What do you think about the warning sirens not being sounded for the Maui fire?

The sirens were designed to warn people of an impeding Tsunami with the meaning: “Get away from shore and go to higher ground.” In this case, blowing it would be absolutely the wrong message.
A lot of people were saved by running into the water.

What @LuckyGuy said makes a lot of sense. I have no problem with his conclusions.

I don’t know what Hawaii siren protocols are. Here in GA we have storm (tornado) sirens only – and not everywhere – and they have one meaning only: take cover because a tornado is coming.

So, as @LuckyGuy said, if the sirens in Hawaii had gone off, peoples’ reactions would have been wrong.

I feel bad for the poor guy being blamed. But blame is the game that everyone plays these days.

I think that no matter what happened, sirens sounding or not, somebody would have bitched.

The sirens are for alerting people. Yes, they were normally used for Tsunamis, but in this case, I believe if you sounded them people would come out of their homes and see/smell the fire/smoke and realize what the hazard is. To believe that people would just blindly run into the fire is ludicrous. The sirens should have been sounded…no excuse for not doing it.

There is no doubt the alarms should have sounded. People should have been alerted to a danger in which every second counted. It is easy to see this with hindsight. At the time even the authorities may not have known how serious the situation was, but they should have sounded the alarm to give people a chance.

I was thinking of tornado sirens when I lived in Tennessee. My husband and I would usually turn on our TV and then go down to our tornado shelter with our computers to try and stay in touch with what was happening. It would not be unheard of to take shelter first, and then try to listen in to the information. If it was a huge fire coming, we would be under the house waiting, rather than traveling away from the fire if that was possible.

In Florida we don’t have sirens, not anywhere that I have lived in Florida anyway, maybe up near the state line it is different. We sign up with the county and I think I have a separate alert for the state too, for emergency text messages.

@flutherother When seconds count, running the wrong way could really matter.

My friends who lived on Maui for many years say they were known to many as the “Tsunami sirens” and would likely have caused a lot of confusion had they sounded.

Sirens mean danger, period. If I heard a siren, the first thing I would do, and have done, is turn on the tv if it’s not on. Then I would know what the emergency was, and news or the typed thingy across the bottom of the screen would tell me what to do.

Ok, so they’re used to sirens meaning tsunamis… does that mean no one thinks to take a moment to glance at the tv news? I think they should have run the siren, but I’m not blaming the man for not being sure what to do.

Do they not sound the siren when volcano/s erupt, also? If so, a siren could be at least one of two things.

There is much frustration, and it’s understandable. The sirens are for tsunamis. Fires are a new phenomenon, and the sad truth is we weren’t prepared. There was a fire a few years ago that was big, but no one predicted this. I’m not on Maui, so I have less at stake. I don’t see how authorities could have anticipated this fire, but the people on Maui feel differently.

Cell service and cable was knocked out. TV was useless.

^^ I suppose it would depend on when the siren sounded. If it was relatively early, tvs, etc were probably still working, whereas if the fire had been upon them for 10–15 mins or so, they would probably be out. But by then, I would think people would have smelled the smoke, heard people yelling, seen people running, etc. But the only fire I’ve experienced was one in my apt building, nothing on a large scale like this one. Maybe if I’d grown up knowing sirens meant tsunamis I would always just assume it meant one.

I, too, don’t see how it could have been anticipated.

Here in Florida, and I’m sure other states, during hurricanes the power company sometimes shuts down the grid for safety. That’s part of the reason people with significant health problems stay in the hospital during the hurricane. The other reason is emergency services will not respond once sustained winds exceed 40mph, some cities 45mph. Relying on electricity in an emergency doesn’t always work.

Back in the day of copper wire phones we would still have phone service. Often times cell phones are still working even when we lose power, but not everyone has a cell phone.

Old fashioned battery radios are more reliable than anything else as long as radio stations are still functioning.

Obviously, the government will be debating what to do in the future to improve the system. Hopefully, other states think about it too.

If they had sounded the sirens and people ran towards the fire that would be criticized too.

Horrible tragedy.

Another aspect of this I discovered is that there were wildfires very near this same area just back in November. They should have had some plan in place for dealing with them…some way to warn folks, some idea of where people should go, something.

According to its website the County of Maui Warning System is an all-hazard siren system that can be used for a variety of both natural and human-caused events; including tsunamis, hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats, hazardous material incidents, and more.

The general advice related to tsunamis but the sirens were not just for tsunamis and it seems incredible to me they weren’t sounded for the greatest natural disaster in the island’s history.

If the above link doesn’t work try this https://www.mauisirens.com/