02-12-2009, 09:18 AM
well neither email nor phone alert would have helped me or the other people stuck on the road. The storm came on so fast ... I had only left my son's house five minutes prior and everything looked fine. It wasn't even raining. My son had just left for the golf course. The weather changed on a dime.
I found myself in a flash flood situation and what I needed was information to be on the RADIO. And it wasn't. Unless it was on the AM, which I suppose it could have been, but my radio is set on FM and it was hard enough switching channels in those hairy driving conditions without switching to alternate bandwidths. (I forget that AM exists ...)
I think there may have been people who could have been reached by phone or email, but most driving into it were already in motion or somehow out and about, tourists coming down the hill from day trips, people coming home from work, etc.. It's 30 minutes to an hour between towns on those stretches of road, so for example, some cars hitting flooding on the upper highway may have left Kona half hour before there was reason to send a warning.
RADIO ... interrupt programming and tell people what to do.
I found myself in a flash flood situation and what I needed was information to be on the RADIO. And it wasn't. Unless it was on the AM, which I suppose it could have been, but my radio is set on FM and it was hard enough switching channels in those hairy driving conditions without switching to alternate bandwidths. (I forget that AM exists ...)
I think there may have been people who could have been reached by phone or email, but most driving into it were already in motion or somehow out and about, tourists coming down the hill from day trips, people coming home from work, etc.. It's 30 minutes to an hour between towns on those stretches of road, so for example, some cars hitting flooding on the upper highway may have left Kona half hour before there was reason to send a warning.
RADIO ... interrupt programming and tell people what to do.