<story><title>A state official refused to release water for West Maui fires</title><url>https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/a-state-official-refused-to-release-water-for-west-maui-fires-until-it-was-too-late/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ggm</author><text>There is a quite common &amp;quot;design feature&amp;quot; in official functions which says if you stick to a rulebook you can be covered for indemnity and if you divert from a rulebook you are on your own. It stops risky behaviour. It is designed to stop things like Chernobyl.&lt;p&gt;In some situations, it turns into a flaw. &amp;quot;Computer says no&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This played out in Queensland over a flood which had a dam release issue, and went to law between 2 agencies, the government overall, and the affected businesses and householders who were flooded. The case had to be tried in another states courts, to avoid systematic bias issues.&lt;p&gt;Of course you need to stick to the rulebook. But the rulebook needs to be written to handle unforseen situations, which might be hard, but not impossible. Put it up the food chain, or provide from some limited relief from risk.&lt;p&gt;So, the emergency sirens weren&amp;#x27;t used because &amp;quot;they aren&amp;#x27;t for this function&amp;quot; and now we have &amp;quot;can&amp;#x27;t approve the water release&amp;quot; -Sounds like the reaction of somebody who is concerned they will answer for a decision not explicitly covered in the rulebook.&lt;p&gt;Or, they simply didn&amp;#x27;t understand their role, and their authority to act. Which of course, should be explained in the rulebook.&lt;p&gt;[edit: people are pointing out there were huge risks in using the sirens, and the rulebook was really explicit, and the community understood their narrow intent. So, its probably a bad example of my hypothesised &amp;quot;rulebook says no&amp;quot; thing]</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>threeseed</author><text>&amp;gt; So, the emergency sirens weren&amp;#x27;t used&lt;p&gt;They weren&amp;#x27;t used because the website [1] specifically says that in the event of a siren you should &amp;quot;if you in a low laying area near the coastline; evacuate to high grounds, inland&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;This would directly route people &lt;i&gt;towards&lt;/i&gt; the fire not away. And given that tsunamis can sometimes trigger fire it easily could have caused confusion in some.&lt;p&gt;It definitely wasn&amp;#x27;t a clear decision as some like to make out.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;dod.hawaii.gov&amp;#x2F;hiema&amp;#x2F;all-hazard-statewide-outdoor-warning-siren-system&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;dod.hawaii.gov&amp;#x2F;hiema&amp;#x2F;all-hazard-statewide-outdoor-wa...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>A state official refused to release water for West Maui fires</title><url>https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/a-state-official-refused-to-release-water-for-west-maui-fires-until-it-was-too-late/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ggm</author><text>There is a quite common &amp;quot;design feature&amp;quot; in official functions which says if you stick to a rulebook you can be covered for indemnity and if you divert from a rulebook you are on your own. It stops risky behaviour. It is designed to stop things like Chernobyl.&lt;p&gt;In some situations, it turns into a flaw. &amp;quot;Computer says no&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This played out in Queensland over a flood which had a dam release issue, and went to law between 2 agencies, the government overall, and the affected businesses and householders who were flooded. The case had to be tried in another states courts, to avoid systematic bias issues.&lt;p&gt;Of course you need to stick to the rulebook. But the rulebook needs to be written to handle unforseen situations, which might be hard, but not impossible. Put it up the food chain, or provide from some limited relief from risk.&lt;p&gt;So, the emergency sirens weren&amp;#x27;t used because &amp;quot;they aren&amp;#x27;t for this function&amp;quot; and now we have &amp;quot;can&amp;#x27;t approve the water release&amp;quot; -Sounds like the reaction of somebody who is concerned they will answer for a decision not explicitly covered in the rulebook.&lt;p&gt;Or, they simply didn&amp;#x27;t understand their role, and their authority to act. Which of course, should be explained in the rulebook.&lt;p&gt;[edit: people are pointing out there were huge risks in using the sirens, and the rulebook was really explicit, and the community understood their narrow intent. So, its probably a bad example of my hypothesised &amp;quot;rulebook says no&amp;quot; thing]</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>legitster</author><text>&amp;gt; There is a quite common &amp;quot;design feature&amp;quot; in official functions which says if you stick to a rulebook you can be covered for indemnity and if you divert from a rulebook you are on your own.&lt;p&gt;The reason that I don&amp;#x27;t find discussions of the Trolley Problem very interesting is that we as a society have largely solved for it already: If you take responsibility and change the default state, it is your fault - if you leave it alone, it is nobody&amp;#x27;s.</text></comment>