Missile response a dud, lawmaker says

The state Legislature’s response to the Jan. 13 ballistic missile false alarm has been a complete dud, according to state Rep. Matt LoPresti.

House members voted to approve a concurrent resolution Thursday asking the state Department of Defense to convene a task force to deal with issues surrounding the false missile alert, and that prompted LoPresti to stand on the House floor to remind his colleagues that almost every other bill or resolution dealing with the missile issue has died.

LoPresti said in an interview he is particularly upset that House Bill 2693, requiring that businesses allow people to take shelter on their premises during emergency shelter-in-place warnings, was among the bills that failed to pass. That measure would also have provided liability protection for businesses that serve as shelters.

“It was pretty obvious that we needed some legislation on the books to protect people from frivolous lawsuits just for allowing people to shelter in place, and on the other hand, we needed to direct businesses, to say, ‘Look, you can’t shove people in the streets if you’re open and they get a shelter-in-place-alert,’” LoPresti said.

“Those were really needed, and now they’re not going to be addressed,” he said. “There was a sense of urgency about all of this not too long ago, and now what are we left with? A resolution requesting that they maybe do something about these things, and maybe form a task force. I mean, it’s really disappointing, and I think the people should expect more of their government.”

LoPresti, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans, Military, and International Affairs, and Culture and the Arts, said the House moved a number of proposals to the Senate dealing with the issue, and “I don’t know what happened and why the bills died.”

A number of those bills, including HB 2693, died in the Senate Judiciary Committee, but LoPresti (D, Ewa Villages-Ocean Pointe-Ewa Beach) said he was never told why.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brian Taniguchi said he isn’t sure, either. Taniguchi said the Senate sent some bills to the House to address similar issues, but “I don’t know what happened to those bills in the House.”

“It’s nothing personal,” said Taniguchi (D, Makiki- Tantalus-Manoa). “I’m supportive of bills that would try to address some of these things,” including protecting businesses from liability when they shelter people, and retrofitting schools to serve as shelters.

Taniguchi recalled that LoPresti asked him to hear HB 2693, “but I had thought that the House was going to deal with those on their side.” His committee dealt with hundreds of bills, and “I don’t have a real good reason why we didn’t. Sometimes it’s that we think that the bill is being dealt with in other areas, was my impression.”

“There isn’t a time limit on it,” Taniguchi said. “So, I think these are things that we should probably consider over a longer period of time.” He said it might make sense for lawmakers to study the reports, recommendations and research into the missile incident before they act.

“I don’t see the urgency in doing this right now. Certainly, we should address it, but I think we should address it thoughtfully and not kind of rush into it just because it happened in January,” Taniguchi said.

The Jan. 13 false missile alert was triggered by a HI-EMA employee who said he misunderstood a message sent as part of a drill and believed the state was under attack. The alert appeared on cellphones across the state and caused panic among some in part because HI-EMA did not officially cancel the false alarm for 38 minutes.

The concurrent resolution approved by the House on Thursday asks that defense officials convene a task force to review the “capabilities and weaknesses of the state and counties in emergency notification and disaster planning, response, and recovery.”