Thank you for excellent comments regarding the need for quick offers of
money following a disaster and the sadly meek and disinterested initial
response from most donor governments. Regarding early warning:
>The only real solution is a technological one of a tsunami warning system
>coupled with impact
>assessments based on local topology that then feeds in to the social impact
>assessment. There
>should be a real opportunity to build a tsunami warning for the Indian
>Ocean and other regions.
>The technology has never been cheaper nor more readily available. We
>shouldn't let discussion of
>education (important as it is) detract from this goal.
If we do not let education detract from the goal of the perfect, pristine,
infallible technology, remind me again how people will know what to do when
the warning system goes off? Not to mention recognising that it is a
warning...for something... Plus ensuring that people maintain the warning
system, such as replacing batteries or monitoring the solar/wind power
gadgets since main grid power supplies are likely to be unreliable in many
regions.
I recall one local in the UK telling me about their island's early warning
system for floods: "We use the World War II sirens. But they went off this
morning and no one bothered". This same island had a brilliant evacuation
plan...which few people knew about and which had key logistical flaws such
as both routes going through the same roundabout just before going
off-island. How many seismic monitoring stations, CTBTO and otherwise, have
been poached for free materials? I certainly know of tidal monitoring
networks which have suffered vandalism.
Technology is one tool amongst many for early warning systems, nothing more,
nothing less; it should be neither undervalued nor overvalued. As such,
technology certainly seems to be a key component for most tsunami early
warning systems, but if the technology is relied on to work perfectly all
the time without (a) being placed in its proper context as one small
component within the overall EWS and (b) proper contingency planning for
failures, then that technology will fail to do its job and might do more
harm than good. For ample evidence, I quote my earlier message: "For
extensive background and information on EWS, especially EWS as a social
process which often uses technology as one of many tools, see
http://www.esig.ucar.edu/warning and http://www.esig.ucar.edu/galapagos ".
Ilan
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