When the next major earthquake shakes Hawai'i, civil defense officials plan to send an alert via radio and television even if there is no danger of a tsunami.

On Oct. 15, when two temblors jolted the Islands but failed to generate a tsunami, officials thought sending a message using the words "no tsunami" would cause confusion.

That policy has changed.

"We'll get the message out to people in the state of Hawai'i," said Maj. Gen. Robert Lee, head of the state's Civil Defense operation.

Either the city or state will run "civil emergency message" trailers across the bottom of television screens and a message on the radio to let people know whether there is any danger of a tsunami. Sirens will not sound if there is no tsunami threat — they'll be reserved for true emergencies.

Complaints about the communication breakdown on Oct. 15 prompted Gov. Linda Lingle to convene a committee of government officials, media professionals and telecommunications companies to figure out ways to better disseminate information to the public.

While many of the committee's recommendations have yet to see fruition, changes already in place should allow civil defense to provide relevant information to the public in a more timely manner.

One of the most significant changes is that O'ahu Civil Defense employees have now been trained to issue civil emergency messages on their own through the Emergency Alert System, even ones that essentially say there is no emergency.

UP TO SPEED

On Oct. 15, personnel at Honolulu's Emergency Operating Center had the essential information together within minutes after the quake. "Everyone was aware of it, but we couldn't get the information out," said spokesman John Cummings.

It took three hours and coordination with state Civil Defense before the county was successfully able to issue a civil emergency message asking O'ahu residents to stay off the roads and off phones.

Now Cummings said everyone is up to speed and the county has already used the system to break into radio programming or run alerts on television, most recently after the Jan. 12 Kuril Islands earthquake.

Honolulu also has a backup plan to get information out by using the city's Traffic Management Center, which has direct links to radio stations that offer live traffic updates.

Mayor Mufi Hannemann was able to put this system to the test when a landslide on Nov. 1 closed the Pali Highway.

Lee said that state Civil Defense has already made sure it will have an easier time getting in touch with the two emergency broadcast stations on O'ahu — KSSK and KRTR.

In some cases, official sources had tried to reach the stations using published phone numbers and found the lines blocked by callers offering anecdotes from their own earthquake experience.

Now civil defense and government officials have more than one dedicated number to make sure they can get through to the stations.

On the radio side, both Clear Channel Communications, which owns KSSK, and Cox Radio, which owns KRTR, have made their own suggestions or improvements.

Chuck Cotton, general manager of Clear Channel, said he has suggested that the state and county civil defense install regular phone lines directly to the radio studio, although he said that federal, state and county agencies have always had access to unpublished numbers.

LAND-LINE SERVICE

Hawaiian Electric Co. has already installed a direct line to KSSK after having to compete with radio listeners calling in to the station.

That, coupled with shoring up its own land-line service, should allow the utility to provide more timely and frequent updates in the event of blackouts.

Mike Kelly, vice president and general manager of Cox Radio, said the Oct. 15 situation made it clear just how necessary those land lines are and the station has added more as a result. "It's the first time I'd ever seen that cell phones were busy constantly," he said.

Cox is also looking at direct links with county and state civil defense.

Perhaps more significant is the addition of two new backup generators. While some of Cox's stations stayed on the air throughout the day on Oct. 15, KRTR, the emergency broadcast station, lost its generator power 45 minutes after the earthquake.

Cox has now added a new generator in Makakilo that can hold four days' worth of fuel, as well as a state-of-the-art generator above Niu Valley.

Those generators will help two Cox stations and Hawai'i Public Radio, which shares one of the towers, stay on the air during blackouts.

"Those three radio stations now have a brand-new generator with lots of extra fuel," Kelly said.

"We made those improvements and we have an emergency plan that we've updated and if it happened again, we'd be in good shape as far as being able to communicate to people."

In case of a power outage, battery-powered radios are the most ubiquitous information source, but Oceanic Time Warner Cable is also looking at making improvements.

"Everybody's looking at ways to keep essential communications up," said Norman Santos, Oceanic's vice president of operations. "Right now because we're offering residential phone service, we're looking for ways to put some backups into our system."

'A WAITING GAME'

Oceanic has secured fuel for its generators, but even so would currently only be able to maintain short-term backups to its residential phone service.

"That doesn't take into account if we're out for 18 hours again," Santos said. "After a number of hours, the generators start to run dry."

After working out its phone service, Oceanic would concentrate on its Internet services. "It's those two services that we consider to be lifeline services," he said.

He anticipates it will take three to five years before the system has been completely overhauled.

For all the planning, however, as Doug Carlson, former Hawaiian Electric Co. spokesman, points out, it will take a real emergency to put all these preparations to the test.

"I think we're now in a waiting game to see what happens after the next emergency that requires rapid response," he said. "It's clear that the response has to be that much quicker than what we saw in October, and hopefully the lessons that they and we have all learned have been put to good use."