We can't stop earthquakes from happening. We
can't block or dispel tsunamis before they hit
shore. What we can do is prevent the kind
of loss of life seen this week.

Moreover, many of the steps we can take to
mitigate the danger of tsunamis would also save
lives in other disasters. The two key factors?
Ones we return to time and again on
WorldChanging: How do we gather information? How
do we communicate it?

In this case, we do well with the former.
It's in communicating that we fail. But
solutions are possible -- worldchanging
solutions.

The late 20th century saw a revolution in our
understanding of the workings of our planet.
From

satellite
monitoring to

remote
sensors to

increasingly
detailed models, we've built a
planetary science toolkit. With these tools,
we're

forecasting
potentially ruinous changes,

seeing into
the past and

monitoring
current and coming environmental conditions.
We know a remarkable amount about the Earth's
geophysical systems, but there is still much
more to learn.

Fortunately, the science of monitoring
tsunamis is fairly well-developed. The
combination of ocean depth and pressure gauges
called "tsunameters"
can keep close tabs on tsunamis as they travel
undersea, beaming updated information to
satellites; the information is sent along to the


international tsunami warning network.
(Depth
gauges are also useful for telling us
about changing sea levels as the planet warms.)
But tsunameters aren't the only way of knowing
that a tsunami is coming. Tsunamis are always
triggered by some kind of event which displaces
large amounts of water -- most often an
earthquake, but occasionally a massive landslide
or even an asteroid impact in the ocean. Such
events are hard to miss; tsunamis simply don't
happen without warning.

Although

much has
already been said about the lack of tsunami
monitors in the Indian Ocean, the 9.0
earthquake off the tip of Sumatra itself was the
biggest indicator that a tsunami was likely. And
while the presence of tsunameters certainly
would have helped, it's really not surprising
that they weren't being used. Big tsunamis are
rare outside of the Pacific Ocean -- there are
no tsunameters in the Atlantic Ocean, either.
The real problem was that India, Sri Lanka,
Thailand and most of the other nations hit by
the December 26 disaster weren't tied into the
tsunami warning network, and there was no
mechanism for getting the warning to the right
people.

One of the downfalls of the tsunami warning
system is that it assumes centralized emergency
infrastructures for member nations, so that when
the ITIC sends an alert, responsible parties pay
attention and respond appropriately. While this
kind of centralized structure is effective when
it works, it is open to the
single-point-of-failure problem witnessed this
week. If the emergency authority is not
available, there's nowhere to turn.

As the ITIC tsunami information is

updated
on a


freely-available website, the problem
isn't that the information is hidden -- but you
do have to go looking for it. Although there are
RSS feeds for

earthquake
and

hurricane
information (and NOAA makes its national

weather data
freely accessible as

a matter of
policy), there's no similar feed for
tsunami warnings. This is unfortunate, as RSS is
an ideal mechanism for distributing infrequent
and irregular news updates.

Some have
suggested the use of SMS as a medium
for sending disaster alerts; the idea has merit,
especially as an adjunct to (not replacement
for) the traditional system. Most mobile phones
these days support SMS, and an emergency alert
message wouldn't need to hit every phone in the
affected region to be useful, just enough to
spread the word. As long as the cellular
networks remained functioning, the mobile phones
could possibly even serve a role similar to that
played by

ham radios
--
emergency
information and

coordination.
One could even imagine the introduction of a
cellular network version of the venerable "emergency
broadcast system" for TV and radio in
the US, so as to ensure broad recognition that
the message regards a possible disaster, and
isn't just more text spam.

The downside of a formal SMS "emergency
alert" idea is that it would still require that
a central, responsible authority call the alarm,
at the very least to reduce the possibility of
hoax or hacked use. If the organization in
charge is unavailable for some reason -- or, as
in the case of this week's tsunami, doesn't
recognize the possibility of a problem -- a
centralized cellular alert network wouldn't be
of much value. But alternatives are possible.

Imagine a site which collects
storm/earthquake/tsunami/disease outbreak/etc.
alerts and announcements, making information
available by region. You can then register your
SMS number or email address with the site, and
give it your current location -- changeable as
you travel, of course -- so the site can send
you updates and alerts. RSS might also work,
although one would want the RSS reader to check
for updates far more frequently than is typical;
a half-hour delay receiving a tsunami alert (for
example) could prove fatal. The system could
flag those events of particular import, and even
provide short safety notices for responding to
the particular danger (e.g., "seek higher
ground" or "avoid contact with birds"). Imagine
how many people could have survived this week's
tsunami if a small number had received warnings
on their mobile phones and told those around
them.

Such a site does not exist today, but all the
pieces are available to make it possible. It
could be set up by a government agency, UNESCO,
or competing commercial providers (with
localized ads, services for tourists, and the
like). One of you reading this could start
assembling the site right now. It needs to be
done. The information is available, we just need
to make it more accessible. Imagine how many
lives we'll save.