Federal Forecasters Got Hurricane Right

[undeRliRcs]

Federal Forecasters Got Hurricane Right

By JOHN PAIN, Associated Press Writer

Friday, September 16, 2005

For all the criticism of the Bush administration's confused response to Hurricane Katrina, at least two federal agencies got it right: the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center.

They forecast the path of the storm and the potential for devastation with remarkable accuracy.

The performance by the two agencies calls into question claims by President Bush and others in his administration that Katrina was a catastrophe that no one envisioned.

For example, Bush told ABC on Sep. 1 that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." In its storm warnings, the hurricane center never used the word "breached." But a day before Katrina came ashore Aug. 29, the agency warned in capital letters: "SOME LEVEES IN THE GREATER NEW ORLEANS AREA COULD BE OVERTOPPED."

National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield also gave daily pre-storm videoconference briefings to federal officials in Washington, warning them of a nightmare scenario of New Orleans' levees not holding, winds smashing windows in high-rise buildings and flooding wiping out large swaths of the Gulf Coast.

A photo on the White House Web site shows Bush in Crawford, Texas, watching Mayfield give a briefing on Aug. 28, a day before Katrina smashed ashore with 145-mph winds.

The National Weather Service office in Slidell, La., which covers the New Orleans area, put out its own warnings that day, saying, "MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS ... PERHAPS LONGER" and predicting "HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS."

Mayfield and Paul Trotter, the meteorologist in charge of the Slidell office, both refused to criticize the federal response.

Full article here: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n.../a124236D94.DTL

[vincent]

oh well its in the passt so its kinda pointless given the current situation. What needs to be focused on is the recovery effort, too late to point fingers dont you think?

[odious_m]

Reminds me of a similar situation of Bush being asleep at the switch--when a top-secret briefing memo was presented to him on Aug. 6 2001 headlined, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

.....too late to point fingers dont you think?

586535776[/snapback]

Uh yeah--thass right.... we doan wanna be playin' thuh blame game heyuh....

[undeRliRcs]

oh well its in the passt so its kinda pointless given the current situation. What needs to be focused on is the recovery effort, too late to point fingers dont you think?

586535776[/snapback]

Yes, recovery is vital; never said it wasn't. But which is better? To fix problems after they occur and say, "Whoops, we didn't know, though we did get reports about it before it occured." Or to be alert to such reports and deal with the possible problems before they occur? Wouldn't it be better in the future, if we don't let federal administrators sit on warnings and such?

[Aaron Veteran]

Do you know the difference between "overtopped" and breaking? Here's a hint, they are not the same thing.

Bush called the Governor and told here to evacuate the city on the Sunday before the hurricane hit. They chose to wait.

[Black Hawk]

Do you know the difference between "overtopped" and breaking?  Here's a hint, they are not the same thing.

586536342[/snapback]

Doesn't really matter when both mean that the levee is going to get damaged somehow :rofl:

For the record, I'm not comepletly blaming the federal gov't. I guess I expected them to do a bit more. To me the blames falls on alot of levels of the state and federal gov't and we need to find out how we can prevent this from happening a second time.