We have mentioned the now famous NWS statement on this blog many times in the past ten days... the one issued Sunday morning by the NWS in New Orleans before Katrina's arrival on the Gulf coast. Turns out this was a "canned statement", adjusted a bit by local New Orleans NWS forecaster Robert Ricks. Even though it was not original, it took real guts to hit the "send button".
Here is an article from columnist on the statement from Sean Kirst of the Post-Standard in Syracuse, NY:
Ominous words foretold catastrophic suffering, saved lives
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
SEAN KIRST
POST-STANDARD COLUMNIST
In the coming weeks and months, we will hear many tales about the heroes of Hurricane Katrina. We will hear about rescuers who put themselves at risk to save a neighbor or to pull some stranger out of the storm.
But the decision that probably saved more lives than any other was made on the morning of Aug. 28, inside a National Weather Service office in Slidell, La. It was made by meteorologists who went to a computer and released a document containing apocalyptic language.
Across the United States, Americans read that warning and realized what was coming.
Ten days later, those words read almost as a prophecy. That "inland hurricane warning" was released from Slidell at 10 a.m. that day, according to Walter Zaleski, the Texas-based southern region warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
Issued the day before Katrina made landfall, the warning described much of what would happen to New Orleans. Indeed, while some officials in Washington, D.C., have called for privatizing at least part of the National Weather Service, that agency was almost alone within the federal government in quickly comprehending what this hurricane could do.
It warned of "water shortages (that) will make human suffering incredible by modern standards." It warned that "much of the area will be uninhabitable." It warned of "roof and wall fail-
ure" for at least half of the "well-constructed homes" in the region.
In essence, it predicted that New Orleans would be destroyed.
"It's some of the strongest language we've ever used," Zaleski said. Hundreds of thousands of people who read the warnings and had the resources to flee got out of town.
The astounding thing is this: Despite the chillingly accurate nature of the warning, it was not specifically written for the coming of Katrina. The wording, Zaleski said, was part of a catastrophic hurricane "template" created years ago by the weather service. It was filed away in a computer, awaiting the day when a Category 5 hurricane threatened a heavily populated region.
The meteorologists near New Orleans, Zaleski said, pulled it up and did their jobs.
"There is no doubt," he said, "that our warnings from our weather service office in Slidell contributed to saving many thousands of lives."
The language had to be extreme, he said. He recalled how a massive low-pressure system battered Florida in 1993. The weather service issued storm warnings, but they did not trigger much concern in many residents. Twenty-six people died in the storm.
In what Zaleski described as an internal "post-mortem," the weather service realized that residents accustomed to threats of full-fledged hurricanes did not react or respond with high alarm.
"In 1993, some people said, 'It didn't sound (as bad as it turned out to be),' " Zaleski said.
Weather service officials remembered, he said. They prepared a series of what Zaleski calls general "impact statements" that used language meant to create certain reactions.
"We knew that people respond to key words," he said. "The weather service, working with social scientists, learned that warnings would be effective with key words and impacts, not only in hurricane warnings but in warnings across the board, (including) blizzards or tornadoes."
On Aug. 28, the meteorologists in Slidell understood what they were facing, Zaleski said. They did not want to leave any chance that residents of New Orleans would follow basic human nature and try to minimize the threat.
Those meteorologists released a warning that spoke of "human suffering" and an "uninhabitable" region. It might seem as if it were written specifically for New Orleans, but a careful reading 10 days later underlines Zaleski's point: The same warning would have worked if a Category 5 hurricane had approached Long Island or Miami or any populated region.
As for identifying the weather service officials who issued the warning, Zaleski said the staff at the office in Slidell declined Tuesday to speak about it publicly. "They're weary, their own homes have been destroyed and they're trying to do their work at the same time," he said.
But if the warnings helped to save countless lives, aren't they heroes?
"Anyone who kept working during that time," Zaleski said, "was a hero."
Here is an article from columnist on the statement from Sean Kirst of the Post-Standard in Syracuse, NY:
Ominous words foretold catastrophic suffering, saved lives
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
SEAN KIRST
POST-STANDARD COLUMNIST
In the coming weeks and months, we will hear many tales about the heroes of Hurricane Katrina. We will hear about rescuers who put themselves at risk to save a neighbor or to pull some stranger out of the storm.
But the decision that probably saved more lives than any other was made on the morning of Aug. 28, inside a National Weather Service office in Slidell, La. It was made by meteorologists who went to a computer and released a document containing apocalyptic language.
Across the United States, Americans read that warning and realized what was coming.
Ten days later, those words read almost as a prophecy. That "inland hurricane warning" was released from Slidell at 10 a.m. that day, according to Walter Zaleski, the Texas-based southern region warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
Issued the day before Katrina made landfall, the warning described much of what would happen to New Orleans. Indeed, while some officials in Washington, D.C., have called for privatizing at least part of the National Weather Service, that agency was almost alone within the federal government in quickly comprehending what this hurricane could do.
It warned of "water shortages (that) will make human suffering incredible by modern standards." It warned that "much of the area will be uninhabitable." It warned of "roof and wall fail-
ure" for at least half of the "well-constructed homes" in the region.
In essence, it predicted that New Orleans would be destroyed.
"It's some of the strongest language we've ever used," Zaleski said. Hundreds of thousands of people who read the warnings and had the resources to flee got out of town.
The astounding thing is this: Despite the chillingly accurate nature of the warning, it was not specifically written for the coming of Katrina. The wording, Zaleski said, was part of a catastrophic hurricane "template" created years ago by the weather service. It was filed away in a computer, awaiting the day when a Category 5 hurricane threatened a heavily populated region.
The meteorologists near New Orleans, Zaleski said, pulled it up and did their jobs.
"There is no doubt," he said, "that our warnings from our weather service office in Slidell contributed to saving many thousands of lives."
The language had to be extreme, he said. He recalled how a massive low-pressure system battered Florida in 1993. The weather service issued storm warnings, but they did not trigger much concern in many residents. Twenty-six people died in the storm.
In what Zaleski described as an internal "post-mortem," the weather service realized that residents accustomed to threats of full-fledged hurricanes did not react or respond with high alarm.
"In 1993, some people said, 'It didn't sound (as bad as it turned out to be),' " Zaleski said.
Weather service officials remembered, he said. They prepared a series of what Zaleski calls general "impact statements" that used language meant to create certain reactions.
"We knew that people respond to key words," he said. "The weather service, working with social scientists, learned that warnings would be effective with key words and impacts, not only in hurricane warnings but in warnings across the board, (including) blizzards or tornadoes."
On Aug. 28, the meteorologists in Slidell understood what they were facing, Zaleski said. They did not want to leave any chance that residents of New Orleans would follow basic human nature and try to minimize the threat.
Those meteorologists released a warning that spoke of "human suffering" and an "uninhabitable" region. It might seem as if it were written specifically for New Orleans, but a careful reading 10 days later underlines Zaleski's point: The same warning would have worked if a Category 5 hurricane had approached Long Island or Miami or any populated region.
As for identifying the weather service officials who issued the warning, Zaleski said the staff at the office in Slidell declined Tuesday to speak about it publicly. "They're weary, their own homes have been destroyed and they're trying to do their work at the same time," he said.
But if the warnings helped to save countless lives, aren't they heroes?
"Anyone who kept working during that time," Zaleski said, "was a hero."
on September 7, 2005, 1:16 pm
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