Legislation to Create a National Disaster Review Board

[gdlewen]

When I see this kind of obviously partisan, ideological messaging entering the discussion, it just turns me off to the whole thing. (And no doubt, many others.) *snip*

In re-reading this post by @John Farley, I realize he is right: there was a real danger that someone might read that (single) sentence and dismiss everything that followed. That is regrettable.

The admittedly-glib preamble, complete with a humorous footnote, was intended to ameliorate a stern warning: that H.R. 6450, in its current form, represents a threat to the liberty of the people. But, this is nothing more than a modern restatement, specific to the bill, of the 1787 Anti-Federalist position that a strong central government threatens tyranny and loss of liberty.

If anyone disagrees with that warning, congratulations! You have taken a Federalist position. Rather than be offended by that, I think you should be proud: you are in good company. Stand up and explain why you think H. R. 6450 is no threat, regardless of which political party is in power. Debates can only generate information.

Look: the debate over the proper role of government--whether concentrating power and authority in a strong central government is a good thing--is as old as government itself. It has divided this country since before our formation; indeed, throughout history that debate has divided every country and every people who have ever engaged in it.

The debate played a part in the destruction of the Weimar Republic, with the German Right-Wing hating Germany’s newly-formed constitutional republic, and wishing for a return to an authoritarian form of government. By contrast, the German Left-Wing embraced the Weimar Constitution and the new government it created.

H. R. 6450 will pass or it will not, and the Federalist Question will overshadow much of the debate over the bill. At least: I hope it will. Even though I think @Mike Smith will be successful and the bill will be suitably-amended, I think a debate over the proper role of government cannot be avoided.

I also hope I have made it clear that such debate is natural to self-government. But by all means let’s have that debate: rather than be offended by the contrarian point of view, take the opportunity to get your point across.

---

A final point: over a decade ago a NJ conservative realized that most of his neighbors in Mercer County might not know what it really means to be conservative. He proposed an op-ed to the Trenton Times in the hope of explaining one way of viewing conservatism. (It was also an indirect defense of President Obama, who was still being criticized for correctly pointing out that the U.S. Constitution is “a document of negative liberties.”)

I now worry that @John Farley was correct, and those who read the title, Liberty, Federalism, and the Conservative Statesman, simply turned the page and moved on.

 

[Mike Smith]

Hi Everyone,

I have a piece pertaining to the NDRB and wildfires.
Natural Disaster Review Board: Let's Get This Done!!

Mike

 

[Mike Smith]

I don't know how many are following the issues with the NWS's outages that began Sunday night. They are ongoing and resulting in products failing to be updated. Here is a brief summary.

• They lost 80% of their radars Monday morning.
• 100% of their satellite network went down as severe thunderstorms were developing in the Great Plains late Monday morning and into the afternoon.
• Their rainfall amount forecasts, important to farmers and river interests, hasn’t been updated in nearly 48 hours.
• Their rotation (tornadoes) and hail size products have been down since Sunday night.

And, all of this ongoing. A very brief explanation is below (from the College of DuPage weather department) is posted below.

A person who I don't know, so I cannot vouch for his expertise, claims online that NWS is using first-generation Oracle servers that no one knows how to maintain anymore. Again, I don't know if this is true but it wouldn't surprise me.

In addition,

• We had an unwarned strong tornado, with injuries, in Kansas yesterday morning. While this is not related to the radar outage, it is related to the NWS's rejection of gap-filler radars as the tornado occurred in the radar hole in eastern Kansas. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/03/24/weather-radar-gaps-safety-nws/

We desperately need the Natural Disaster Review Board as it is clear the NWS needs outside assistance. There are bills in both houses of Congress to create one but they are going nowhere. I’m frightened another poorly warned tornado like Joplin (161 fatalities) is only a matter of time.

Please contact your congresspeople if you agree. There are bills before both houses of Congress to create the NDRB. They just need to have hearings and get them passed.


Mike

 

[Mark Gressman Jr]

Thanks for the update, as I was wondering why everything went down. I notice the same issue with 80% of the radars going down about 2 weeks ago, in the middle of the night as well. I thought maybe it was an issue on Radarscope's feed.

As for getting the bills passed, unfortunately, it's gonna take another Joplin to get things done. We need more than just the weather enthusiasts to make noise, and tragedy gets the average person's attention.

 

[Mike Smith]

This is a brief essay regarding an unwarned tornado in Kansas Tuesday morning. I think my conclusions will surprise everyone.

Tuesday's Missed Tornado Warning in Kansas

Greenwood County tornado damage, KWCH TV News It is not known which tornado produced this damage. We often discuss tornadoes that were impr...

www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com

 

[Andy Wehrle]

The NEXRAD/WSR-88D network was leaps and bounds ahead of anything that came before it, but there's no good reason it has to be the end of radar coverage expansion in the United States. Some of the "holes" are bad enough and that's assuming all the radars are working and disseminating data properly. Even the magical, miracle tornado detection product known as Correlation Coefficient made possible by the dual-polarization upgrades has proven to be not quite as foolproof as initially hoped (with both false positives and negatives noted), mainly due to distance/beam height.

I would really like to see some of those gaps filled (the tornadic supercell in southeastern Iowa on Tuesday was in a terrible radar hole, with the 0.5 degree tilt from the nearest site [KDVN] hitting it at about 6,600' where the tornado began near Houghton). Although, according to that Washington Post article you linked; the smaller C-band and X-band radars like those offered by Climavision have quite limited range. Ideally at least a few more S-band radars like the WSR-88D could be funded and procured, but that idea seems to have been rejected out of hand at least by the Weather Service spokesperson quoted in the article (who referred to the initial NEXRAD rollout as a "one-time acquisition").

 

[Mike Smith]

Andy,

The gap-filler proposal was 25 C-band radars with DP. If you purchased them as a group of 25, you could get the entire radar until for about $600,000 (today's dollars) -- a huge difference from the $10 million ($31.5 million in today's dollars!) per unit for the WSR-88D's (and that was before the cost of DP). Of course, there would be the tower, comm, and land, but it is likely that the full cost would average about $1 - 1.3 million/each. I figured that independently and then looked up the all-in cost of the similar radar at Durant -- $1.3 million, and that was a one-off.

My (wild) guess was that the NWS was afraid of maintenance costs going forward. That could be dealt with but it would have exploded the "we don't need no stinkin' radars for storm warnings" facade.

The NWS didn't even bother to give us an update on the data fiasco today, which tells me the news is bad.

There are wonderful, dedicated people at the NWS. But they suffer culturally from "death by analysis." The "federal agency" excuse doesn't wash. While at WeatherData, I worked extensively with the FRA, FAA and NTSB. They were a piece of cake to work with compared to the NWS and made decisions in days or weeks instead of the NWS's many months or years.

The NWS has taken more than a decade to make a tenative decision to work with private sector weather satellite providers -- something other agencies did years ago! About six months ago, they announced it was going to take another five years (2028) before they even make a decision as to what type of radar they want to replace the WSR-88D's -- something they've already been studying for a decade. They now believe the replacement won't occur until the 2040's.

With this latest fiasco, I'm genuinely starting to wonder if the NWS can be saved, even with a NDRB. NOAA and Commerce doesn't care and they don't have anyone who champions weather in either of those agencies.

I've never been in favor of NWS privatization but it hasn't hurt Canada. Perhaps it is an idea whose time has come, especially if we don't soon get an NDRB.

 

[Mike Smith]

the smaller C-band and X-band radars like those offered by Climavision have quite limited range.

The typical range of an X-band radar is 60 nm. However, a quality C-band radar has a range of 180 or 250 miles. The TDWR's are 180 and the Hugoton-type radar is 250. Way back in 1974, I watched a hailstorm moved across Olathe, KS from the WKY TV studios on their C-band. That is right at 250 miles.

Maybe after the November elections and we get rid of the current administration, we all can push for something like a NDRB to be formed, but we CANNOT allow this administration any more ability to gain power.

I have a similar concern. However, I believe that, regardless, it is going to be 2025 before we can get something passed.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Staff Note
I have deleted several posts due to political content. While it is understandable that a discussion thread about a proposed new government agency might result in some commentary about the proper role of government in our lives, the posts I deleted were exclusively and gratuitously political, including the rehash of Covid policies, without actually advancing the discussion at hand. One thing that keeps Stormtrack special is that it does not descend into the same political BS of social media. Let’s keep it that way.

 

[Brian R.]

The thing about creating a new governmental agency is allowing the government to continue to have authority over things it does not. And I will leave it at that.

 

[Mike Smith]

Brian, keep in mind my concept for the NDRB is for it to be patterned after the NTSB. That means it is an advisory board with no power to impose anything on anyone. The only "power" it would have is subpoena. Also, it would be forbidden by law to get into climate change. Why? The U.S. already has two panels that do that, we don't need a third.

Here is a fairly detailed explanation of the the NDRB would operate: An Explanation of My Idea for a National Disaster Review Board

Think about it: if the NDRB had reviewed (at Congress' request) the gap-filler radar issue (2016-17), the pressure on NOAA to accede would have probably been irresistible. Since the proposal was to purchase off-the-shelf radars, the first would probably be installed or close to being installed.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

The typical range of an X-band radar is 60 nm. However, a quality C-band radar has a range of 180 or 250 miles. The TDWR's are 180 and the Hugoton-type radar is 250. Way back in 1974, I watched a hailstorm moved across Olathe, KS from the WKY TV studios on their C-band. That is right at 250 miles.

Interesting. I work at a TV station here in Madison. My employer and our competitors in the market used to operate our/their own Doppler radars, but don't anymore (one of our competitor's radar domes is still installed across the highway from us, but as far as I can tell is decommissioned). I asked our chief met once why we don't and he said it was too expensive to maintain for the benefit gained. I wonder if they would feel differently if our market saw significant severe weather on a more frequent basis (here in southern Wisconsin, we seem to end up on the northern/eastern fringes of most Upper Midwest outbreaks). I run into the same argument when I advocate for the installation of more skycams, so that if a significant tornado outbreak were to occur in our market we could cover it in a similar manner to what ABC 33/40 did on April 27, 2011.

 

[Brian R.]

Brian, keep in mind my concept for the NDRB is for it to be patterned after the NTSB. That means it is an advisory board with no power to impose anything on anyone. The only "power" it would have is subpoena. Also, it would be forbidden by law to get into climate change. Why? The U.S. already has two panels that do that, we don't need a third.

Here is a fairly detailed explanation of the the NDRB would operate: An Explanation of My Idea for a National Disaster Review Board

Think about it: if the NDRB had reviewed (at Congress' request) the gap-filler radar issue (2016-17), the pressure on NOAA to accede would have probably been irresistible. Since the proposal was to purchase off-the-shelf radars, the first would probably be installed or close to being installed.

I will agree that a NDRB could be a good thing, but not under the current administration. After having my relationship with my bf basically ruined by the previous mandates, having almost 3 years of my life basically being ruined by them having to tolerate being single with no company besides my sweet dog, no pleasure and nothing to do besides put effort into a career and basically be forced into a salaried full time position as an incident commander with Illinois emergency management agency instead of a basically paid on call position, I will leave it alone as it will become too politically involved conversation.