Alan—this one, and the Kerr County story, really hit with me—and not in a good way. It reads like a win for local ingenuity, but you and I both know that’s not what it really is. It’s a town getting lucky at exactly the right moment. A gauge disappears, no one says a word, the person who knew it’s gone is gone, and the only reason it works out is because the mayor happens to know exactly who to call and how to fix it. That’s not resilience—that’s a system quietly coming apart and hoping someone local can patch it together. Most people don’t realize how abrupt some of this was—feds including myself cut off from phones and email with little to no sufficient time to follow up on relationships built over decades with communities and industry.
What’s frustrating is this didn’t come out of nowhere. The last year just poured gas on it, but the drift has been there for at least 20+ years. Too much time spent studying things we already understand, not enough actually fixing and fielding them. And now the “solution” seems to be ripping out what’s left of the core and handing it off to big D.C. beltway contracts that will spend years rediscovering the same problems and proposing solutions we already know. Meanwhile, the basics—gauge maintenance and replacement, radars filling real coverage gaps, and the people who know how to run the system—keep getting thinner. It’s hard not to look at it and feel like we are being punished by general political ignorance. This is not about climae chane policy per se but rather the basic human needs in response to extreme weather
At the end of the day, the risk hasn’t changed. The rivers don’t care who’s responsible, and the storms sure as hell don’t. Until there’s a real commitment to funding and maintaining the backbone—gauges (all kinds), supplemental radar coverage, and actually integrating what’s already on the table—we’re just going to keep cycling through reports and pilot projects while communities are left to figure it out on their own. Riverdale made it work. Most places won’t. And that’s the part that should bother everyone.
"Too much time spent studying things we already understand, not enough actually fixing and fielding them." Amen, Amen, Amen!
A recent example: $4.5 million for NSSL to get three new DoW's that, as far as I can tell, stayed in Norman during the recent Braman and Enid Tornadoes. A Colorado DoW was on both!
We have been studying tornadoes via DoW's for 30+ years. What do these trucks think they will observe that hasn't been observed before?
When I, and a number of people, spent months working with Congress to get them primed to pay for gap-filler radars (at least ten C-band radars could have been purchased and installed for what was spent on the 3 DoW's), NOAA turned Congress down! https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/21/radar-gaps-weather-service/
I am hoping a National Disaster Review Board would help steer NOAA away from so many of these capricious decisions, but -- as you point out -- there are so many these days.
Alan—this one, and the Kerr County story, really hit with me—and not in a good way. It reads like a win for local ingenuity, but you and I both know that’s not what it really is. It’s a town getting lucky at exactly the right moment. A gauge disappears, no one says a word, the person who knew it’s gone is gone, and the only reason it works out is because the mayor happens to know exactly who to call and how to fix it. That’s not resilience—that’s a system quietly coming apart and hoping someone local can patch it together. Most people don’t realize how abrupt some of this was—feds including myself cut off from phones and email with little to no sufficient time to follow up on relationships built over decades with communities and industry.
What’s frustrating is this didn’t come out of nowhere. The last year just poured gas on it, but the drift has been there for at least 20+ years. Too much time spent studying things we already understand, not enough actually fixing and fielding them. And now the “solution” seems to be ripping out what’s left of the core and handing it off to big D.C. beltway contracts that will spend years rediscovering the same problems and proposing solutions we already know. Meanwhile, the basics—gauge maintenance and replacement, radars filling real coverage gaps, and the people who know how to run the system—keep getting thinner. It’s hard not to look at it and feel like we are being punished by general political ignorance. This is not about climae chane policy per se but rather the basic human needs in response to extreme weather
At the end of the day, the risk hasn’t changed. The rivers don’t care who’s responsible, and the storms sure as hell don’t. Until there’s a real commitment to funding and maintaining the backbone—gauges (all kinds), supplemental radar coverage, and actually integrating what’s already on the table—we’re just going to keep cycling through reports and pilot projects while communities are left to figure it out on their own. Riverdale made it work. Most places won’t. And that’s the part that should bother everyone.
"Too much time spent studying things we already understand, not enough actually fixing and fielding them." Amen, Amen, Amen!
A recent example: $4.5 million for NSSL to get three new DoW's that, as far as I can tell, stayed in Norman during the recent Braman and Enid Tornadoes. A Colorado DoW was on both!
We have been studying tornadoes via DoW's for 30+ years. What do these trucks think they will observe that hasn't been observed before?
When I, and a number of people, spent months working with Congress to get them primed to pay for gap-filler radars (at least ten C-band radars could have been purchased and installed for what was spent on the 3 DoW's), NOAA turned Congress down! https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/11/21/radar-gaps-weather-service/
I am hoping a National Disaster Review Board would help steer NOAA away from so many of these capricious decisions, but -- as you point out -- there are so many these days.
The heart button does not convey my real feelings. But great article!
"Flashy" = a stream that often quickly rises creating a flash flood.