Legislation to Create a National Disaster Review Board

[Mike Smith]

John and Everyone, if you are interested in what Marn'i has to say, FEMA Supervisor Who Allegedly Directed Staff to Avoid Homes With Trump Signs Claims it Was a Widespread Practice Due to ‘Political Hostility’ › American Greatness . See the NYP quote about it being a widespread practice.

The media defended FEMA against reports this was happening but it turned out Trump was correct.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I made another request for SPC's verification statistics and I've not heard anything yet.

Mike, can you clarify how this verification process works? You mention SPC, but I thought they are only supposed to report verification relative to their outlook and watch areas, which they do report. Isn’t verification / FAR of warnings supposed to come from NWS outside of SPC? It’s only the latter stats that are not being reported any longer, correct?

 

[Mike Smith]

Mike, can you clarify how this verification process works? You mention SPC, but I thought they are only supposed to report verification relative to their outlook and watch areas, which they do report. Isn’t verification / FAR of warnings supposed to come from NWS outside of SPC? It’s only the latter stats that are not being reported any longer, correct?

James, if you know where to get long-term outlook verifications of SPC outlooks and watches, please let me know. I've never seen them. So, I've asked SPC for them and -- so far -- they won't part with them.

You can see tornado warning verifications here: NOAA - Severe weather warnings for tornadoes: Storm based accuracy (%) | U.S. Department of Commerce | Performance Data Pro Note that at lower left it says "target - not met."

They recently changed the page for the worse. It used to have the yearly verifications and lead times back to 2005 when the target was met or exceeded. I guess they decided to do away with that because it was too embarrassing. I have attached a screen capture of the previous, and more informative, version.

 

[Jason N]

Regarding FEMA, it seems more and more, a lot of stories tend to start out as one rogue FEMA agent, or isolated reports of Venezuelan gangs, but as time goes on, more and more reports change the narrative and story landscape which is why the pace at which we post links to stories before all the information comes in is in effect misinformation, or just not the full story, something I have noticed for over 15yrs, the trend at which we as a society have been trained to "react" over "think" just to get stories and or information out as fast as possible has been as a result of shot-gunning posts after posts that are uncorroborated. This is the Chinese brand of information warfare, the first to create a narrative, wins.

 

[John Farley]

John and Everyone, if you are interested in what Marn'i has to say, FEMA Supervisor Who Allegedly Directed Staff to Avoid Homes With Trump Signs Claims it Was a Widespread Practice Due to ‘Political Hostility’ › American Greatness . See the NYP quote about it being a widespread practice.

The media defended FEMA against reports this was happening but it turned out Trump was correct.

As usual, it is a little more complicated than a lot of people want to make it. Apparently some houses with Harris signs and some with no political signage were intentionally skipped as well.

FEMA worker in Florida fired after skipping homes with Trump signs

 

[Mike Smith]

As usual, it is a little more complicated than a lot of people want to make it. Apparently some houses with Harris signs and some with no political signage were intentionally skipped as well.

John, it is possible you are missing my point. I'm just as appalled that homes with Harris signs were passed over. Politics should play no role whatsoever in disaster recovery. If, during Trump's upcoming administration, a FEMA worker intentionally passes over a Democrat's home because of politics, I will want them fired, too.

 

[John Farley]

Mike, regarding some of your recent posts in this thread, it seems to me that they have become more political and partisan (election year?). If you want a National Disaster Review Board to be established and to be effective, that is a mistake IMHO. One of the things that makes the NTSB successful is that it is non-political and its work is seen as fact-based by most people on either side of our nation's deep political divide. That is important and significant. I just looked at the current presidential election numbers and the winning candidate is at 50.2 percent. That will drop a little more as the final votes, largely from California, are counted. And that is the norm in recent elections - winning presidential candidates from either party get around half the vote, if that - in several elections it has been less. So the country is quite evenly divided, and deeply divided at that. Anything seen as partisan will not be trusted by a large segment of the public. If a National Disaster Review Board is seen as politically motivated, people who identify with whichever party is on the outside will discount anything it says as "politics." That is why any effort to establish such a review board needs to be bipartisan and once established, it must work in a way as independent of politics as possible, like the NTSB.

 

[John Farley]

John, it is possible you are missing my point. I'm just as appalled that homes with Harris signs were passed over. Politics should play no role whatsoever in disaster recovery. If, during Trump's upcoming administration, a FEMA worker intentionally passes over a Democrat's home because of politics, I will want them fired, too.

Totally agree on that. And the post I just made, I was typing while you posted this. Hopefully we agree on the need for any National Disaster Review Board to be created and to operate in a manner that is independent from politics.

 

[Mike Smith]

Mike, regarding some of your recent posts in this thread, it seems to me that they have become more political and partisan (election year?).

Hi John, as I understand it, "politics" is defined as the art and science of winning elections and influencing public opinion. Working from that definition, I very rarely do politics except between about Labor Day and Election Day in presidential election years.

However, monitoring and commenting on the operations of government is not politics. There's nothing political in my suggestions to sever NWS from NOAA ( To President-Elect Trump: Recommendations for NOAA and the National Weather Service ). The suggestions would be exactly the same if Harris had won. I'm surprised how much agreement there is on them. Even Jim Cantore has signaled his approval.

As retiring Rep Katie Porter (D -Calif) was the originator of the first bill to create something like the NDRB, I have reached out to her office several times. I have reached out to a number of R's in Congress, too. I'm more than willing to accept assistance from anyone because the nation desperately needs this.

If, by chance, you are referring to my comment about NOAA's cover-up of the declining tornado warning stats by changing their web page, I'd be just as unhappy if an R did it. This isn't politics, it is exactly why we need a National Disaster Review Board.

 

[John Farley]

Hi John, as I understand it, "politics" is defined as the art and science of winning elections and influencing public opinion. Working from that definition, I very rarely do politics except between about Labor Day and Election Day in presidential election years.

However, monitoring and commenting on the operations of government is not politics. There's nothing political in my suggestions to sever NWS from NOAA ( To President-Elect Trump: Recommendations for NOAA and the National Weather Service ). The suggestions would be exactly the same if Harris had won. I'm surprised how much agreement there is on them. Even Jim Cantore has signaled his approval.

As retiring Rep Katie Porter (D -Calif) was the originator of the first bill to create something like the NDRB, I have reached out to her office several times. I have reached out to a number of R's in Congress, too. I'm more than willing to accept assistance from anyone because the nation desperately needs this.

If, by chance, you are referring to my comment about NOAA's cover-up of the declining tornado warning stats by changing their web page, I'd be just as unhappy if an R did it. This isn't politics, it is exactly why we need a National Disaster Review Board.

Mike, I was not referring to either your proposal to sever NWS from NOAA or to your comment about the tornado-warning cover-up. You may well be right on both of those. (I tend to agree with a large part of what you propose.) Rather, I was referring to wording in your blog post along the lines of "other ‘progressive’ nonsense that, not so coincidently, is always on the side of global warming advocacy." It is fine for you to state that if it is what you believe (I respectfully disagree), but when you link that kind of political language to a discussion of a National Disaster Review Board, it injects partisan politics in a way that I think is unhelpful.

 

[Mike Smith]

I was referring to wording in your blog post along the lines of "other ‘progressive’ nonsense that, not so coincidently, is always on the side of global warming advocacy."

Thank you for clarifying and you are right.

But, please turn the tables. Would you think it was a good idea for a conservative NOAA (under Trump) to spend $10 million of our money to a conservative organization for "education" without any accountability? I don't think you would approve. As I said, I want to get NOAA/NWS completely out of this business, including some of the NWS's silly Owly Skywarn material.

The NWS can't afford to launch weather balloons for goodness sake (including in DEN). Do we really want them spending our money on pamphlets? There are plenty of private sector organizations that do this (TV and radio stations, companies like AccuWeather, etc.). We need to focus NOAA/NWS on their core missions, only.

 

[John Farley]

There should ALWAYS be accountability. And yes, weather balloons seem to be a better use of our money than Owly Skywarn. And radars to infill places with poor coverage, like where I live, are essential. But politics needs to be out of those, too. The new Durango radar was placed in a poor location (too low for the beam to get over mountains) because of local political considerations, not science.

 

[Jamie H]

John and Everyone, if you are interested in what Marn'i has to say, FEMA Supervisor Who Allegedly Directed Staff to Avoid Homes With Trump Signs Claims it Was a Widespread Practice Due to ‘Political Hostility’ › American Greatness . See the NYP quote about it being a widespread practice.

The media defended FEMA against reports this was happening but it turned out Trump was correct.

I am very keen not to take this thread further off-track, but in the interest of some semblance of balance, Mike I don't believe what you've posted here is very helpful to your own assertion that Trump was correct.

The link provided has a misleading headline, by suggesting this was motivated by FEMA having a bias towards Trump supporters. In fact, the article you linked explains her comments quite clearly (and she has now lost her other job as well as having to move because of threats):

During an interview with YouTube podcaster Roland Martin Monday, Washington,39, explained that she had just been following FEMA’s policy of avoiding “politically hostile” homes. She said her supervisor had approved the message, explaining: “FEMA preaches avoidance first, and then de-escalation. This is not isolated. This is a colossal event of avoidance.”

“Not just in the state of Florida. You will find avoidance in the Carolinas,” said Washington, adding that the incident reports would substantiate that FEMA workers were being met with “hostility” at homes with Trump Campaign signs.

...

The embattled former FEMA worker claimed that she knew of houses in the past had also been marked “politically hostile” when they had Harris-Walz signs or no political signs at all.

“We omitted these homes for safety precautions, not because of political play,” she insisted.

“If you greet any of our team members with hostility or aggression, we will deescalate and disengage and move on,” she said. “We cannot take the risk and deal with that type of behavior.”

Washington told Martin that she was fired from her job with a private real estate firm in the wake of the controversy, and had to move from her home due to threats.

You also posted two graphics. One said Trump 'accused the Biden administration of spending disaster funding on migrants, neglecting areas that had voted for Republicans and ignoring a call from a Republican governor.'

I do not believe any of those have been proven correct. In fact, politicians trying to make hay out of disasters by lying are then causing harm to residents who need help. According to the NY Post:

FEMA employees did receive threats in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton as a result of misinformation, and a sheriff in Tennessee reported that an armed group threatened aid workers.

...

Asked for examples on what “political hostility” entails, Washington said during the interview: “People will tell you ‘I don’t like FEMA, that’s part of the Biden-Harris campaign, you’re lying to people, you’re not helping people.'”

I suppose this is a very long winded way of pointing out that politicians and politically-biased websites stir things up for clicks, votes, and airtime, but the very same people they appeal to are the ones who have to deal with the aftermath. Why on earth are FEMA employees being threatened and aid workers threatend at gunpoint?

Trump, and his supporters comments about FEMA, the hurricanes, and Biden ordering Trump voters to be skipped has caused significant damage to these institutions - and he's about to return to office!

That is why I posted previously about urging your representatives to leave NOAA/NWS well away from political control. The damage takes moments, but lasts for a long time afterwards.

 

[William Monfredo]

This link will take you to the prior analysis of weather disasters done by the NWS. As I was coming through the ranks of education, I enjoyed reading and learning from some of them. Did the findings get implemented from many of these? I don't know, but they're sometimes informative.

NWS Service Assessments

 

[Mike Smith]

Jaime, thank you for your post. You make a number of good points.

William, the NWS never did/does Service Assessments when they have screwed up. The JLN Tornado Assessment was a cover-up that has done a great deal of damage since it was published.

Another example: There's no Service Assessment of Hurricane Ian, the deadliest hurricane to strike Florida since 1935. NHC's forecasts were terrible and more than 150 people died.

You won't find a SA for Helene issued because of their behind-the-curve forecasts pertaining to the flood threat (c.f., Catastrophic Inland Flooding Likely With Hurricane Helene ).

The NWS investigating the NWS has always been a terrible idea. That's why we desperately need a National Disaster Review Board, of which I believe you are in favor.

Everyone: Thank you for all of the comments. I appreciate it when my errors are pointed out.

Now, a favor: what do you think of my NWS/NOAA proposal ( To President-Elect Trump: Recommendations for NOAA and the National Weather Service )? And, for those who agree with my suggestions, can you forward them to state or federal officials you may know?