2025-08-26 Merit Appeal Board Minutes

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Merit Appeals Board August 26, 2025 MS. BOND: —exactly. MS. TOKIHIRO: Yeah. And so— MS. BOND: That was the good thing (inaudible) the room. MS. TOKIHIRO: Yeah. And it was a great collaboration and even the emergency alert system—I mean, I got the text message that says, “You’re to report to the EOC immediately”— and I, actually, called Ryan in our Health and Safety Division and I said, “Is this a thing? ‘Cause, like, I’ve never gotten this text message before”—but they had just switched to this new notification system, so that as department heads and our deputies—we’re sent this text message when they’re activating the EOC for a particular event. So, that was great to see, and we were all there. I mean, I think all of the department heads or representatives for the department—we all had reported within 30 minutes, which was an awesome response—and at least it’s not relying on a phone tree or something else. So, the communication there was good—and then it was a good collaboration in the EOC that night amongst all the different partners. And then, the after-event debrief was good because we looked at things where—are there ways that we need to change how the communication gets out, do we—when is a good time to do certain things and back-off certain things, right—and do we need to change even the number of people that are in the EOC when something is going on. So, I think those after-action things are always important, and Civil Defense will be preparing an after-action report, and they publish it on their website. So, we were all just there to help give feedback to Civil Defense and share our perspectives as far as what worked, where it could be improved, and things like that. So, the report will be coming out. CHR. CABANAS: And internally, within your department, we used to have, like a handbook— but how do you work it now? MS. TOKIHIRO: So, we do have an Emergency Action Plan. Everybody—all of our departments have an Emergency Action Plan. And then, the way that communication works within DHR is we do have a phone tree, and it starts with our managers—so, myself and Danny, the Deputy—communicate to the managers and then the managers communicate to the staff. CHR. CABANAS: Mm-hmm. MS. TOKIHIRO: So—but we do, yes, have an Emergency Action Plan—and first and foremost, especially when it comes to a tsunami is making sure that we get—that we got our County facilities evacuated and make sure that our employees were kept safe and then making sure all the public is kept safe getting people out of beaches and evacuated from Keaukaha and making sure that we try and keep roads as clear as possible. So— Page 25