PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

The following was posted on the NY Times website during the afternoon, the day following the earthquake and tsunami. Unfortunately, the words have proven to be exactly correct: the damage along the coast is much worse than early reports conveyed to the world. .  (The time on the post reflects the time that the newspaper posted it online, not necessarily the time it was written.)

TerryReport

Washington, DC area

February 28th, 2010

3:34 pm

I have been monitoring live television from Chile and the situation along the coast south of Santiago looks to be very serious. Many buildings and houses are in complete rubble from the tsunami wave that apparently hit there. More than 350 are reported dead in Constitucion and the images I have seen, with only a very rough assessment, indicate the death toll could be much higher there and along the coast. There could have been more people killed by the tsunami than the earthquake itself.

Video taken from a fixed wing aircraft flying over houses dozens and dozens of houses either completely or partly under water. If houses were swamped in the middle of the night or early morning hours, it would be very difficult for people to survive. Some areas where the wave hit have the look of the 2004 tsunami in Asia. In this case, however, satellite images show the land behind the coastal villages and towns rising rapidly toward the mountains, so the damage farther inland would likely be limited (I have not personally visited this area before the earthquake).

For journalistic and humanitarian interests, we need a better assessment of the situation. Some news organization in the area should charter a helicopter for the early AM period Monday to fly along the coast. Only with the ability to station the aircraft over the affected zone can a better picture emerge. Likewise, reporters should be dispatched to the area, though they might not be able to travel directly on the coast highway the entire distance to Constitucion.

My experience has taught me that in every major news story, something really important is almost always missed. This time, the attention of the world was on whether a tsunami would hit Hawaii and Japan. Forget that. It hit Chile. Lives could depend on getting a better assessment of the situation along the southern coast. The government of Chile and news organizations should be endeavoring to provide that information as soon as possible.

Doug Terry

A further comment:

The decision by the out going president Bachelet of Chile to announce to the world in the first day after the earthquake that Chile would not need any international aid helped to set an unfortunate tone for news coverage in the first three days of the disaster. “We generally do not ask for help,” Ms. Bachelet had said.The impression given by her response and, further, based on the number of buildings still standing in Santiago, was that the earthquake was serious, but not cataclysmic. We now know the opposite was true and, in fact, the world should have been able to conclude that earlier. Clearly, the TerryReport was leaning in that direction all day Sunday and Monday, posting numerous stories here and on twitter about the tsunami devastation.

Some “rules” about official and other responses to disasters are surely emerging from this and other recent situations. First, high officials, who are looked on as having complete information, should never over or under characterize deaths and damage. (The over estimate happened early in Haiti, where some officials were talking about a hundred or two thousand dead barely hours after the quake. The fact that those numbers are now widely accepted as close to the truth does not change the potential damage from misstatements.) The best response in the first 24 hours after such a major event would be to say “It is very serious and we are assessing the damage at this time”. Don’t say what you don’t know to be true.

Nations, strangely, often reject international aid as a matter of pride. President Bush did this in the aftermath of Katrina and his rejection took on a very hollow sound as hundreds of people died because they were not rescued from the flood waters in time. The US might not have needed assistance, but the appearance was the opposite, which gave the world an impression of arrogance or indifference to the fate of people in New Orleans. If a sufficient rescue and recovery effort had been launched in the first few days, it would have mattered little what Bush said.

In Chile, as it Haiti, it would have been best to get relief efforts moving, even if they were later called off or found not to be needed. This is a matter, after all, of human life and survival. When you tell international organizations to “stand down”, you are adding days to their response time once you change your mind. It is better to call the ambulance and then say turn back than to say you don’t need it at all.

Doug Terry, 3.3.10 (6:56 AM eastern)

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