Posted on: Thursday, April 1, 2004

EDITORIAL
Disaster planning can't be put off

This is a delicate thing. Hawai'i's visitor industry wants to lure people to our shores with visions of a peaceful vacation. The last thing it wishes to do is scare folks away.

But as tourism officials and others heard at a tsunami workshop this week, the desire to present a happy face to visitors must be balanced against a reasonable effort to ensure their safety.

The workshop determined that safety training for employees and safety advice for visitors is, at least in some places, inadequate.

This should not be hard to fix, and it's a must.

Yes, tsunamis and hurricanes are rare in the Islands, but they have happened in the past and they will happen again. That's a fact.

The best option is to be prepared.

Much of the safety advice has to do with evacuation. The chances of injury or loss of life are greatly minimized if folks simply get to higher ground in the case of a tsunami or to a secure facility in the case of a hurricane.

Tsunami warnings in the past have generated chaotic evacuation patterns that led to massive traffic gridlock and serious danger to people who could not get to safety.

If there is enough warning time, in fact, officials suggest that people simply walk away from the danger zone. That lessens the potential for gridlock and leaves the roads open for emergency vehicles.

Hawai'i is, in fact, a safe place. And natural dangers such as tsunamis or hurricanes are rare. But they do happen. The best way to make sure a disturbance does not become a disaster is to do adequate planning.

Let's get on with it.