Building engineers deserve our praise
The true heroes during Sunday's earthquake were the engineers and their building codes. With all the high-rises, we could have had a real disaster. Mahalo to the engineers for keeping us all safe!
David Sohmer
Kailua
What's the point of disaster drills?
Sunday's earthquake was an example of a 7:08 a.m. wake-up call for some changes in how information is disseminated to the public during an emergency.
Every month we go through tests of the emergency broadcast system telling us to turn on the radio in the event of an emergency. As instructed, I turned on the radio -- to no information. For the governor to say everybody knew it was an earthquake is ridiculous. We can assume it was an earthquake but with world terrorism and North Korea hotting up and doing their testing, was it a bomb? We just want to know what it was and don't want to wait for hours.
Authorities "knew" there was no tsunami, but we didn't know! If there had been a tsunami, it would have been too late by the time the live radio broadcast got on 45-50 minutes later. No information is what starts rumors. A simple, immediate statement such as, "There has been an earthquake centered off the Big Island and there is no apparent immediate threat of a tsunami. Stay tuned for further updates" would have averted a lot of problems and could save lives in the future.
Melinda White
Honolulu
Mobile generators are handy in a crisis
In regard to
yesterday's article, instead of installing permanent backup generators at the airport, perhaps the state (and county) should look at mobile generators that could provide power to places like the airport, the port, sewage facilities, Board of Water Supply or elsewhere as required. The hookups can be preinstalled so that restoration of power is quick. Flexibility would be important in any crisis.
I recall walking past two 40-foot containers of generating equipment parked next to Hamilton Library after the University of Hawaii-Manoa flood. A few of those could do much good in the next power crisis.
Robin Uyeshiro
Kailua
Water board does have backup power supply
A
letter to the editor yesterday's Star-Bulletin stated that the Honolulu Board of Water Supply has no emergency backup power.
We understand and take seriously our responsibility to provide safe and dependable water supplies to our customers on Oahu, and as such we are prepared with mobile backup generators which can be deployed to our key facilities in times of crisis. In fact, several of our generators were mobilized and ready on Sunday.
However, we never had to turn on a single backup generator during this emergency. That is because we asked for conservation and our customers voluntarily conserved. The community responded magnificently to our call for action. We appreciate the trust our customers have in us and are proud to have provided them with water throughout this ordeal.
We would like to remind everyone not to stop the conservation efforts because the crisis is over. We would like to encourage our customers to continue to conserve water every day as we strive to achieve our mission of resource sustainability, to ensure "Water for Life -- Ka Wai Ola."
Cliff Lum
Manager and chief engineer
Honolulu Board of Water Supply
At least isle residents came through
Sunday morning was not only a jolt out of bed but a rude awakening on how unprepared we were. I thought after Hurricanes Iwa and Iniki, the numerous disaster drills, and the horrendous recent traffic nightmare that the Civil Defense system would spring into action. They were caught with their pants down!
Immediately after the earthquake, I turned on the television and radio. Both were playing prerecorded Sunday programs. There was no emergency broadcast. Where was the designated emergency station that is supposed to kick in once a disaster occurs? I guess, as Civil Defense later stated, the earthquake was not "big" enough to qualify for an emergency declaration. Give me a break! Obviously, it is an emergency when you have more than 300,000 households without power and are asked to conserve water.
The ones to be commended in all of this are the people of Hawaii who were extremely patient and heeded the pleas to conserve water and electricity. They were compliant and obeyed the requests to conserve energy and water and to stay home. They did it without complaint, were very tolerant and understanding of the situation and their cooperative spirit got us through this ordeal.
Kathie Kim
Kailua