All very nice, but I can tell you from years of living and working on Maui (and the other islands) that we all knew them as Tsunami sirens. Whether right or wrong, that's what they meant to us. Hear the sirens - head for the hills. I would have done so, and so would everyone I knew. It's that simple. No one I know on Maui would have heard those sirens and thought "Fire!"
Exactly Pano. So sad that others want to read something somewhere and suddenly post it as ‘knowledge’ I seriously wish they would refrain from polluting this thread.
LOL. I lived and worked there and heard the sirens tested every month, had to explain to the tourists what they were - and I am wrong. OK.
But your list of facts is not wrong, in and of itself. That is what is on a list. But it was NOT common knowledge, just a list somewhere for emergency personal perhaps. No one in the general population thought of them as anything but Tsunami. We all called them "Tsunami Sirens" Right or wrong, that was the common and accepted meaning of the sound. Nothing in any list can change that.
Do you understand the difference between those two?
But your list of facts is not wrong, in and of itself. That is what is on a list. But it was NOT common knowledge, just a list somewhere for emergency personal perhaps. No one in the general population thought of them as anything but Tsunami. We all called them "Tsunami Sirens" Right or wrong, that was the common and accepted meaning of the sound. Nothing in any list can change that.
Do you understand the difference between those two?
I lived on the big island for a few years, my experience is exactly the same as Pano. They may technically be emergency sirens but everyone knows them as tsunami alerts.
AF, give it a rest. Your ignorance can’t be stated any more clearly than you have done yourself. The whole world is watching and wondering why you continue to post.
Hereabouts -i.e. the wet coast of Canada - we have a system that messages via mobile text notifications of emergencies/ public safety concerns such as extreme heat, wind, air quality due to wildfire smoke, etc. Works great, but I’d wager that not all citizens - particularly those in lower income brackets or seniors necessarily have mobile devices, or that in the height of tourist season all visitors to susceptible areas are willing to pay for the data packages that would allow them to receive such alerts - even though those charges are less than the cost of a decent brunch for one at the Grand Wailea.
It will be very interesting to see what improvements to public alert systems are enacted when the widely destroyed infrastructure is inevitably rebuilt, as well as the education as to their operation.
Our own family has several vacationing friends who have been affected by the latest West Kelowna inferno, which if you look at the video coverage looks like it could be footage from a wartime firebombing. By some miracle, so far I’ve not seen any news of loss of life either there or the NWT - I hope that didn’t jinx the situation.
I have a daughter who lives in Bermuda and works in the international re-insurance industry. I can only imagine what will happen to property rates and deductibles over the next year or so.
It will be very interesting to see what improvements to public alert systems are enacted when the widely destroyed infrastructure is inevitably rebuilt, as well as the education as to their operation.
Our own family has several vacationing friends who have been affected by the latest West Kelowna inferno, which if you look at the video coverage looks like it could be footage from a wartime firebombing. By some miracle, so far I’ve not seen any news of loss of life either there or the NWT - I hope that didn’t jinx the situation.
I have a daughter who lives in Bermuda and works in the international re-insurance industry. I can only imagine what will happen to property rates and deductibles over the next year or so.
Yes dear. 😀
Sure, but is that the point? Does it matter that we were wrong? Knowing that we did not know the other uses is the important part. Do you understand the difference at all?
No, that isn't it at all. That isn't the point and that isn't the difference. Strange that you can't see it's a sort of odd blind spot. But no matter, I perfectly understand the decision not to sound the sirens. The person who made that decision understood the state of public knowledge.
It was a no win situation. If the sirens had gone off and people rushed away from the ocean toward the fire, the results would also have been horrible.
Well, Pano is correct... when I lived there, and my sister too, we all thought of them as "tsunami alerts". In fact, we had one episode where we had a real tsunami alert on account of some quake up in Alaska and we had to head up to the hills in Aiea.
But, hey.... why do I know? I lost a bunch of weight and went looking for a bunch of Reyn Spooner shirts... Turns out we gave them away... Yikes. There went a
Of course, we had a Tropical Storm today.. it "dumped" 1.6 inches of rain... wow! And on top of that we had a 5.1 quake... we didn't feel it. Imagine, at least we didn't get a tsunami alert. The surfers would have gone to Huntington and Newport Beach and hoped to ride the Big Wave all the way to the 405... dude!
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