I received the following timeline from County Supervisor John Gioia:

 

5:26 AM           Chevron notified Contra Costa County

5:32 AM           Sirens activated

5:40 AM           Bay City News and KCBS (AM 740) contacted by Contra Costa County

6:02 AM           First request for phone calls made

6:30 AM           First phone calls made to residents

 

There are two clear areas of communication that need to be addressed. The first is the time it takes from first alert to initiation of phone calls. The system presumes that sirens cannot be heard indoors, so the phone notification is the only way most people would find out what is going on. The second problems is that even though KCBS and Bay City News were notified, the information did not find its way to other broadcast media for a long time, during which they were providing both speculative and erroneous information.

 

It is not even clear what link in the communications chain is responsible for these lapses.

 

None of this is new. This might be a good issue for the Contra Costa Civil Grand Jury to take up.