Tag: Pearl Harbor

Posted on: Saturday, July 25, 2009

Prototype mini-sub shelved

Repairing fire damage would cost more than entire program’s budget

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

A one-of-a-kind SEAL mini-sub based at Pearl City Peninsula that has been plagued by years of development problems and cost overruns won’t be repaired after a November fire because the work would cost $237 million and take nearly three years, U.S. Special Operations Command said yesterday.

The decision could be a final blow to a program that once envisioned a fleet of the 65-foot mini subs, designed to ride piggyback on much larger attack submarines and deliver SEALs dry and rested to an insertion point.

The Advanced SEAL Delivery System, or ASDS, originally was expected to cost about $80 million per sub. But the Northrop Grumman program spiraled to more than $885 million, with only one sub built, according to a 2007 U.S. Government Accountability Office report. Delivery of ASDS-1 was accepted in 2003.

One of Special Operations Command’s biggest investments was beset by battery, noise and propulsion problems, and in April 2006, the Defense Department canceled plans for follow-on ASDS boats and directed the Navy and Special Operations Command to set up an ASDS-1 improvement program.

The $237 million repair estimate from the Nov. 9 fire is $180 million more than the entire budget for the ASDS program, according to Special Operations Command, based at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

The command said “competing funding priorities” for current and projected special operations budgets prevent it from repairing ASDS-1.

The fire broke out while the submersible’s batteries were recharging at its Pearl City home port. The 8:30 p.m. fire occurred during routine maintenance, which included the battery recharging, the Navy said in a news release.

The fire damaged the ASDS’ operations compartment, which affected all the boat’s operating systems, Special Operations Command said.

The battery system, sonar, motors and controllers, anchor assembly and hull were also damaged.

The “root cause analysis” – being done to determine the fire’s origin – is not complete, the command said.

new sub emerging

Lt. Cmdr. Fred Kuebler, a Special Operations Command spokesman, yesterday said the final disposition of ASDS-1 has not been determined. He did not rule out the possibility of repair.

Kuebler had no information about possible manning changes at the Pearl City facility.

The command also has requested funding for the Joint Multi-Mission Submersible program to develop an alternative SEAL insertion craft.

The online publication Inside the Navy reported in June that $43.4 million was being sought for pre-design work on the mini-sub that would provide “improved performance” over the ASDS.

The ASDS was heralded as a “transformational leap ahead” design and was intended to deliver commandos dry and rested to a point of departure. The current SEAL Delivery Vehicles are open to bone-chilling cold water and require the use of scuba gear.

Big plans faltered

Designed to ride piggyback on the Los Angeles-class submarines Greeneville and Charlotte, both based at Pearl Harbor, as well as on new Virginia-class submarines and former ballistic missile subs converted to carry conventional missiles and commandos, the boxy, 8-foot-diameter ASDS was designed to sneak up close to shore with two crew and up to 16 SEALs.

Its skin is the material used on stealth fighters, it could take and transmit pictures almost in real time, and its design allowed for long-range operations.

The Navy in 2004 celebrated the completion of a $47 million waterfront home for SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 on 22 acres at Pearl City Peninsula that included a 326,000-gallon freshwater test tank.

At the time, the team had 45 officers and 230 enlisted personnel – 93 of them SEALs.

The GAO said in 2007 that the ASDS had “encountered a difficult, long and costly development since the initial contract was awarded in 1994.”

Despite those problems, the Navy in July 2003 took delivery of the first ASDS.

The craft rode piggyback on the submarine Greeneville during a deployment to the Persian Gulf by Expeditionary Strike Group 1.

The ASDS was supposed to deploy with the USS Michigan, a former ballistic missile submarine converted to carry conventional missiles and commandos, shortly after the fire.

The entire program, including six mini-subs and facilities in Hawai’i and Little Creek, Va., originally was to cost $527 million.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090725/NEWS08/907250321/Prototype+mini-sub+shelved

Swine flu strikes Navy group berthed at Pearl Harbor

By Gregg K. Kakesako

POSTED: 08:50 a.m. HST, Jul 21, 2009

At least 69 sailors and Marines assigned to Navy assault helicopter carrier now berthed at Pearl Harbor on its way home to San Diego have tested positive for H1N1 swine flu and have been confined to the ship.

The Marines and sailors are part of the 4,000-member contingent assigned to the USS Boxer which arrived here on Thursday and will leave tomorrow for San Diego.

Lt. Cmdr. Sarah Self-Kyler, spokesman for the San Diego-based 3rd Fleet, said that there are no Marines or sailors from USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group who are on liberty here that have flulike symptoms.

The other ships at Pearl Harbor as part of the Boxer group are the dock landing ship USS Comstock, cruiser USS Lake Champlain, and the amphibious Transport dock ship USS New Orleans, Self-Kyler added. The cruiser USS Chung Hoon also is part of the Boxer group and pulled to its home berth at Pearl Harbor yesterday.

Self-Kyler said all sailors and Marines going on liberty here must pass through a heat sensor. If they have a temperature of more than 100 degrees, they are checked again, she added.

The quarantine sailors and Marines are being held in the Boxer’s infirmary and have been treated with Tamiflu. They will be kept there until their symptoms subside, Self-Kyler added.

So far, the swine flu outbreak has only been detected on the Boxer, she said.

The Boxer group stopped at Pearl Harbor on its last leg of a seven-month deployment.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/breaking/51330187.html

January 9, 2009

Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor to become hub for new nuclear subs

Virginia-class vessels likely to mean hiring hundreds more workers

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Two-thirds of the Navy’s new Virginia-class submarines initially will be based at Pearl Harbor, making Hawai’i the main hub for the advanced attack submarines, Navy officials said yesterday.

The Navy plans to build 30 of the nuclear submarines, which cost up to $2.5 billion apiece, carry torpedoes and missiles, and can drop off commandos close to shore.

The Navy isn’t releasing the exact number or arrival schedule for subs coming to Pearl Harbor beyond the USS Hawaii, expected in late June, and the USS Texas, scheduled to arrive in late October or early November.

U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai’i, previously has said the USS North Carolina also will be homeported here.

The Navy revealed the Virginia-class submarine distribution information yesterday at an annual military update for the Hawai’i business community.

Capt. W. Scott Gureck, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said Virginia-class submarines initially will be homeported in Groton, Conn., and at Pearl Harbor. At least four that are in active service have operated temporarily out of the East Coast.

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, a 20-year planning roadmap for the military, called for 60 percent of attack submarines to be based in the Pacific and 40 percent in the Atlantic.

“The initial (Virginia-class) homeporting will indeed be at Groton and Pearl Harbor, but eventually they will be everywhere we currently have Los Angeles-class (subs),” Gureck said. “It’s just from a parts standpoint and maintenance standpoint, you don’t want to put a couple Virginias in all the locations. You want to put them where you have critical mass.”

The overall number of attack submarines at Pearl Harbor – about 15 – will not change, Gureck said. The new Virginia class will replace existing Los Angeles-class submarines as the older class reaches the end of its lifespan, he said.

The Virginia-class arrival is good news for Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, the state’s largest industrial employer, with 4,200 civilian workers.

About 90 percent of the yard’s work has been on the aging Los Angeles-class attack submarines, including maintenance as well as nuclear reactor refueling and defuelings.

More Shipyard jobs

Capt. Gregory Thomas, who commands the shipyard, yesterday said the switch to Virginia-class work “keeps us focused on what’s been our principal product here for the past 10 years – which is submarines.”

“It’s a very smooth transition,” Thomas said, adding that the workload should mean an increase to about 4,400 shipyard workers by 2013. The bulk of the work was non-reactor servicing, and that will continue with the Virginia subs, he said.

Northrop Grumman is producing the Virginia-class submarines in a teaming arrangement with General Dynamics Electric Boat. The Virginia class is ultimately expected to total 30 vessels.

Ten of the vessels have been delivered or were already under contract before a December award of a $14 billion contract for eight more of the submarines, according to Bloomberg News.

The contract calls for construction of one submarine in each of the years 2009 and 2010, and two per year from 2011 to 2013.

The submarines are 377 feet long and have a beam of 34 feet. They can operate at underwater speeds of more than 25 knots, dive more than 800 feet and stay submerged for up to three months at a time.

The submarines also are equipped with a lock-out chamber large enough for nine commandos, more than triple the capacity of older submarines.

Military and economy

About 270 business people attended yesterday’s military update at the Hilton Hawaiian Village by all five of the U.S. armed forces, a larger turnout than usual for the annual meeting.

The event is hosted by the Chamber of Commerce of Hawai’i. Charlie Ota, the chamber’s vice president for military affairs, said the big turnout may be tied to business looking even more to the military for contracts in tough economic times.

The military “is a relatively stable source of revenue to the economy,” Ota said.

The military, the No. 2 contributor to the state’s economy behind tourism, has been in expansion mode in Hawai’i in recent years.

Lt. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, commander of U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter, said 10,500 soldiers and civilian workers have been added in Hawai’i.

Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman at the command, said that change has taken place since the late 1990s. Shanks said Schofield Barracks has about 20,000 soldiers and Fort Shafter has about 3,000.

Adm. Robert Willard, the four-star commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and the keynote speaker at the chamber’s luncheon following the military update, said Asia and the Pacific will remain central to U.S. interests.

He said he doesn’t expect the commitment of operating forces to diminish, even with the current economy.

U.S. Pacific Command, headquartered at Camp Smith, covers half the globe and monitors five of the biggest militaries in the world: those of the People’s Republic of China, India, Russia, North Korea and South Korea.

“There are certainly concerns that the budgets in the military will be affected by the current economic environment that we find ourselves in,” Willard said.

But he added that he believes “the readiness monies that are invested in maintaining the fleet – and the forces that exist out here – will remain.”

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090109/NEWS01/901090361

http://hnn.us/articles/41662.html

History News Network

9/17/07

When’s a Palace an Emblem of Democratic Aspirations?

By Ron Briley

Mr. Briley is Assistant Headmaster, Sandia Preparatory School.

A recent visit to Hawaii during the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association offered an opportunity to observe the impact of historical narratives well beyond the narrow confines of the history conference papers and sessions. Visits to the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor and the ‘Iolani Palace, the royal residence constructed by King Kalakaua in 1882, offer contrasting historical narratives regarding the American presence in Hawaii. The Pearl Harbor experience reinforces the popular national notion of American innocence, while the guided tour of the ‘Iolani Palace provides a tale of how the United States government and business interests participated in the overthrow of legitimate Hawaiian authority. Conflicting narratives of American innocence and imperialism in the history of Hawaii obviously have larger implications for how the Untied States is perceived in the world today. Although the long lines at Pearl Harbor, as opposed to the handful of tourists at the Palace, provide ample support for the hegemonic belief in the United States of American innocence.

The Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor remains a moving experience, and the National Park Service does an excellent job of expediting the overflow crowds through the roughly seventy-five minute film and tour. Before the short boat ride to the Memorial, the Park Service seeks to create an atmosphere of reverence and respect amongst the restive tourists with the screening of a twenty-minute film which places the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor within historical context. With the large number of Japanese tourists visiting the Memorial, there is no overt racism in the cinematic narrative. Japan is clearly portrayed as the aggressor in the Pacific, but this is neither due to the Japanese people nor Emperor Hirohito. Rather, the blame for the war is placed upon Japanese militarists, such as Premier Togo, who gained control of the government, invading China and allying with Hitler. On the other hand, Admiral Yamamoto becomes the noble man of the Japanese military, opposing the assault upon Pearl Harbor but executing his mission with precision.

The Americans are depicted as champions of democracy who seek to defend Hawaii, as well as the Philippine Islands and Vietnam, from Japanese conquest. There is no suggestion that the American military presence in Hawaii and the Philippines was motivated by any other concerns than promoting democracy. Of course, the history of American involvement with Hawaii and the Philippines is much more complicated. The U.S. military cooperated with American business interests to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy, while U.S. Marines fought ferocious battles against Filipino insurgents following American acquisition of the Philippines from Spain in the 1898 Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish-American War.

Visitors to Pearl Harbor are not encouraged to question the reasons for the American presence in the Pacific. A more nuanced interpretation would introduce a note of ambiguity, with which many Americans are uncomfortable, into the perception of American innocence. It is no sign of disrespect to the fallen at Pearl Harbor to seek a better understanding of American foreign policy and the origins of World War II in order to avert future conflicts. It is fair to describe the Japanese as the aggressors at Pearl Harbor, but it misleading to depict the United States as having no economic or political ambitions in the Pacific.

This myth of Pearl Harbor exacerbates the sense of American purity which makes it difficult for many citizens to comprehend the complexities of the modern world. For example, many equate Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as manifestations of assaults upon an innocent America. One does not have to subscribe to the simplistic rhetoric and conclusions of Ward Churchill to recognize that it is crucial for Americans to examine the world view of those who wish to attack the United States. While the 9/11 victims were innocent, the history of American expansionism is more complicated. For example, the post World War II legacy of the U.S. supporting undemocratic regimes has its origins in the Truman Doctrine, for the litmus test of anticommunism all too often placed the United States in alliance with some unsavory bedfellows such as Saddam Hussein or the Shah of Iran.

This more conflicted history of America’s presence on the international stage is provided for Hawaiian tourists who stray from the beaten path and visit the ‘Iolani Palace. Here, visitors are cautioned about demonstrating proper reverence for the past, except this time the respect is for Queen Lili’uokalani whose monarchy was toppled in 1893 by American businessmen in cahoots with the United States Navy. As tourists move through the beautiful palace in their padded booties, they are informed that in 1895 the Queen was placed on trial, in her own throne room, for treason against the newly-constituted Republic of Hawaii, which represented the aspirations of American businessmen, such as Sanford Dole, rather than the indigenous Hawaiian people. The Queen was placed under house arrest for almost a year in a second floor bedroom of the Palace, where she worked on a quilt reflecting themes of Hawaiian sovereignty. Meanwhile, many of the royal furnishings were sold at public auctions by the new government. Lili’uokalani appealed to President Grover Cleveland to oppose a treaty of annexation and restore her monarchy. He said he was appalled by the takeover but five years later the United States backed the conquest of Hawaii. In the favorable expansionist atmosphere fostered by the Spanish-American War, Hawaii was accepted as an American territory, although statehood was not conferred until 1959. Lili’uokalani never regained her throne, and she died in 1917. The ‘Iolani Palace remains a symbol of Hawaiian nationalism and pride.

The narrative of Pearl Harbor is well known, and the Arizona is a worthy memorial and tourist destination. But the story of Lili’uokalani and the ‘Iolani Palace remains off the beaten path. Disregarding the troubled history of the Hawaiian monarchy distorts the American presence in paradise. History never takes a holiday, and an unquestioning acceptance of the American myth of innocence in Hawaii may cloud perceptions of the complicated international milieu in which we live and work.

Snakes on a plane

Frogs in your plants. Invasive species will find a way. But while Hawai’i bungles the job, New Zealand gets serious.

Joan Conrow
Aug 23, 2006

Hawai’i’s airports and harbors are ticking time bombs-and we’re not talking about the kind that do predictable stuff, like blow up, maim, destroy.

No, this catastrophe in the making is not so simple as that. For one thing, the threats are multi-faceted, and guaranteed to strike without warning, singly or en masse. The lethal agents are tiny-easily disguised and transported, but not so easily detected, hiding in seemingly innocuous places: the standing water on container ships and bilges of luxury liners; the potted plants and bareroot trees of the nursery trade; the landing gear of military planes and cabins of passenger jets; the pallets and parcels bearing everything from everyplace to this remotest spot on Earth.

Like the terrorists our government is constantly warning us about, and fighting in all manner of grisly, desperate ways, they lurk, waiting to invade, with dire consequences and no forewarning. It is these weird viruses, malarial mosquitoes, biting flies, fire ants, poisonous weeds, snakes, funguses, rusts, scales and molds that could quickly plunge this paradise of the Pacific into a living hell.

Welcome to the brave new world of biosecurity. It looks beyond the homeland to the far more critical biosphere, which does, after all, provide the services needed to support life on the planet.

Paula Warren is an expert on the subject, and when she’s not at her home in Wellington, on the South Island of New Zealand, she’s traveling the world advising countries on how they can do biosecurity better. She recently spent two weeks in Hawai’i, at the invitation of the Hawaii Conservation Alliance and met the folks charged with keeping the bio-baddies at bay.

‘The advantage of being an outsider is I can say things perhaps they would be reluctant to say,’ said Warren, principal policy analyst for New Zealand’s Dept. of Conservation, the central government agency responsible for protected areas and species. ‘But doing something about it, that has to come from inside. I struggle to understand American politics and bureaucracy.’

Although Warren is aware of the differences between the New Zealand biosecurity system, which is close to the ideal, and the American system, which is not, there’s no trace of smugness in her observations, which she offered in the cheerful, polite, understated Kiwi way.

‘There is room for improvement,’ she began.

How much room?

‘A lot of the elements of a good biosecurity system are here, but they’re fragmented across lots of different agencies.’

Well, Hawai’i catches about 1 percent of the stuff it’s trying to keep out. New Zealand, on the other hand, nails 95 percent. Even Chile and the Galapagos Islands are more vigilant than the Aloha State.

‘A lot of the elements of a good biosecurity system are here, but they’re fragmented across lots of different agencies,’ Warren explained. ‘Whether it’s fixable or not is another question. But I’m certainly not getting the sense that it’s hopeless.’

The problem isn’t lazy or uncaring workers. ‘What I’m finding among the people who work on this is a high desire to cooperate more effectively and a willingness to find ways to work outside their existing mandate,’ Warren said. ‘Within each agency, I found lots of enthusiastic people basically making the best of a bad situation, dealing with a lack of resources, legal authority, technology.’

Nor is it insufficient funding. ‘Overall, Hawai’i is probably spending enough on biosecurity,’ she said. ‘But it’s not being spent in the right places. It’s just being spent reactively.’

For instance, $50 million is spent each year on termite damage and control. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if that money was used on prevention or eradication?’ she asked. ‘Instead, it’s used on suffering the consequences.’

Warren also noticed a lot of no-brainer prevention measures are missing in the Islands, although she is far too professional to use such a term. Instead, she provided a compelling example: Because New Zealand wants to keep out malaria, which is carried by mosquitoes, ‘You can’t bring in wet things, like tires, and standing water can’t enter.’ Hawai’i, on the other hand, has no such rules.

Nor can you deliberately import anything into New Zealand that will displace native species. That’s a concept that has yet to take hold in Hawai’i, where many conservationists consider invasive species the number one environmental threat, contributing to the state’s dubious distinction as the world’s endangered species capitol. Apparently the Southern Hemisphere has affected the Kiwis’ way of doing things, which seems the exact opposite of the Northern Hemisphere American approach.

In New Zealand, conservation groups ‘are essentially piggybacking’ on strict environmental protection efforts driven by business, tourism and agricultural interests, as well as the health ministry, because they recognize that alien pests and diseases are a drain on the nation’s economy. ‘In the end, it’s the economic groups in New Zealand that have created the biosecurity system,’ she said.

By comparison-and these are not Warren’s observations-U.S. environmental policy is largely determined by special interest groups, enforced through lawsuits brought by conservationists, then undermined by anti-green political appointees in regulatory agencies.

‘Litigation is not a big part of the New Zealand mentality,’ Warren said. ‘What the public does is encourage the agencies to do something, pressure them to take steps to change or review the system. There’s very strong scrutiny of what the agencies are doing.’

The military, too, plays a very different role in New Zealand, where it assists with marine mammal surveys, fisheries enforcement and invasive weed control, rather than seeking exemptions to national environmental laws, as the U.S. military is wont to do.

‘That does seem to be an issue here,’ Warren observed. ‘Pearl Harbor is the dirtiest piece of water in the state when it comes to invasive species.’ New Zealand’s armed forces, on the other hand, are required to abide by all environmental laws.

‘The military can be a positive as well as a negative,’ she noted. ‘It’s a matter of accepting that biosecurity is as large an issue to public safety as terrorism, and I don’t think your government understands that.’

‘Overall, Hawai’i is probably spending enough on biosecurity. But it’s not being spent in the right places. It’s just being spent reactively.’

Personally, Warren doesn’t see much difference in dying from a suicide bomb blast or malarial mosquito bite. ‘In the end, if you’re dead, you’re dead.’

Warren was surprised to discover in Hawai’i ‘there’s no way to stop the military from transporting things across the state because they are bound by federal, not state, laws.’

Those turf battles aren’t waged in New Zealand, which has a central system of government. Its Biosecurity Ministry oversees everything related to health, conservation, agriculture and biological resources, Warren explained. ‘And then there are a number of coordinating mechanisms to make sure they’re acting on behalf of everyone.’

Salvinia molesta once filled Lake Wilson. In 2003, it took the state a month to remove the invasive plant from the body of water.

The next layer of authority lies at the regional level, which deals with localized pests, individual landowners and private farms. ‘Under our system, it’s quite clear to see who is accountable for what,’ she said.

Standing in stark contrast is Hawai’i’s system, which Warren characterized as ‘fragmented and poorly coordinated.’ She added, ‘Frequently, agencies aren’t able to easily get together and decide how to handle pests.’

In New Zealand, the course of action is clear. ‘We get something in, we eradicate it. If eradication is not feasible, we try to contain, then control it, to protect other parts of the system. ‘

And New Zealand workers have the authority to carry out their plan of attack, she said. They can confiscate goods, force persons to assist their efforts, prevent vehicle movement and go on private land to deal with a biosecurity threat.

‘We have our own frustrations, but the sense we’re moving forward is much stronger,’ Warren observed. ‘In New Zealand, the momentum is within the system. In Hawai’i, it’s mostly built by individuals working against the system to get around the problems. So you lose it if that person changes jobs, or retires.’

That’s a concern to Warren, who said, ‘A lot of the people I’ve been talking to in Hawai’i are not that young. It’s time to be identifying and mentoring the future leaders. It’s a risk that new enthusiastic people will give up because they get sick of dealing with the bureaucracy. And you can’t really afford to have that happen when [you] have a system that’s very dependent on people, rather than processes.’

While in the Islands, Warren met with more than a dozen groups and agencies involved in conservation, inspection and quarantine work-the federal and state departments of agriculture, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state Department of Land and Natural Resources, Maui County environmental services office, The Nature Conservancy and Bishop Museum among them- and still barely scratched the surface.

‘There are so many issues that more people are getting involved, which in a way is good,’ Warren noted. ‘But the problem is, now there are more and more agencies working in this fragmented jigsaw model.

‘It’s a matter of accepting that biosecurity is as large an issue to public safety as terrorism, and I don’t think your government understands that.’

‘There doesn’t seem to be the ability to look at the big picture and see what needs to be done,’ which is where Warren, with her expertise and outsider status, comes in.

So what is Warren’s prescription for bringing Hawai’i’s ailing biosecurity system into some semblance of good health?

‘I’m going to be making some recommendations on improvement, but at a fairly general level because I don’t understand the finer points of your system,’ she said. ‘And I also think there’s some very good things here that need to be cherished and expanded on.’
Coqui frog

Warren gave high marks to the state’s invasive species committee program, which has task forces on each island coordinating with various groups and agencies to prioritize and then eradicate targeted invasive species.

‘And everyone recognizes interisland quarantine is needed,’ she added.

That leads to another sticky issue, the so-called Superferry, which is expected to increase the movement of goods and vehicles between islands. The company’s plan for handling inspections has not been fully disclosed, and Warren said it appears there’s inadequate space for an inspection system at the crowded harbors where the ferries will dock.

She also noted that New Zealand still has not resolved all the inspection and quarantine issues associated with its own rail ferry system, which allows railroad cars, as well as people and motor vehicles, to pass freely between the North and South Islands.

Still, Warren pointed out, Maui has done a good job of keeping out pests at its expanded airport, even though many people were worried that direct overseas flights would bring more alien species to the island. ‘The example at Maui shows you can do something if you put your mind to it.’

Overall, Warren said, ‘the basic elements of the system are sitting there, waiting to be plugged in, and there’s a lot of enthusiasm among individuals. I truly think the system will improve because people want it to.

‘But there’s a real risk of lots of serious losses in the meantime,’ she warned. ‘Often it’s the major losses that make people say, ‘oh my God, we’ve got to do something.’ But by that time, unfortunately, it’s often too late.’

Source: http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2006/08/snakes-on-a-plane-2/