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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

> So, the emergency sirens weren't used

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...

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> > So, the emergency sirens weren't used

> 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...

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.

it's too bad when they were going to the trouble to install sirens all over "the last mile", they didn't think to have more than one alarm meaning.

The sirens are only along the coast. Not mountain side.

> 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.

> Unless the sirens can produce different sounds that are easily distinguishable

Sounds like something that would have to be done when installing (well, really speccing and buying) them.

It's too bad the sirens don't allow an ascending of frequency to mean "go to higher ground" and descending to mean "go to lower ground"

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).

Here’s a crazy idea. You use one tone but you break it up.

One long for high ground three short for… huh, that’s new. What do? Oh it says here, fire get out now.

> One long for high ground three short for… huh, that’s new. What do? Oh it says here,

you just added a dependency for something that only had one meaning.

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

AFAIK, there were multiple patterns of sound that the sirens can generate, but it became confusing to keep them straight.

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.

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.

Exactly, we see this almost every year when a southern state gets a light dusting of snow.

That page also says:

> 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.

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.

So why is this case noteworthy enough for you to elaborate on?

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.

What do you think?

What are you asking me to think in regards to? Can you clarify your first paragraph and separate out each claim?

> So why is this case noteworthy enough for you to elaborate on?

What did this question mean?

Some ChatGPT nonsense, i guess. Some people think hooking HN to chat bot is funny

> Some ChatGPT nonsense, i guess. Some people think hooking HN to chat bot is funny

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.

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.

ggm can explain it for you, but he can't do your thinking for you.

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.

From that website:

Ok, so don't use that specific siren.

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?

They did use them, but cell towers and electricity were out in much of the area.

https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/maui-emergency-chief-defen...

True, wild fires are known to not emit light and not emit anything visible. People wouldn't have known.

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?

Not Tsunami sirens. Emergency sirens. Their rules said it could be used for any calamity.

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 will change. Emergency protocols are written in blood. The sirens will be used next time and people will be trained in the different meanings.

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