WEBVTT
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Language: en-US

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… our next speaker,
Elizabeth Vanacore.

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Elizabeth received her bachelor’s of
science in geological sciences from

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Virginia Tech before pursuing
her Ph.D. at Rice University.

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Before landing in Puerto Rico a little
over six years ago, she had postdocs

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at Australia National University
Research School of Earth Sciences

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and the University of Leeds
in the United Kingdom.

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She is now an associate research
professor at the University of Puerto

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Rico-Mayagūez and a coordinator
of research and seismologist at the

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Puerto Rico Seismic Network.
She’s also the current team member

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of the UNESCO IGBC Caribbean
Wave Task Force team, the UNESCO

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Caribbean EWS Working Group 3
vice chair, and vice chair of protocols

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for end-to-end communication
and dissemination of warnings.

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Without further ado, Elizabeth, thank
you so much for being here today.

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- Great. Thank you.
It’s good to be here.

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I’m going to be talking a little bit
on a different angle.

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Much more of what we see as the
scientific network side as far as

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our kind of communications
during the 2020 southwest

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Puerto Rico
seismic sequence.

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And I’m going to start out by showing
you kind of the web of communications.

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As far as Puerto Rico goes,
we have the – we have the USGS,

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Puerto Rico Seismic Network and
Strong Motion Program, and the

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National Weather Service as the
official sources of information for –

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this is just for earthquakes and tsunamis.
And, from that, the official sources will

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feed into our emergency management.
It’s important to note that

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it’s not just Puerto Rico
emergency management –

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also Virgin Islands
emergency management.

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And that also means
to the government officials

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and to the press
and to the public.

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But then we also have our local
geology department, which we are –

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the Puerto Rico Seismic Network
is part of the geology department.

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But they also have
their great local expertise.

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We had such a – for this particular
sequence, Jim Joyce, who also was

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able to communicate with the press and
the public, as well as Stephen Hughes,

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who is our landslide expert in the
department. And he also helped us

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out during the sequence as far as
communicating those dangers.

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And, when you have these official
sources they go – the official scientific

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sources to the government sources.
And the official – emergency

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management will talk
to the government officials.

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They’ll talk to the press and the public.
And the government officials will

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talk to the press and the public.
So, even though there’s one source

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of scientific information,
that information essentially

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could go through whisper-
down-the-lane sequence.

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And that can and does happen.
And it’s important to note for –

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it’s official – it’s important that
all the official sources talk to

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each other because one thing
that’s important during this type

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of sequence is to have
consistent information.

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You can talk about how, with the day
of the 6.4, the tsunami information

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to the public was not consistent because
there was a disagreement between what

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the PTWC put out as well as – then
compared to the Seismic Network

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and the agencies based on different
protocols and local preferences.

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So that’s something that is going to
be discussed and something that

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needs to be addressed in the
future so that doesn’t happen.

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So you have to have a consistent
message from all three.

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And one thing that also can happen
during this type of communication,

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when you have multiple official
sources, there can be some confusion.

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Because all the official sources
will talk to all of the sources

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on the right-hand
portion of this screen.

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And, with the public, the public
might go to the USGS ComCat catalog,

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and they might go
to the PRSN catalog.

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And, if PRSN has not finalized and
sent our final earthquake location

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to the USGS, they might get
two different locations.

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Or they might get two different
magnitudes for the same event.

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And that will cause –
that can and did cause confusion.

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And I think part of that is, there is
not a lot of education of how the

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three agencies over here
on that far left work together.

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Or, what is the Advanced
National Seismic System?

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That is not in the public idea,
so they don’t understand, when they

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see a final location of PRSN in
USGS, that that is a PRSN location.

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Or, if they see – don’t see a PRSN
location in USGS, they don’t realize

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that that earthquake hasn’t
been finalized by PRSN yet.

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So that is maybe pointing out an issue that
we have to address in the future as far as

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our communication is, how do we get
people to understand how the official

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sources work and
communicate together.

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Now I’m going to address three
major issues that came up –

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or, challenges that came up
during this sequence.

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The first one is unrealistic expectations.
And this is for – especially for PRSN.

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They have an idea – the public,
the press, and the government,

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even, have an idea that PRSN
has an army of scientists.

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They think that we have – if you talk to
the public, sometimes the public thinks,

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oh, you don’t have – what do you
mean you don’t have 100 employees?

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We have maybe 20. And that includes
everything from our data analysts,

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the three scientists on staff, which we
could say three, but really is we have

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one and a half because of administrative
and other university duties.

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We have – and that includes our
secretarial, administration staff.

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That includes our education staff.
That includes our IT staff.

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And people don’t realize that
we are a very small operation

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that’s punching much larger
than our body weight.

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So they think that they make a phone
call to PRSN immediately after

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an earthquake – especially when that
6.4 happened in the morning hours –

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early morning hours, they expect
that someone is going to physically

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answer the phone.
When the reality is that PRSN,

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the analysts on duty are busy dealing
with sending out the earthquake alerts

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and sending out the tsunami information
that goes with those earthquake alerts,

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and then dealing with the aftershocks –
the immediate aftershocks that are

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coming in that are
also causing alarms.

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So that is the first challenge that
we have to – that we have is that

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there’s this unrealistic expectation
of instant gratification, and they think

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that we have more resources
than we actually have.

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So one way we started to address this is,
because to set up a press conference

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in Puerto Rico is not an easy feat,
is one thing that we did is we started

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using Facebook Live more.
And that was an advantage to us.

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Now, when we did the Facebook Live,
we had to have it done

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both in English and Spanish.
So you usually have to have two people.

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One person would just –
one person would do the Spanish,

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and then I would do the English
immediately afterwards.

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And then we also brought in – brought
in volunteers to do sign language.

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And that is something that we’re
working on because you can’t do

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real-time closed-captioning with
these Facebook Lives yet, that we

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have to make it accessible as much
as possible for the population.

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The other thing is, we started using –
we got – we started writing kind of blog

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or newspaper articles for Temblor.
I know this is a online blog.

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It’s not an official resource.
But it has advantages.

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One, it does have a DOI.
And secondly, it let us put out the –

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all the papers we wrote
in Spanish and English.

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So, again, that bilingual
need was attended to.

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And we were able to go directly to the
internet – directly to the audience.

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We didn’t have to go through
the press or the press office

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to get that
information out there.

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And so, while they were somewhat
scientific, they weren’t

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completely scientific articles.
So they were accessible to the public.

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And I think using something like
Temblor is actually very advantageous

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as a scientist, as a network,
to get information out

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without necessarily having
to go through the press.

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Because the press do have –
they call up, and they say,

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we need this information right away.
One thing that we can handle better,

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and I think that’s something that we’ve
learned from, is that we need to stop

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and say, we’re going to do a Facebook
Live update at 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m.

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Or 7:00 a.m. and – or, 9:00 a.m.
and 5:00 p.m. and be done.

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Because otherwise, most of our first
few days as a scientist were spent

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on the phone answering press questions
when maybe it would have been better

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just to do one YouTube or
Facebook Live conference.

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The second one – challenge
was the misinformation.

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And I’m saying misinterpretation.
I know Lorna already just talked

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about this. One was that we had
a rumor of drilling offshore

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causing the earthquakes.
Which we all knew was not true.

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But that misinformation, rumor,
got going on social media.

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And part of it was, people will take
a report, or a figure like the one

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I’m showing you on the right,
and they would say, oh, look,

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southwest Puerto Rico.
They must be drilling there.

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But, if you read the report,
it basically says it’s not viable.

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And thankfully, we did have support
for dealing with that type of issue.

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Second thing is, with the aftershock
forecast, what we found, especially

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with many of the meteorologists
on the island, they were initially

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misinterpreting what
these numbers meant.

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So this is – I would say
that’s not misinformation.

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It was much more misinterpretation.
It’s a new product.

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And so how you communicate
to the public is something that

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needs to be taught.
And then we have the last one,

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which I call it Monday
morning quarterbacks.

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Because people forget what the
sequence – it started on a single fault.

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It started on – likely, it’s going to
be the Punta Montalva Fault.

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So, as a seismologist, we say, okay,
we have the Punta Montalva Fault.

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It looks like we’re having a nice, simple
aftershock sequence on that single fault.

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The 6.4 occurred on a different fault.
And then – so that means we went

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from a single-fault sequence
to a multiple-fault sequence.

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And so it’s kind of like apples
and oranges as a seismologist.

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So we went from a nice, simple
apple to a complex fruit salad.

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And people were saying,
why didn’t we know.

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Why didn’t we know that
those were foreshocks?

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And the reality is, there was – at the
time, there was no way to know.

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So how do we address that?
One, call backup.

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I know some people on this panel
today were part of that backup.

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So thank you very much.
It’s appreciated.

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We have good relationships with
EcoExploratorio and Ada Monzon.

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And that actually helped aid us.
And so that pre-existing relationship

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did help us address some
of those needs very quickly.

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I’ve got to say – again, Lorna already
mentioned this – we already had

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a paper that was signed by
28 geologists that came out

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to help us deal with
the fracking issue.

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Also the geology department
was invaluable.

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Our [inaudible] colleagues in the geology
department would come in and

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would help us. Either they were
dealing with social media –

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Jim Joyce took out a couple of
the press to the Punta Montalva,

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explained what was going on,
which was great.

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And also cutting out the middleman
with Facebook and social media –

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going directly to the public
was actually quite useful

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because it let us
control the message.

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And the other issue is geography.
And this is – hopefully, with COVID,

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things will be changing – is the
reality is, Puerto Rico is – Puerto Rico

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Seismic Network is in Mayagūez.
The source region of the earthquakes

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is the red – is the red square
in southwestern Puerto Rico.

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The government, the news media,
everyone else is based in San Juan.

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And the time between Mayagūez and
San Juan, going the northern route,

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is about three hours – 3-1/2 hours,
maybe 2-1/2 if you get really lucky.

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Because you have to think about,
during this earthquake sequence,

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the southern route was not very
available because of damage to PR 2.

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So we’re talking – if they wanted us
to come and talk to the government

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or go down to Caguas emergency
management, it’s talking 3-1/2 hours

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for just us to get a
physical person there.

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And so that geography became an issue.
Because when [inaudible] says,

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oh, we want you in San Juan at
6:00 a.m. to give a talk or tell us

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about this, and at the same time,
we need to be out in southwest

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Puerto Rico installing stations to
help monitor the sequence,

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we end up with an issue of,
we can’t be in two places at once,

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and we’ve run out of manpower.
It goes back to that unrealistic

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expectation. We are only human
and can only do so much.

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So how can we address that?
One is to encourage more telemeetings.

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And, thanks to our friend on the
right-hand picture here, COVID,

00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:11.875
hopefully that will actually
be occurring more in the future.

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So it’d be easy for us to be based in
Mayagūez, [inaudible], talk to the press

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or talk to the government officials for
15 minutes, get what’s needed to be –

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get them the information they need,
and then go back to work at the network.

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One thing that is being floated is having
someone – a designated and trained

00:13:30.375 --> 00:13:34.662
representative that’s based at the
University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras.

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Possibly, like, I could beg
Lorna to come – go do this.

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To have someone designated
as our official representative

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in that area that
we know and trust.

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The other thing is, right now, when
we did this – originally did the Facebook

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and YouTube broadcasts, they
were very sporadic in our response.

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And what we really need to do is set up,
like, a schedule of 9:00 a.m., 9:00 p.m.,

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so we know what needs to be done,
when it needs to be done,

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and the press and the
public also know this.

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The other thing that was
done is we met press in the field.

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I know that there were a couple days
when we were actually out installing

00:14:09.875 --> 00:14:14.779
stations that we did have CBS and Ada
Monzon come and meet us in the field.

00:14:14.779 --> 00:14:19.375
And another thing that’s important is –
and really acknowledge the support

00:14:19.375 --> 00:14:24.250
that you have as a network.
And I think the USGS is a huge support.

00:14:24.250 --> 00:14:29.469
And the ANSS relationship was critical
during this time, not only of getting

00:14:29.484 --> 00:14:34.570
the instruments out and helping us
deal with the response, but also

00:14:34.570 --> 00:14:38.977
helping us deal with the press and
the public and how the message –

00:14:38.977 --> 00:14:42.467
things like the aftershock forecast.
So the takeaways.

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We have to be clear, concise, and
consistent from official sources.

00:14:46.794 --> 00:14:50.000
And we do need the education
products for things like aftershock

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forecasts and what is the ANSS.
Because those are two gaps that I saw.

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And I think there’s a need
to humanize responders.

00:14:57.375 --> 00:14:58.750
Because people think
we’re superhumans

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that don’t need
to sleep or eat.

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And I think, with modern media, social
media and – modern media are the key.

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Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat.
And there needs to be some more

00:15:09.591 --> 00:15:14.125
flexibility from the government
officials for briefings to make it

00:15:14.125 --> 00:15:16.781
more doable for us
as human beings.

00:15:16.781 --> 00:15:19.875
And the other thing –
ask for help. It’s there.

00:15:19.875 --> 00:15:22.125
And going to
leave it at that.

00:15:24.414 --> 00:15:28.422
[silence]

00:15:28.422 --> 00:15:30.930
- Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
That was a fantastic talk.

00:15:30.930 --> 00:15:35.133
And I really love what you said about
responders being human beings.

00:15:35.133 --> 00:15:38.250
You know, we often forget that,
you know, when you’re working

00:15:38.250 --> 00:15:42.500
in the disaster space, there’s just
so much pressure to get work out there

00:15:42.500 --> 00:15:46.313
and work done so quickly, and yet
responders do absolutely need rest.

00:15:46.313 --> 00:15:47.750
And there’s not
that many of us.

00:15:47.750 --> 00:15:50.867
So that was an incredibly insightful talk.
Thank you so, so much.