Yesterday, I covered several of the findings and recommendations from the official NWS Service Assessment on their efforts from Hurricane Katrina. Here is a summary of the remaining items.
Because of massive communications failures, several National Weather Service offices in the South had to assume the duties of offices that were affected by the hurricane. Several snafus developed with the new national forecast grid system when the backup officers were unable to upload the data. Backup offices also had problems performing certain tasks that were developed by the affected offices. Procedures will be put in place to handle these problems in the future.
Telephone disruptions caused significant communications hardships after the storm. Alternative communications methods, including high frequency amateur radio equipment or satellite phones will be explored.
Automatic Surface Observing Systems (ASOS) stations are frequently knocked out of commission by power failures or damaged by the wind during landfalling hurricanes. This was the case during Katrina. This obviously hampers the efforts of the NWS. Steps have to be taken to provide backup power and harden this equipment.
Other recommendations included archiving experimental elements of the new National Digital Forecast Database and pre-testing systems when significant events cause major forecast centers to move out of harm’s way in the face of an advancing storm. Finally, requests for information from other Governmental agencies were not well coordinated and better communications protocols will be established.
All of these recommendations will be important in the National Weather Service’s mission of saving lives and protecting property. But, something not to miss is that the report hailed the tremendous efforts of the various National Weather Service offices and the National Hurricane Center.
Because of massive communications failures, several National Weather Service offices in the South had to assume the duties of offices that were affected by the hurricane. Several snafus developed with the new national forecast grid system when the backup officers were unable to upload the data. Backup offices also had problems performing certain tasks that were developed by the affected offices. Procedures will be put in place to handle these problems in the future.
Telephone disruptions caused significant communications hardships after the storm. Alternative communications methods, including high frequency amateur radio equipment or satellite phones will be explored.
Automatic Surface Observing Systems (ASOS) stations are frequently knocked out of commission by power failures or damaged by the wind during landfalling hurricanes. This was the case during Katrina. This obviously hampers the efforts of the NWS. Steps have to be taken to provide backup power and harden this equipment.
Other recommendations included archiving experimental elements of the new National Digital Forecast Database and pre-testing systems when significant events cause major forecast centers to move out of harm’s way in the face of an advancing storm. Finally, requests for information from other Governmental agencies were not well coordinated and better communications protocols will be established.
All of these recommendations will be important in the National Weather Service’s mission of saving lives and protecting property. But, something not to miss is that the report hailed the tremendous efforts of the various National Weather Service offices and the National Hurricane Center.
on July 23, 2006, 11:35 am
I understand the technology between NWS offices can vary, creating issues when transferring duties. What I do not understand is the disruption of telephone service playing a roll in a communication breakdown. HF radio manned by properly licensed operators should be standard equipment at any NWS office located in an area subject to wide spread outages (such as the gulf coast), and rural locations.
Lack of telephone service should have never been a factor.
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