The Brown Water Alert

The weather in Hawaii has been really bad this week.

All the islands have suffered through thunderstorms, lightning, heavy rain, strong and surging surf, and high winds.

Did I forget to mention all the damage from a week of storms? We’ve seen fallen trees and downed power lines by the dozens. Today, electrical power is out over large portions of Oahu.

So, what happens next? More of the same. Thunderstorm watch. High surf watch. Flood watch.

And the dreaded Brown Water Alert.

Somehow or another common sense needs to have an official warning. Dirty, fast moving, debris laden storm water is sufficiently dangerous that the public needs to be warned with an alert.

I say, “No more Brown Water Alerts.”

Most of the alerts issued this week by state and local authorities and the National Weather Service are designed to protect the public. The Brown Water Alert has good intentions but is misguided. Sure, it makes sense to avoid swirling dirty brown water whether near the ocean, in the ocean, on in island streams. Who knows what rubbish and germs lurk under the disguise of an ocean of coffee colored murk?

The Brown Water Alert has a single flaw. It saves people from themselves, the very people who need not be saved. After all, we live in a world dedicated to the survival of the fittest, right? It’s preached in schools as science and fact. Why not practice what we preach and stop issuing alerts that go beyond the provence of common sense.

If people cannot figure out on their own that streams or oceans of swirling, murky brown water is dangerous, then they deserve their fate, right?