Legislation to Create a National Disaster Review Board

[John Farley]

People who say climate change has nothing to do with the kinds of wildfires we have had in recent years are almost certainly wrong. There are many aspects of climate change that contribute to fires: hotter weather, more severe drought, and more extreme swings between very dry and very wet weather. At the same time, people who focus ONLY on climate change are also almost certainly wrong. Poor forest management (suppressing nearly all fires for much of the last century), greatly increased development into fire prone areas, and inadequate funding of fire departments and mitigation efforts are also quite clearly part of the problem. Why do so many of our arguments have to be all or none, one way or the other? It is never that simple.

As to Mike's post about NTSB recommendations being ignored, the same thing will almost certainly be a problem if we do get a NDRB. It is an adage among disaster researchers that we are nearly always better prepared for the last disaster than for the next one. That is not an argument against having a NDRB, just an inevitable limitation of what impact it might have. We SHOULD learn from past mistakes, but that is not always the case.

 

[Mike Smith]

Regarding the NDRB: Five of the six NOAA tsunami detection buoys in the Caribbean were out of service yesterday and had been for quite a while.

NOAA has deteriorated considerably and desperately needs reform.

With regard to John's comment about the SoCal fires and climate change. Please read Cliff Mass' piece on the fires that I previously posted. The type of vegetation involved dries out incredibly fast -- within a few days after even the heaviest rains. That means the dry weather over the months before the fire had nothing to do with the fires.

Otherwise, I agree with John's comments.

 

[James K]

but rather the extreme swings between very wet years (the previous two years) and very dry ones (this year, only .03" of rain since Oct 1). This causes a surge in vegetation in the wet years, which then dries out in the dry years, providing fuel for wildfires.

This is a very good point, in wet years all that stuff - grasses/shrubs/weeds/etc can and will put on allot of growth(thats just nature its simply how these plants live). Then in a dry or even a just normal year, all that stuff will dry out and be ripe for burning. It is simply not possible or practical or even possible to go through thousands of acres of forest and "clean out" all that dead vegetation. Individual landowners can/should keep a defensible space around their structures though. (but again its not like a state/county/town can/should be going by every property every dry season on "weed patrol")

They are dropping people in the heartland too.

Its happening in CO too, particularly in the mountains - for one of the same reasons as CA: wildfires. There was an article in the paper back in January about people being dropped by multiple insurance companies, and its now getting hard to even get insurance in some parts of the mountains.

4 homes on a 1 acre lot, and all it takes is one to go and they will all go.

This is in big part due to how close they are built together. Then there's also the factor of even with homes that are spread out the building materials used... like instead of actual lumber there is more & more 'manufactured wood' type products in the structure (the majority of it OSB-based). This stuff not only ignites easier, it burns hotter, and being being a much thinner board it burns up quicker(leading to structural failure/collapse of the building even quicker).
Then you have siding, which has in the past has been sometimes wood or mostly pressed hardboard... both of which will ofcourse burn, but these days its more likely OSB-based which ignites easier than the older pressed hardboard. Though that said, *some* builders are using 'James Hardie' siding which is cement-fiber a based product. It wont burn, but is also not "fireproof" in the sense that it will eventually fall apart if kept in contact with flame, and being just a thin board, heat can transfer through it causing the underlying structure to catch fire. But what it will do is prevent sparks or small embers from igniting the *siding* leading to structure fire. The "downside" to that type of product is its more expensive and harder to work with, so the common "build the thing as cheap as possible" rules it out in some cases.

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Honestly other than the very important fire mitigation/defensible spaces/etc.. I think one of the big things that needs to be looked at/reviewed in fire-prone areas (or in general wind-prone areas) is the construction itself...
Maybe its time to update building codes and start getting away from wood and especially OSB-based building materials, and start looking at 'James Hardie' (or similar if it exists) siding (with something other than sheets of OSB behind it, even plywood is better, but ideally if it exists a structurally strong(like OSB/plywood is) non-flammable sheet-good) and steel framing - atleast for the exterior walls.
Same for roofs, thankfully the old (easily ignighted) wood-shake shingles are banned in many areas. The most common asphalt shingles will offer some protection, but they will melt (so sparks are fine, but flaming embers may not be), once its through to the roof decking below - most commonly OSB these days you have an ignition source. And once flames are into the open attic space it'll spread throughout the entire attic quickly. Again here ceramic or cement-fiber roof-tiles/shingles already exist, those coupled with a non-flamable roof-decking underneath *and* structural steel roof trusses all but eliminates this issue.
The only other thing you'd have to look into is some way to protect windows & doors (maybe some sort of metal "shutters" - I think I saw that something like that - basically like a mini roolup metal garage door - already exists & some people do use it for hurricanes)
A home/building constructed in such a way, while not 'fireproof' will stand a significant chance of survival.. *BUT* it won't be cheap! Though the long run - insurance discounts (or simply ability to get insurance) is where it pays for itself. And there's also the factor that if its no longer a specialty/custom thing the construction cost comes down.

A building/construction review like this is probably something that needs to be looked at more on a state basis than federal though?

The type of vegetation involved dries out incredibly fast -- within a few days after even the heaviest rains. That means the dry weather over the months before the fire had nothing to do with the fires.

Yep that stuff: grasses in particular... when already in their dormant(ie: dead/dry) stage, will dry out quickly after a rain - basically as Cliff stated, one hot sunny day is all it takes.
But when in their active(ie: green) stage its going to take a few weeks of dry to go fully dormant and then become dry/cured/ripe for burning, so in that respect dry weather over the months before the fire had something to do with the fire (though that said *drought alone* did not, as said vegetation would still be dry/cured for burning even if it had been a normal dry season there.)
And anyone who has seen dry grass/brush/etc burn in person knows just how volatile that stuff is! It takes *very little* to ignite it, and it will burn/spread quickly.. then if you were to add wind you have something thats basically unstoppable.

 

[Matt Zumbrunn]

One thing that sticks out as a huge problem is that in recent years it is absolutely clear that there is a glaring problem concerning the lack of time, $$, and resources spent on basic maintenance and preventive measures that, if done right and given proper attention, would significantly mitigate the extent, and in some case advert completely, disasters, weather/climate-related or otherwise.

Does it have to be said once again about the egregious neglect in California that even basic infrastructure can't be maintained to properly combat wildfires? We saw the problem with water supplies and hydrants from the recent wildfires. How about the fire department budgets and policies themselves? How about decades of poor land and water management? How about the fact that we keep expanding into high fire risk areas, making ignition more likely and giving plain "targets" for wildfires? All of these have *zero* to with weather and climate, yet wildfires keep exclusively getting blamed on climate change from the most of the MSM and politicians every time one occurs. This is disingenuous at best, and criminal at worst, and reeks of agenda-driven policy and towing a line.

I don't want to get to far off topic but local politics play a big part and it stresses me to the max. All of our trucks are older. My brush trucks are the hardest working trucks in the fleet. However they are also the least reliable. We are just entering fire season. I have one that broke down twice, caught fire once, has white smoke from the exhaust, and oil analysis shows it has high levels or iron and aluminum (mind you all this happened in the last year). It also broke down in 2023 and was down for a week. Its 24 yrs old but because it is still relatively low mileage our fire board will not replace it. We also dropped a $5800 engine in our 2000 brush truck back in 2023. The 2000 also has a leaking tank. They don't include us in the budget process, and pass a flat budget every year even though equipment is up 35-40% in the last 4 years. Sorry, sitting here trying to work on a federal grant for a couple new skid units since the family is asleep.

 

[Mike Smith]

Everyone: this piece explains the details behind the NDRB. The link will get you through the paywall.

The Case for a US Disaster Review Board

A guest post by Mike Smith

rogerpielkejr.substack.com

If you like the idea, please, please retweet and, more importantly, contact your congresspeople.

 

[Mike Smith]

For the first time I call the NWS's issues with tornado warnings a "crisis." Not only were they too late warning of the BIS tornado, they 'created' a tornado where none existed and issued a "PDS False Alarm." Really.

National Weather Service Tornado Warning Crisis

What is appalling is that there is no acknowledgement by top NWS management nor attempt to repair this. Another JLN is inevitable.

 

[JamesCaruso]

For the first time I call the NWS's issues with tornado warnings a "crisis." Not only were they too late warning of the BIS tornado, they 'created' a tornado where none existed and issued a "PDS False Alarm." Really.

National Weather Service Tornado Warning Crisis

What is appalling is that there is no acknowledgement by top NWS management nor attempt to repair this. Another JLN is inevitable.

Thanks for mentioning that false alarm in the Philadelphia area on 6/19 Mike. I live in that area - 35 miles northeast of the city, so too far to be affected by that particular storm, but I was of course interested in what was going on; we had some relatively widespread local damage from a bow echo in a more northern segment of that same line of storms. I couldn’t understand what was going on with that tornado warning…

 

[Mike Smith]

Because this is StormTrack, I have not posted here about the botched blizzard and other of types of warning issues with the NWS. But, because this is related to last night's tornado swarm near the South Dakota - Minnesota border, I hope you won't mind.

More than 9 inches of rain fell overnight with this storm (see graphic). You can also see the towns of Watertown and Brookings in the background. I'll get to those in a moment.

I posted several of my own flood "warnings" (not shown): because (I'm guessing) the ABR NWS was too busy with the tornadoes to focus on the floods to quickly warn of the water danger. What surprised me, however, was literally nothing was being said about the threat to people near the Big Sioux River. I have no river model, so I am not able to forecast exact stages but I wrote a warning to people near the river west of Brookings. This was at 11:27pm and it is attached below.

Here is the surprising and disappointing information: People in the vicinity of the river didn't hear from the NWS until 9:30am today!

And, as it turns out, the 9:30am flood warning of "minor" flooding was an under-forecast. The river reached "moderate" stage and they had to put out a 2pm update.

Please keep in mind that we taxpayers invested millions in the new National Water Center on the campus of the University of Alabama. It was supposed to be running state-of-the-art river models and was supposed to improve the timeliness and accuracy of flood forecasts. As far as I can tell -- and this was true beginning in May, 2024, when it took over (Biden, of course, was president) things have deteriorated since. I am not blaming Joe, I'm simply pointing out it isn't related to DOGE.

One can wonder if the present situation is fixable..especially, by the current management of the NWS and NOAA (even though I have a lot of respect for Dr. Neil Jacobs). I have testified -- under oath -- to Congress saying the NWS is essential to the United States. My book says the same thing.

However, during the past week, I've begun to wonder if privatizing this would be that bad of an idea. Waiting ten hours for critical flood information is simply not acceptable. Nor is a late TOR for Bismarck. Nor is a "TDS false alarm" in the vicinity of the #4 city in the United States.
Congress seems more inclined to hold private companies accountable than they do government agencies.

I just have a terrible feeling that another Joplin or an event with giant economic loss will occur unless we promptly fix this mess.

 

[John Farley]

The mess needs to be fixed, and I agree that it has transcended which party is in power. It appears that things have gotten worse over the past decade or so under administrations of both parties. That said, I do not believe that either privatization or massive budget cuts are the answer. If it is privatized, the only things that will get done will be things that somebody can make money from. If you further cut the budget, things will get even worse. It seems a better solution would be to get it entirely out of politics and put the atmospheric scientists in charge. I have no idea whether or how that could actually be accomplished, but it seems, at least in theory, better than the status quo, privatization, or massive budget cuts.

 

[Mike Smith]

put the atmospheric scientists in charge

Ken Graham, Louis Uccellini, Jack Kelly, David Johnson, Joe Friday, etc., etc. are all atmospheric scientists. Perhaps that is the problem.

Barry Myers would have been an outstanding leader of NOAA but was not given a vote because, in part, "he wasn't an atmospheric scientist." NOAA/NWS has hundreds of atmospheric scientists and I have never found them -- as a group -- to be particularly good managers. Barry was a great manager who I enjoyed working for.

NWS desperately needs a visionary leader who isn't afraid to make people unhappy when necessary.

As to,

If it is privatized, the only things that will get done will be things that somebody can make money from.

at WeatherData, Inc, then AccuWeather we made plenty of money making highly accurate, site-specific storm warnings. Our tornado warnings were far more accurate than the NWS's.

 

[John Farley]

at WeatherData, Inc, then AccuWeather we made plenty of money making highly accurate, site-specific storm warnings. Our tornado warnings were far more accurate than the NWS's.

I don't doubt the accuracy of your warnings. What I am concerned with is dissemination. Who will get them and who won't? Also, if you privatize it, AccuWeather will not have a monopoly. With multiple private entities issuing different warnings, or at least warnings with different specifics, people will be even more confused than they are now. The solution, IMHO, is to fix the NWS, not get rid of it or defund it.

 

[JamesCaruso]

What I am concerned with is dissemination. Who will get them and who won't?

Despite being a believer in limited government, I have the same concern. The government needs to provide services that cannot sustain themselves economically. It may not be financially viable for a private weather enterprise to provide services to small markets.

However, might there not be a hybrid solution, similar to utilities? Even cellphone carriers still put towers up in rural areas (although, admittedly, the coverage is sparse and has less bandwidth - which kind of illustrates the problem that might occur with private weather enterprises: not a complete lack of service, but not the best service either...)

I'm thinking of a scenario in which the private weather enterprises provide the service, but the government pays for it. This ensures that rural areas get service, *and* it's profitable enough to incentivize the service provider. There would also be a performance incentive, with contract awards or renewals going to the provider of the most accurate forecasts.

I'm not necessarily a proponent of this, as compared to fixing the NWS. I'm just suggesting there may be a compromise solution between NWS proponents and privatization proponents. One advantage would be that the NWS would no longer have a monopoly in certain regions. It would be analogous to using property taxes to not just fund poor-performing public schools but to also use them to fund vouchers that can be used at private schools, giving the end customer a choice and driving improvement through competition.

 

[Mike Smith]

which kind of illustrates the problem that might occur with private weather enterprises: not a complete lack of service, but not the best service either...

If "best service" refers to accuracy, please put your Zip Code into: Weather Forecast and Weather Forecast Accuracy for Your City Very rarely is the NWS even in the top 3. In general, AW or TWC would provide better forecasts than the NWS. We know AW's convective storm warnings are superior to the NWS.

My idea of privatization would be for the federal government to pay a company to provide forecasts and warnings for every inch of the USA. What remains of the NWS would be a data collection and archiving (NCDC) organization, only.

I'm not saying I'm in favor of this. However, given civil service law and the NWS employee union agreement with the NWS, I don't see how this can be fixed. Too many bad precedents have been set and those will inevitably be raised if people are fired for poor performance.

At WeatherData, Inc. if someone could not successfully make it through the 4-6 week training period, even with extra coaching and extra time, we would let them go. While that was rare, the NWS cannot fire people for poor forecasts/warnings nor can poor forecasts/warnings be used to prevent a promotion.

The NWS wants to be certified as a federal "safety" organization so the effects of DOGE are minimized. However, it doesn't manage itself that way. Awful performance is tolerated. That isn't the case with already certified organizations like air traffic control.