have lava(which is not the same) but are used to dealing with that.
This will happen whenever an infrequent event happens. A large earthquake hits the British islands, complete clusterfuck, japan, they handle it. A hurricane hits Florida, they are used to it. southern California, everybody goes insane.
Wildfires can move incredibly quickly when you're in the path and can change direction extremely rapidly. If you're inside it could be very easy to not know one is coming until it's too late.
Power was already out, people had no communication, distant earthquakes have no signs until the tsunami comes… so what will people do when the Tsunami sirens go off? Evacuate along the coast where they are safer from fire but at risk from tsunami, or evacuate inland into the fires?
When I lived on Oahu, my landlord told me that if the sirens go off, follow the evacuation route and head to higher ground. I've never heard anyone talk about them in the context of any other emergency warning.
That page also specifically calls out wildfires as one of the uses of the sirens. I agree it wasn’t a clear decision, but still a mistake not to use them.
The all-hazard siren system can be used for a variety of both natural and human-caused events; including tsunamis, hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats, hazardous material incidents, and more.
What about all the other emergency communication systems that exist?
We get Amber and Silver alerts directly on our cell phones. Heck, I've received "poor air quality" alerts even. There's also the classic emergency frequency stuff for radio/tv.
Why were none of those mechanisms used? Or were they, and they're just not being reported on?
> The all-hazard siren system can be used for a variety of both natural and human-caused events; including tsunamis, hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats, hazardous material incidents, and more.
> When a siren tone is heard other than a scheduled test, tune into local Radio/TV/Cable stations for emergency information and instructions by official authorities.
The all-hazard siren system can be used for a variety of both natural and human-caused events; including tsunamis, hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats, hazardous material incidents, and more.
I do find it somewhat plausible the explanation that sounding the sirens could cause people to seek higher ground when that was basically the worst thing they could do.
it’s plausible, until you take into account that this emergency occurred in the middle of the night when many residents were asleep. And cell towers were offline by this point, so there was literally no other way to alert people in west maui.
The risk that some residents are stupid enough to run into a fire uphill seems WAY better than letting one thousand plus people die in their sleep.
if you stick to a rulebook you can be covered for indemnity and if you divert from a rulebook you are on your own
I think a solution to this "flaw" could be for government/officials to have a version of the business judgement rule[1] to shield them from liability, especially when operating under emergency situations.
Similar to aircraft and ship captains. They operate under a litany of rules, but in an emergency they are recognized as the person in control and they may deviate from rules as necessary based on their experienced and professional judgement.
It’s even codified. Rule number 2 in the colregs (ship right of way rules: collision regulations) is that nothing in the rule book exonerates you from responsibility to avoid la collision if you can.
In other words, if breaking the rules is the prudent thing to do, you aren’t just empowered to break the rules, you are required to. There is no such thing as stand your ground rules at sea.
But is the captain shielded from liability if they make the wrong judgement call when deviating from the rule book in an emergency, and protected when following the rules? Or are they judged for making the wrong decision regardless if they were following the rules or not? Or third option, if in an emergency they are protected no matter what decision they make, as long as the decision could be considered reasonable based on information available, even if not optimal based on hindsight?
Of those I like 2 and 3 the best. For 2, it can help influence them to make better decisions (i.e., seek more training ahead of time). For 3, it seems to be the most fair to the person in charge.
Pilot in command can deviate from regulations to the degree necessary to address the emergency. It’s very well established, drilled into every pilot and there truly won’t be any trouble for invoking this.
The question isn't about whether you can get in trouble for invoking it. The question is about whether or not invoking it indemnifies you from the consequences of the deviation from regulations. I.e., sure you can imagine it and not be punished for violating regulations, but if what you do that violates them is reckless, wrong, unnecessarily dangerous, are you still protected from punishment.
I'm only commenting on this passage:
>> the emergency sirens weren't used because "they aren't for this function" and now we have ...
I think the sirens were a good call and a bad example of what you want to state.
Becuase it is established that people (would) associate the sirens with a tusnami warning. Their anticipated action would under this assumption to seek higher ground. Where the fire was.
(See for yourself: https://old.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/comments/15vfw26/...)
I'm from germany and here sirens here have been assigned with the "turn the fucking radio on NOW" behaviour. In my city there is a siren drill every other month to get you aware, my city only skipped it out of sensibility one time for the ukranian refugees directly after the war to give them some peace.
For more emergent situations we have Emergency Apps like "Nina" and "KatWarn" + Mobile Push Systems to alert you precisely about the kind of emergency/danger you are facing. My city for example has a WW2 Bomb found every other week, meaning thousands of people get evacuated for a time and need get informed.
Wouldn't they likely have seen the smoke instead of hanging out in there houses until it was too late to leave. People that are out and moving can choose to move in the right direction but people who are stationary are just waiting to die from a crisis they don't understand is happening. I think it was the wrong call.
We have a commenter here who lived on Maui who says that the behavior on hearing the siren is hard coded, not something people second guess. If you hesitate when there's a tsunami, you die.
Personally, I'm not qualified to have an opinion on this, not living on Maui, so I'll defer to the locals rather than the armchair emergency response managers.
In the absence of outside input the people who decided to move almost all lived because collectively they all decided to go somewhere not full of fire. People that drove a mile in the wrong direction are still already in a car moving and able to change direction and cover substantial ground quickly. The same person who waited half an hour doing nothing is already fire adjacent and the roads just can't possible handle the thoughtput of getting everyone out simultaneously in the 3 minutes between now and when your kids are cinders whereas the roads could have handled it over the half an hour they sat on their hands.
> In the absence of outside input [...] People that drove a mile in the wrong direction are still already in a car moving and able to change direction and cover substantial ground quickly.
In the absence of outside input, driving can just as easily be more dangerous than staying where you are.
I'll quote this from the Wikipedia article of the June 2017 wildfires in Portugal:
> The majority of deaths took place in the Pedrógão Grande municipality, when a fire swept across a road filled with evacuees escaping in their cars.
> 47 people died in or near their cars when a fire overtook the area; 30 people died while trapped in their vehicles while the other 17 died nearby trying to escape on foot.
It is suspected that they could have died from smoke inhalation rather than from the subsequent burn. But it is clear that many, if not all of them, could have survived if they hadn't tried to escape by car, because those who didn't try to escape did survive, and many of the houses were actually unaffected.
But yes, it could have easily been the opposite, as it happened in the same wildfire on another municipality.
And I would say it's quite possible that, in the absence of outside input, trying to escape by car could give you the greatest chances of surviving in most circumstances. But I'm not an expert so I really can't say that for sure.
And I'm sure it would also depend on the geography, the roads, and where the fire is.
This also sounds like suggestions made by people that have never been to the specific area being discussed, and assuming things based on experience where they are located.
The roads in Hawaii are not high speed in any sense of the word. It took me a couple of hours to get from Lahaina to the airport on the one trip I have taken there. This is typical, as the group I was was with were regulars there and knew to leave hours in advance. The roads are 2 lanes with one in either direction. One of the streets was so close to the ocean, the larger waves were lapping onto the street. Even during that trip, I was thinking to myself that this is not a place I would want to be trying to a make an emergency trip by car.
> There is a quite common "design feature" in official functions which says if you stick to a rulebook you can be covered for indemnity and if you divert from a rulebook you are on your own.
The reason that I don't find discussions of the Trolley Problem very interesting is that we as a society have largely solved for it already: If you take responsibility and change the default state, it is your fault - if you leave it alone, it is nobody's.
This seems to be a natural consequence of training people to follow rules unquestioningly; their thinking skills atrophy, to the point that they won't be able to do anything else.
Maui. A good case is being made that this was the right decision. I don't live there and I think thats something locals should say. So, I'm reading this and reflecting more than writing.
I believe there is more going on than meets the eye here.
> This is a classic case of disaster capitalism: a small elite
> group using a profound human tragedy as their window to roll
> back a hard-won grassroots victory for water rights, while
> removing civil servants who pose a political inconvenience
> to the administration’s pro-developer agenda.
Using water to help isolate an area that is used for evacuation is much more important than saving a few houses which are likely to be insured and can be simply rebuilt.
I believe the meaning is that the land company wanted water to prevent the spread of fire, and the DLNR delayed. From the rest of the article, the delay was because farms downstream had the right to use the water for agriculture.
>>The priority should be to stop the spread of fire not prevent houses being burned down.
This would imply you think DLNR should have released the water the West Maui Land Co. as they were using it to "help prevent the spread of fire" (direct quote from your quote). Yet you say at the beginning.
>>Reading the article this seems perfectly fine.
Do you believe DLNR acted appropriately by not releasing the water which increased the spread of fire or do you believe DLNR should have released the water to help stop the spread of fire?
> But the governor said conflicts over water are being reshaped in an age of climate change and wildfires. Now the conflict includes opponents who do not want water to be used to fight fires, the governor said.
"Age of climate change and wildfires". As-if that's what's going on here...
"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."
> "There are currently people still fighting in our state giving us water access to fight and prepare for fires even as more storms arise"
I don't know what this sentence even means.
I guess there are small farmers who think the big landowners should suffer small fire, rather than using up scarce water that they want. I guess that's a reasonable position, as long as the fires are small.
Is there anything to indicate they were deliberately acting against the interests of those affected, or is it just a lot of armchair quarterbacking. It's very easy to retrospectively judge people for decisions they had to make in a fog of war.
My question too. The person who “refused to turn on the alarms” got raked over the coals by would-be Monday Morning Quarterbackers. Then it turned out that officials actions were the right ones, even in retrospect, and people accusing them were just out for a viral quote.
It was disgusting. I’m reserving any judgment on this story, no matter how incendiary the headline, until more facts come out.
Note this is a general thing in the media: after any event, attempt to find the proximal cause and concentrate the blame there (often using the "evil corporation narrative"). Some articles are slightly better in that they attempt to identify root causes and advocate for policy changes to address them.
In the case of the alarms they were trading off the alarms potentially saving lives vs the alarms potentially costing lives. It was a tough call.
In the case of the water they were trading off the water potentially saving lives vs the water being available to grow taro. It was not a tough call and the dude got it wrong.
There is a video of the water manager saying that he was going to restore the traditional Hawaiian reverence for water, that it was not to be simply used.
This reminds me of people pillorying the emergency director for not sounding the alarm sirens...yet when you look at it, he did exactly the right thing.
The water situation is not obvious and I imagine hard to decide about in the middle of a crisis.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the people of Maui are demonstrating a particular lack of critical thinking and a stronger-than-usual mob mentality.
I know from living in California, and before that Australia, that there is a tension between protecting property structures (or merely forestalling their fate) vs a more macro use of resources to contain the spread. This is the same impetus that will cause a firebreak to be cut through a forest even if it requires the use of eminent domain.
This same calculus leads to the opposite class of decision in urban areas: firefighting used to be a subscription service (in parts of the USA it still is) but the problem is that if your neighbor doesn't have insurance your house could be at risk. So it made more sense to be tax supported and cover people who "don't subscribe".
In the urban case the amount of water is typically low (single structure fire). In a case like this one you have to figure out where to invest your resources and it isn't always obvious.
As the article points out, past misuse (protection of cash crops over the livelihood of workers) has complicated the process of making these decisions in real time.
I guess I'm making an assumption that the 850 or so missing people are dead. I don't know that, but unfortunately it seems like a safe assumption. Reporters who have managed to get near the affected area are saying that there are dead bodies lining the streets.
I truly hope my assumption is wrong and that those 800 people are safe, but it just doesn't seem likely to me given what we know.
Word is the police blocked traffic on one of the roads, which stopped people from escaping and causing fatalities. Reminds me of ventilators from covid
Blocking the water use is not ok. It seems especially sad for this to happen to a coastline city. If freshwater is not available can saltwater be used in an emergency? Or do they need the water pressure/pumps? It would be more corrosive to equipment but could be cleaned after.
Seems like seawater was indeed used for the helicopters:
Many Maui Komohana communities refuse to accept WML’s rewriting of history.
They know, for example, it was actually high winds that prevented helicopters
from fighting the fires, and when they were ultimately used, seawater proved
more accessible.
Most people paying attention already figured out by now that the fires were started and kept burning intentionally by the government, but I guess it doesn't matter because who's gonna do anything about it?
Attempts to redirect blame to faulty procedures and policies is starting to seem like a weak argument when it really comes down to poor leadership and lack of foresight, which is a stretch to pin on a single person.
That said, I think the intentional choice to not use sirens was likely a good call in this case and an example of good leadership. If the community is conditioned to recognize the sirens for tsunami’s only maybe that’s where the reform should start. If they CAN be used for other things, can they have different sounds for different things. It doesn’t need to be complicated.
I’m waiting to read an official report on the matter, and I think it’s prudent everyone else do so as well. For instance, some sources[1] indicate that:
> Tremble’s letter said it is unknown whether filling the reservoirs at 1 p.m. would have ultimately made a difference.
And there’s this whole whiff of “kooky liberals prioritizing silly native crops over fire prevention” in the coverage about the issue, which certainly makes me suspicious as well.
I suspect time will show that the decision was not at all clear-cut and all relevant details are not yet known.
120 comments
[ 309 ms ] story [ 367 ms ] threadI am not familiar with what happened to make any judgement, just linking the part 2.
In some situations, it turns into a flaw. "Computer says no"
This played out in Queensland over a flood which had a dam release issue, and went to law between 2 agencies, the government overall, and the affected businesses and householders who were flooded. The case had to be tried in another states courts, to avoid systematic bias issues.
Of course you need to stick to the rulebook. But the rulebook needs to be written to handle unforseen situations, which might be hard, but not impossible. Put it up the food chain, or provide from some limited relief from risk.
So, the emergency sirens weren't used because "they aren't for this function" and now we have "can't approve the water release" -Sounds like the reaction of somebody who is concerned they will answer for a decision not explicitly covered in the rulebook.
Or, they simply didn't understand their role, and their authority to act. Which of course, should be explained in the rulebook.
[edit: people are pointing out there were huge risks in using the sirens, and the rulebook was really explicit, and the community understood their narrow intent. So, its probably a bad example of my hypothesised "rulebook says no" thing]
They weren't used because the website [1] specifically says that in the event of a siren you should "if you in a low laying area near the coastline; evacuate to high grounds, inland".
This would directly route people towards the fire not away. And given that tsunamis can sometimes trigger fire it easily could have caused confusion in some.
It definitely wasn't a clear decision as some like to make out.
[1] https://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/all-hazard-statewide-outdoor-wa...
What often happens is the rulebook is amended. Add a new siren-tone, modify the instructions to turn on a radio or TV and get more specific advice, something changes, to reflect the new understanding.
Or not. Sometimes, you can't fix this. The sirens are for tsunamis and some other system is needed for wildfires.
Which risk do you think is more likely, and more consequential in the medium to short term? I don't know, I don't have the answers here. But I do believe, people in Lahaina probably wanted to be alerted, somehow to the risk.
What do you think?
What did this question mean?
This would be a bit more convincing if it wasn't written by a random pseudonym account.
Right now it seems silly since it can't possibly help improve your account's credibility, in fact most likely it will do the opposite.
Typically HN users don't write random responses to a comment they didn't understand. But if you were literally just putting some words down for the sake of replying with something, (for what reason?), then I'm not really sure how to take that.
> They weren't used because the website [1] specifically says that in the event of a siren you should "if you in a low laying area near the coastline; evacuate to high grounds, inland".
+1 to this. Everyone on the island knows those sirens. I was there in 2011 when the sirens went off to warn about the incoming tsunami from the Tohoku earthquake[0]. We packed sandwiches and water, and headed for high ground along with everyone else.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an...
the better to lure sailors onto the rocks!
(the word Siren comes from Greek mythology, Siren's were "humanlike beings with very alluring voices, they appear in a scene in the Odyssey in which Odysseus" stops "the ears of his crew with wax so that they were deaf to the Sirens. Odysseus himself wanted to hear their song but had himself tied to the mast so that he would not be able to steer the ship off its course."
in latin languages such as Italian, "mermaid" is "la sirena")
Unless the response to the siren is the exact same thing, you can't use the siren for more than one thing.
Sounds like something that would have to be done when installing (well, really speccing and buying) them.
Does result in a strange "echo" because you hear other sirens talking delayed by the distance they are placed. But it does mean they can give extra info (e.g. during tests).
One long for high ground three short for… huh, that’s new. What do? Oh it says here, fire get out now.
you just added a dependency for something that only had one meaning.
The patterns were published in the phone books, so the phone book's deprecation didn't help keep things going.
And so, the sirens' use got simplified, with the side effect of "oh crap, we no longer have a way to tell people about different emergencies".
I hope the use of the sirens to indicate more than one thing is brought back.
Hawaii's use of mobile phone notifications do not have a good track record for those of us only hearing about how they don't work. At least they did not receive incoming nuclear attack messages to throw even more chaos into the situation
This will happen whenever an infrequent event happens. A large earthquake hits the British islands, complete clusterfuck, japan, they handle it. A hurricane hits Florida, they are used to it. southern California, everybody goes insane.
The all-hazard siren system can be used for a variety of both natural and human-caused events; including tsunamis, hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats, hazardous material incidents, and more.
What about all the other emergency communication systems that exist?
We get Amber and Silver alerts directly on our cell phones. Heck, I've received "poor air quality" alerts even. There's also the classic emergency frequency stuff for radio/tv.
Why were none of those mechanisms used? Or were they, and they're just not being reported on?
https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/maui-emergency-chief-defen...
> The all-hazard siren system can be used for a variety of both natural and human-caused events; including tsunamis, hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats, hazardous material incidents, and more.
> When a siren tone is heard other than a scheduled test, tune into local Radio/TV/Cable stations for emergency information and instructions by official authorities.
The all-hazard siren system can be used for a variety of both natural and human-caused events; including tsunamis, hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats, hazardous material incidents, and more.
it’s plausible, until you take into account that this emergency occurred in the middle of the night when many residents were asleep. And cell towers were offline by this point, so there was literally no other way to alert people in west maui.
The risk that some residents are stupid enough to run into a fire uphill seems WAY better than letting one thousand plus people die in their sleep.
1 - https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/business_judgment_rule
In other words, if breaking the rules is the prudent thing to do, you aren’t just empowered to break the rules, you are required to. There is no such thing as stand your ground rules at sea.
Of those I like 2 and 3 the best. For 2, it can help influence them to make better decisions (i.e., seek more training ahead of time). For 3, it seems to be the most fair to the person in charge.
It’s helped by making a mistake usually doesn’t leave someone alive to yell at.
I think the sirens were a good call and a bad example of what you want to state.
Becuase it is established that people (would) associate the sirens with a tusnami warning. Their anticipated action would under this assumption to seek higher ground. Where the fire was. (See for yourself: https://old.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/comments/15vfw26/...)
I'm from germany and here sirens here have been assigned with the "turn the fucking radio on NOW" behaviour. In my city there is a siren drill every other month to get you aware, my city only skipped it out of sensibility one time for the ukranian refugees directly after the war to give them some peace.
For more emergent situations we have Emergency Apps like "Nina" and "KatWarn" + Mobile Push Systems to alert you precisely about the kind of emergency/danger you are facing. My city for example has a WW2 Bomb found every other week, meaning thousands of people get evacuated for a time and need get informed.
We have a commenter here who lived on Maui who says that the behavior on hearing the siren is hard coded, not something people second guess. If you hesitate when there's a tsunami, you die.
Personally, I'm not qualified to have an opinion on this, not living on Maui, so I'll defer to the locals rather than the armchair emergency response managers.
In the absence of outside input, driving can just as easily be more dangerous than staying where you are.
I'll quote this from the Wikipedia article of the June 2017 wildfires in Portugal:
> The majority of deaths took place in the Pedrógão Grande municipality, when a fire swept across a road filled with evacuees escaping in their cars.
> 47 people died in or near their cars when a fire overtook the area; 30 people died while trapped in their vehicles while the other 17 died nearby trying to escape on foot.
It is suspected that they could have died from smoke inhalation rather than from the subsequent burn. But it is clear that many, if not all of them, could have survived if they hadn't tried to escape by car, because those who didn't try to escape did survive, and many of the houses were actually unaffected.
But yes, it could have easily been the opposite, as it happened in the same wildfire on another municipality.
And I would say it's quite possible that, in the absence of outside input, trying to escape by car could give you the greatest chances of surviving in most circumstances. But I'm not an expert so I really can't say that for sure.
And I'm sure it would also depend on the geography, the roads, and where the fire is.
The roads in Hawaii are not high speed in any sense of the word. It took me a couple of hours to get from Lahaina to the airport on the one trip I have taken there. This is typical, as the group I was was with were regulars there and knew to leave hours in advance. The roads are 2 lanes with one in either direction. One of the streets was so close to the ocean, the larger waves were lapping onto the street. Even during that trip, I was thinking to myself that this is not a place I would want to be trying to a make an emergency trip by car.
is it common to still have a radio? or where do you go instead now?
The reason that I don't find discussions of the Trolley Problem very interesting is that we as a society have largely solved for it already: If you take responsibility and change the default state, it is your fault - if you leave it alone, it is nobody's.
Are you meaning in Queensland or Maui?
how is this applicable to chernobyl?
"DLNR delayed releasing water requested by West Maui Land Co. to help prevent the spread of fire, sources familiar with the situation said."
The priority should be to stop the spread of fire not prevent houses being burned down.
Using water to help isolate an area that is used for evacuation is much more important than saving a few houses which are likely to be insured and can be simply rebuilt.
"DLNR delayed releasing water (requested by West Maui Land Co. to help prevent the spread of fire)"
not
"(DLNR delayed releasing water requested by West Maui Land Co.) to help prevent the spread of fire"
>>The priority should be to stop the spread of fire not prevent houses being burned down.
This would imply you think DLNR should have released the water the West Maui Land Co. as they were using it to "help prevent the spread of fire" (direct quote from your quote). Yet you say at the beginning.
>>Reading the article this seems perfectly fine.
Do you believe DLNR acted appropriately by not releasing the water which increased the spread of fire or do you believe DLNR should have released the water to help stop the spread of fire?
"Age of climate change and wildfires". As-if that's what's going on here...
"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."
- Oscar Wilde
I don't know what this sentence even means.
I guess there are small farmers who think the big landowners should suffer small fire, rather than using up scarce water that they want. I guess that's a reasonable position, as long as the fires are small.
Some examples: http://paaponomilolii.org/about/cultural-advisors
It was disgusting. I’m reserving any judgment on this story, no matter how incendiary the headline, until more facts come out.
(as per cratermoon's post, which seems stuck at the bottom on this page though)
In the case of the water they were trading off the water potentially saving lives vs the water being available to grow taro. It was not a tough call and the dude got it wrong.
The water situation is not obvious and I imagine hard to decide about in the middle of a crisis.
For some additional context:
I know from living in California, and before that Australia, that there is a tension between protecting property structures (or merely forestalling their fate) vs a more macro use of resources to contain the spread. This is the same impetus that will cause a firebreak to be cut through a forest even if it requires the use of eminent domain.
This same calculus leads to the opposite class of decision in urban areas: firefighting used to be a subscription service (in parts of the USA it still is) but the problem is that if your neighbor doesn't have insurance your house could be at risk. So it made more sense to be tax supported and cover people who "don't subscribe".
In the urban case the amount of water is typically low (single structure fire). In a case like this one you have to figure out where to invest your resources and it isn't always obvious.
As the article points out, past misuse (protection of cash crops over the livelihood of workers) has complicated the process of making these decisions in real time.
I truly hope my assumption is wrong and that those 800 people are safe, but it just doesn't seem likely to me given what we know.
The Guardian article seems to paint things in a very different light to the OP article.
That said, I think the intentional choice to not use sirens was likely a good call in this case and an example of good leadership. If the community is conditioned to recognize the sirens for tsunami’s only maybe that’s where the reform should start. If they CAN be used for other things, can they have different sounds for different things. It doesn’t need to be complicated.
> Tremble’s letter said it is unknown whether filling the reservoirs at 1 p.m. would have ultimately made a difference.
And there’s this whole whiff of “kooky liberals prioritizing silly native crops over fire prevention” in the coverage about the issue, which certainly makes me suspicious as well.
I suspect time will show that the decision was not at all clear-cut and all relevant details are not yet known.
1. https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023/08/16/hawaii-news/reques...