Sad. Mentions at Big 12 media days the flood was a topic.
The cuts absolutely resulted in the San Antonio NWS office losing its longtime Warning Coordination Meteorologist, who took the early retirement incentive that this administration used to cut expenses. Thatâs a critical, critical role, and itâs vacant. Everyoneâs saying the NWS got the warnings right, but the messages werenât received.
If the Warning Coordinator was there doing his job, he would use his long time relationships to be sure the NWS warnings were received and acted on.
Hereâs the job description:
A Warning Coordination Meteorologist (WCM) at the National Weather Service (NWS) serves as the primary interface between the NWS forecast office and the public, emergency managers, and other users of weather information. They are responsible for developing and implementing public awareness programs to mitigate the impact of severe weather events.
Key Responsibilities of a WCM:
- Liaison with Emergency Managers:
The WCM acts as a key point of contact for emergency managers, providing them with the information they need to prepare for and respond to weather emergencies.
- Coordination of Warning Dissemination:
The WCM helps ensure that weather warnings are effectively disseminated to the public through various channels.
- Severe Weather Planning:
They participate in the planning and preparation for severe weather events, including developing strategies to minimize potential damage and loss of life.
- Media Relations:
The WCM often serves as the spokesperson for the NWS office during severe weather events, communicating information to the media and the public.
Oh, guess what⊠we donât have one for the Houston region either:
Oopsies, maybe we should have had one of them Warning CoordinatorsâŠ
1 Like
Local (San Antonio and Austin) meteorologists have said that the NWS was staffed up for this and that they didnât see any degradation of service.
These same meteorologists have complained about the impacts to forecasting that theyâve experienced from NWS cuts.
And the warnings were received. Those that werenât were the local warnings and evacuation orders.
1 Like
They said it was staffed up, but my understanding is that they do it by pulling meteorologists (forecasters) from other regions.
And I havenât seen whether they pulled in a Warning Coordinator from another region, but⊠pulling someone in from another part of the country isnât the same as having a Warning Coordinator with 16 years of experience in the San Antonio region (32 years overall).
After 16 years you have a much better idea of the lay of the land, and exactly who you need to reach out to for local emergency operations. You canât just remote in from Bozeman Montana on a Thursday evening and have the same readiness level.
Also, you say the warnings were received, but from what I read, the County Judge didnât get the warnings until it was too late, and same with Mayor of Kerrville. You had a firefighter in Hunt asking that a CodeRED alert go out to all residents at 4am Friday morning⊠it didnât go out for at least an hour, if at all.
With this cluster**** going on, a Warning COORDINATOR sure would have been helpful:
2 Likes
Stop with the political innuendos. This is tragic beyond any warning systems.
There are three facts that we know. Buildings are along flood prone areas, floods happened prior to this tragedy and death/tragedy too.
Everyone can have their own thoughts on what needs to be done next.
Prayers and love to all affected.
4 Likes
Prayers and love canât hurt but more is needed to find answers, mitigations and perhaps new regulations for the future.
Those things donât happen in a vacuum nor when discussion is prohibited and/or delayed.
1 Like
Out of the horror and madness there is a sliver of good news.
1 Like
If youâre referring to my post, I didnât touch politics. Iâm sticking to facts, that the longtime NWS Warnings Coordinator for the area was no longer employed, and his position was not filled.
That had to adversely impact the coordination of flood warnings. Thatâs not political, itâs fact.
The reasons behind the vacancy are political, but I didnât go there.
2 Likes
Yea, but this has nothing to do with the NWS. This was because of a failure at the county level. They had the necessary weather info.
Yes, I canât imagine that applies to management.
In hindsight, the only thing that really couldâve been done is for parents to pull their kids out from the camp.
However, for the longtime residents there, it wouldâve required a evacuation
In the middle of the night?
Disagree. Some camps in the area paid attention to the warnings and weather and moved everyone to safety before things got bad.
The residents are a different story. I would say that the countyâs lack of a warning system was the big failure, but those folks could have paid attention to the weather, too.
Itâs just a fact that if youâre going to be sleeping in an area thatâs right along a river that is notorious for flash flooding, you have to respect that danger and be more diligent than if you were somewhere else.
3 Likes
Not to mention from hours away in other cities.
If the camp admins had the weather info as coogman91 mentioned, then perhaps parents couldâve pulled them the days prior to the flood
Ok, that makes more sense than your previous statement.
If all the parents would have tried to drive to camp and get their kids that night half of the camp and parents, or more, would have died.
It would have been a giant cluster.uckâŠthink about drop off day and make it 100 times less organized.
What that area needs is emergency warning horns that locals have resisted. Thereâs a reason tornado prone states have them. They save lives.
1 Like
I agree the NWS did their job in issuing warnings based on their forecasts, but the lack of a NWS Warnings Coordinator reduced the ability to act on those warnings. The information was there, but didnât connect.
As it was, the NWS broadcast their warnings out into the general public, but appears they didnât get targeted warnings out to specific local Emergency Management Coordinators, like Cities and County.
That is one of the roles of the NWS Warnings Coordinator. Better coordination and targeted calls (instead of just broadcasting the message into the great wide open) could have made the difference.
2 Likes
Are you suggesting that not a single parent knew of the looming storm, and couldnât have been able to make contact with admins days prior to see if necessary measures are in place in case of a flood?
Or did everyone just ignore this for whatever reason, with or without a NWS coordinator