This time, an alert went off as planned

Hawaii folks who were up around midnight Monday into Tuesday might’ve had a jarring sense of deja vu upon seeing the emergency alert of a tsunami watch due to an Alaskan earthquake. After all, it’d been a mere 10 days since Hawaii’s missile false-alarm that made headlines worldwide.

Good news: First and foremost, no tsunami generated, by the for-real 7.9-magnitude quake in waters off Alaska. And the 11:43 p.m. Monday tsunami watch issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center seemed to work exactly the way it was supposed to — advising the public of the possibility while monitoring began of scientific buoys and data, which led to the alert’s cancellation some 90 minutes later. Whew.

Counting the homeless an important job

In his State of the State speech Monday, Gov. David Ige noted that homelessness in Hawaii was down 9 percent statewide, the first decline in eight years. That night, teams of volunteers began searching for homeless people on Oahu to see if that hopeful trend would continue.

The annual Point In Time Count of the homeless, conducted nationwide, continues this week throughout the islands. Knowing, even roughly, how many people are living on the streets, and whether that number is trending up or down, can inform the work of both government and private nonprofits. For information, visit partnersincareoahu.org.