I thought it was you who mentioned this in another thread some time ago. This is a real travesty, since these are the people who as part of their job are expected to (or take it upon themselves to) block roads around tornadic storms in the name of public safety.
It is worse than blocking roads (where a highway patrol probably got a man killed by trapping him in traffic in Indiana). Law enforcement, these days, seem to believe they are experts in everything.
I'm sure everyone remembers the Indiana State Fair (ISF) stage collapse.
The State Fair had an onsite meteorologist who told them to shut down the event. NWS had a SVR out. We had a warning out for a Indy Symphony outdoor concert a few miles away.
So, what did the organizers do? Continue! Why? An Indiana State patrolman who had an app on his smartphone (which likely
wasn't RadarScope or something similar, why would he pay the fees?) told them things looked okay to him. Of course, an IHP person has no idea what a radar "fine line" is nor the wx it will bring. In our crazy world, the IHP has more credibility -- tragically -- than a meteorologist in things meteorological!
Which brings me to my #1 pet peeve: This is the reason I wrote
Warnings. Our field deserves a tremendous amount of respect that we do not receive. But, we are undermining our position when the we miss obvious tornado warning situations like Joplin, Gaylord, Bensalem and others. It is not just the people who die in those situations, it is the
indirect fatalities (as at the ISF) which occur because weather science does not have the credibility it should.