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.

  • SimplePhysics@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    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@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      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.