What we have here is a failure to communicate — one that has cost the state precious time in the race to boost our disaster readiness.

Advertiser staff writer Mike Gordon last week reported about O'ahu Civil Defense exhorting a roomful of condominium resident managers to take part in a county certification program that identifies where they could establish their own emergency shelter. But, it soon became clear that this program had run aground on the shoals of bureaucracy.

For nearly a year, the city has failed to issue letters of certification to private properties with the potential to shelter their own residents during a hurricane or other natural disaster. The problem, county officials said, was that state Civil Defense authorities had issued a report indicating there would be a plan to revise the standards for judging a building's structural stability and safety. So the county waited. And waited.

Whether state officials knew efforts had stalled is unclear. But does it really matter?

Here are the facts: O'ahu is 60,000 spaces short of what's needed to accommodate residents in a disaster, and while the effort to upgrade public buildings must go on, enlisting the help of private property owners could narrow that gap by about 12,000 spaces.

The need for new criteria was raised in a state report delivered to lawmakers late last year. The report called for a structural analysis of state shelters, but also favored a similar review for private shelter facilities.

At that point, the whole push to create more private shelters ran out of steam. It's appalling that this could happen while the Hurricane Katrina debacle was still fresh in everyone's mind.

Saddled with fewer contractual complications than government agencies face, private property owners could move more quickly to create an in-house shelter, relieving the burden on public facilities.

The idea of involving them as partners in our civil defense makes perfect sense, while these delays are pointless.

It could all be cleared up in a month with a few phone calls, officials said, and one productive meeting.

Fine. Pick up the phone, people. Get it done.