Words That Have Meaning: False Alarm and Warning (A Tsunami Wrap-up)

This was a false alarm? Photographs from CBS News and AP

Two situations:

In the first, it's a school day, and some kid pulls the fire alarm. Bells ring and students have to evacuate even though there is no evidence of a fire and everyone knows it was a prank. This is a false alarm.

In the second, a teller pushes the alarm button. There's a man demanding money. No one knows if the man is armed or not. The police evacuate the neighborhood, surround the bank, and ultimately arrest the man. If the man turns out to be unarmed, it makes the whole thing a false alarm, right? No? I don't think so either. The police and the people of the neighborhood were warned of a possible dangerous situation. There could have been a deadly shootout. Will anyone fault the police for doing their job?

So why are scientists being forced to defend themselves for their warnings about a tsunami? Just because the tsunami proved to have less violence than expected doesn't mean they should have acted any differently. The media bean-counters are probably sorry they didn't get the death and disaster in Hawaii and other Pacific Islands that would have driven up ratings (sorry for the cynicism), but the seismologists did nothing improper. And I was personally impressed that Hawaiians and others did such a fine job of responding. They know from experience what could have happened. And in the end, there was a tsunami that extended from Chile all the way to Japan where the pictures above were taken. There was a fine line between an interesting geologic event and a worldwide disaster. There is disaster enough in Chile, where the death toll continues to climb.

With that in mind, I'm glad to see the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center is not caving in to media accusations of a "false alarm":

"It's a key point to remember that we cannot under-warn. Failure to warn is not an option for us," said Dai Lin Wang, an oceanographer at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii. "We cannot have a situation that we thought was no problem and then it's devastating. That just cannot happen."

The media should know better than to loosely toss the words "false alarm" in their wrap-up stories about the tsunami. Words have meaning, and "false alarm" sends the wrong message, a sort of "boy who cried wolf" attitude. Millions of people across the Pacific have now experienced an evacuation, and will know what to do the next time. Unless they think of the seismologists as boys crying wolf. These men and women take their jobs seriously, and will never play such games with the public.

Don't forget to donate to relief efforts in Chile, and in Haiti. It's so easy to forget a tragedy when another one crowds out the headlines.

UPDATE: Word starts creeping out about devastating tsunami damage in Chile

UPDATE #2: More people may have been killed in Chile by the tsunami than by the earthquake itself. Magma Cum Laude provides a nice example of good media coverage on the tsunami, with Dr. Chuck Bailey at William and Mary College. Nice catch!

UPDATE #3: Earth Magazine checks in with a good analysis of the quake and tsunami and links to some excellent media coverage by PBS News Hour (and thanks for the shout out for Geotripper, Magma Cum Laude, and Goodschist!)

The Hawaii Tsunami a "Non-Event"? I Don't Think So...

I know that the Hawaii tsunami is now officially old news, but it was an important geological lesson. Why does it take amateur video to adequately explain what was happening? As I watched cable news yesterday, the activity was hidden by screen banners and obscured by blathering newsreaders who didn't have enough knowledge to realize what was happening on the screen in front of them. I've been complaining about it for the last 24 hours, so I thought I should mention what incredible things we did see yesterday.

It boils down to the fact that there was a very thin line between a geologic curiosity and a geologic disaster in Hawaii yesterday. Think what a remarkable thing was happening in the video: a normally placid ocean bay protected from wave action by a long sea wall was suddenly full of mud, and was flowing. First one direction, then the other. How extraordinary is this?

Normal waves are a surface phenomena. Anyone playing in the waves at the beach knows they can avoid being mashed by a big wave by diving under it. The waves form up only a few hundred feet offshore and break against the beach. They involve a limited part of the water column, and the energy level, while high at the point of impact, is also limited. The swells that form up into waves may be generated hundreds or thousands of miles away by storm winds, but the swells travel only a few tens of miles an hour, and the turbulence extends only a few tens of feet beneath the surface of the ocean.

Tsunamis are not at all like normal waves. They are generated by a displacement of the water on the ocean floor by large earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or underwater landslides. They travel hundreds of miles an hour (roughly the speed of a jet airliner), and they affect the entire water column from the seafloor to the surface. They don't even really affect boats on the open ocean, as the boats simply rise and fall a few feet over a twenty minute time span. But the seafloor is affected by the passage. The dangerous aspect of a tsunami is what happens when the waves encounter shallow water along a shoreline. In essence, the energy of the wave that has been dispersed across the whole water column is compressed into a smaller and smaller space. The wave builds, and either draws water away from the coast, or surges into the coast without warning.

The activity at Hilo Bay is a wonderful example of the process. All the water in the bay was in motion, from the surface to the base, and this is what kicked up all the mud in the water. The water was surging in and then out again, explaining the strange currents around Coconut Island, seen in the video above. The total height of the tsunami surge was about three feet.

This was a huge earthquake in Chile, the fifth largest ever recorded. It was reasonable to expect a colossal tsunami, but tsunamis are subject to many variables. Smaller earthquakes have generated larger tsunamis in Hawaii (the worst tsunami to strike Hawaii, in 1946, was from a smaller earthquake that took place in Alaska). The largest earthquake ever recorded, from Chile in 1960, produced a devastating tsunami in Hilo, but the second largest, the Alaska quake of 1964 (magnitude 9.3) caused all of $60,000 in damage and killed no one in Hawaii (16 people died in California and Oregon, and 106 in Alaska). In other words, tsunamis are inherently unpredictable. In the worst tsunamis, of 1946 and 1960, the surge reached depths of 30 feet or more.

A warning system has been present in the Pacific Ocean basin since 1946, and the system was upgraded in the last few years, but has only been tested in a few recent large seismic events.

What I really wish is that the newreaders (er, um, excuse me, anchorpersons and reporters) at the cable networks would take the time to truly educate themselves in the basics of geology. As a teacher of geology, I shiver at the thought of standing up in a classroom of philosophy students and lecturing on philosophy without any time to prepare. These newspeople are standing up in front of millions of people and displaying their appalling ignorance of geology. The other problem, of course, is that their audience is not aware of it.

UPDATE: Chris at goodSchist is collecting some of the mainstream media crimes against geologic understanding here. Be sure to contribute if you see something!

I Have a Dream...in which the 24 Hour Cable News Networks Serve a Useful Purpose

Photo of tsunami surge from West Hawaii Today

I have a dream, or more a fantasy, because dreams are more likely to come true. I fantasize about the day that a cable network newsreader (I know they like to call themselves "anchorpeople", but forget it) stands up in front of the television cameras and says, "I'm sorry, but I and the entire news team in this room and on the site of the geological event out there haven't got the faintest idea of what we are babbling about. So we are going to suspend our coverage until we have hired a correspondent who has the scientific education to give us a cogent and reasoned explanation of what is going on."

My dream isn't going to come true, is it? As I noted yesterday, the networks will spend tens of millions of dollars to cover minute aspects of sporting events, but they can't shell out, say, $90,000 a year to a competent geologist/earth scientist who can warn them that they have gone overboard on the hype, and to calm down.

What was the real story yesterday? There was a massive earthquake in Chile yesterday, an 8.8 magnitude monster that was the fifth biggest tremor in recorded (i.e. on a seismometer) history. It produced a tsunami that would affect the entire Pacific Ocean basin. The coverage of the earthquake itself earns the news networks a C+, because they apparently still remember some of the science they learned six weeks ago in Haiti.

But...their coverage of the effects of the quake on the Pacific Basin and Hawaii? An F. Not even a gentleman's F+. They've done grievous damage to the entire concept of responsible journalism. They hated that the Indonesian tsunami struck without warning so that they couldn't plan for their coverage of a tragic human event. So this quake hits, and they have a half day's warning to prepare for the event in Hawaii. They were so incompetent that they could position stationary cameras in what seemed to be only three locations (including what seemed hours of pictures of one moronic surfer), and then breathlessly babbled for hours about the approaching maelstrom. The tsunami arrived, and they didn't recognize it happening in front of them. Then they acted disappointed that it wasn't the disaster they had been building up for hours. And they cut to commercials. This, of course, is what I was raging about yesterday.

The story they missed? A giant earthquake produced what could very well have been a colossal tsunami. The civil defense apparatus of the state of Hawaii gears up for the event, sounding the warning sirens hours ahead of the arrival of the tsunami surge, and doing an incredible job of warning the population of what could be coming. The people of Hawaii do the right thing, stocking up on emergency supplies and taking shelter in the appropriate locations. The evacuations run smoothly, from what little I hear, and if a monster tsunami had hit, the death toll would have been very low. The tsunami hits with an intensity at the lower end of the predictions, and a number of fascinating phenomena take place (and I am still waiting for some decent coverage of what actually happened). There was a collective sigh of relief, and life returns to normal, after a brief interruption and a little inconvenience. That was the real story, and it was for the most part untold.

The damage they have done? By building up the story to a fever pitch, they could have caused unnecessary panic and worry, and when they expressed their disappointment (in their attitude, if not their words) at the outcome, they set up a situation in the future where people might not take tsunami warnings seriously. They have turned this into a "Peter cries Wolf" story in which the civil defense people actually seem to be apologizing for overestimating the size of the waves (and please follow and read the link). The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has nothing to apologize for; they acted appropriately for the situation, and the population responded well. I can only pray that in future events they will also respond correctly.

My friend at Phreatic Ramblings captures a particularly inane conversation that took place yesterday. I normally like Rick Sanchez if he is talking about politics, but he didn't do so well here.

UPDATE: Sorry Rick, but your cartography ain't so good either (Thanks, Rebecca)

Liveblogging a Tsunami

Photo from MSNBC

I take back the nice things I said about the media coverage. They have the tsunami directly affecting Hilo Bay, but they keep putting their "breaking news" banner right over the most visible aspect of the receding water as the tsunami hits (see the unblocked picture above). And then they keep going back to Oahu where absolutely nothing is happening, or repeating pictures of the same stupid surfer from three hours ago. They have a tsunami happening in front of them and don't seem to realize it. A big learning moment is passing them (and us) by.

A reporter on one of those channels says they are hoping for the best...but to be cynical, if the best happens, I suspect there will be much gnashing of teeth about Chicken Little and "inaccurate" predictions of an inherently unpredictable event.

Updated Note 2:30 PST:

The photo is Coconut Island in Hilo Bay. In 1946, a horrendous tsunami overran the small island, and swept into downtown Hilo, killing more than 100 people. Today's event is thankfully much smaller, though it is not over with yet.

Update 2:55 PST:

All the news networks went to commercials. I guess the tsunami is over (it's not, but it wasn't big enough to keep their interest).

Update 3:05 PST:

The tsunami has in fact caused at least some fatalities, just not in Hawaii, and notably not mentioned on the networks that I can tell (on islands closer to Chile). A more comprehensive live blog about the earthquake and tsunami on a more worldwide basis can be found at EnduringAmerica. I suggest checking there for some straight blogging without my opinions of the media coverage.

Update 3:37 PST:

MEASUREMENTS OR REPORTS OF TSUNAMI WAVE ACTIVITY

(from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center)

GAUGE LOCATION
------------------- ----- ------ ----- --------------- -----
KAWAIHAE HAWAII 0.52M / 1.7FT
BARBERS PT HI 0.19M / 0.6FT
KAUMALAPAU HAWAII 0.18M / 0.6FT
KAHULUI MAUI 0.98M / 3.2FT
NAWILIWILI KAUAI 0.28M / 0.9FT
HILO HI 0.86M / 2.8FT
PAGO PAGO AS 0.66M / 2.2FT

Also, as predicted, the weasels in the media are complaining about a "false alarm". They seem almost disappointed that there wasn't any widespread death and destruction in Hawaii. At the end of the interview with someone from the Warning Center the newsreader admitted that the waves actually did reach the proportions predicted, just at the lower end of the prediction range.

(PS: I like weasels. It's just an expression)