Our coastal cities are increasing in size and population every year. The problem is the fact that when tropical storms and hurricanes approach, more people are displaced because of mandatory and voluntary evacuations. I believe New Orleans officials made the right call when it came to Gustav. They told everyone to leave and gave plenty of time for everyone to do it. They had to do it because fifteen hundred people didn't live through Katrina.Late last week it was the Florida Keys turn to evacuate, just in case Ike made a direct hit. Instead it hit Cuba and spared the Keys from any damage.
Some residents of Louisiana are still up and arms after a week long ordeal sleeping on cots, eating MRI's, but more importantly being inconvenienced...especially since the metro New Orleans area didn't have "K2" or the second Katrina.
It's easy for us to speculate (being in the midwest where we're only thrown a foot of snow or a tornado every year or two) but what do you think will happen if Ike strengthens and heads toward a major city like New Orleans or Houston? Do you think people will be less likely to heed warnings with future storms? If so, what needs to happen in the future to ensure everyone's safety? Please comment!
4 comments:
Okay, you asked, so here's my opinion:
I do think there is a problem with "crying wolf" too often. Look at what people here in the Midwest do when there's a tornado warning. Many of them completely ignore it, or (worse) mock or laugh at such warnings. They've been doing that for years and "nothing ever happened," so they think there is no need to take it seriously.
I'm sure the same thing can happen with hurricanes.
I think the answer is education, education, education. Not dumbed-down pseudo-education, but real fact-based, non-hyped education, that aims not to "train" people (to behave in a certain way under certain conditions) but rather to teach them why such warnings are issued, what goes into making a call for a warning or an evacuation, the science (however good, bad, hazy or incomplete) of the kind of weather phenomenon involved, and of predicting danger from it, etc., etc.
I think people on the whole are pretty smart. I think that "dumbed down" messages ("do this now, because some nameless faceless agency said so") which are supposed to be "clear" and "unambigious" actually have the effect of causing people to ignore such messages.
I also think the media (and here I don't include broadcast meteorologists, who are usually pretty good about this, but everybody else) needs to sign on to a voluntary "responsible media coverage" code promising NOT to "hype" pending weather phenomena in order to increase ratings or viewership.
I think that same voluntary code ought to include a voluntary agreement NOT to send high profile reporters to the very locations that are being evacuated, and then breathlessly "check in - live" with them every 15 or 30 minutes so viewers can watch them being battered (often dangerously so) by the very elements that the viewers are supposed to take shelter from. This is not reporting; it is ratings hype. Same reason you don't give live access to the airwaves to storm chasers with a videocam looking for tornados ... you don't send Ann or Al or whoever to stand in harms way while some considerably less well-paid camera crew, also in harm's way, tries to send live video out live to tens of millions of rubbernecking viewers. This is irresponsible broadcast journalism, and in my view it contributes (Big Time) to the public sense that NWS or government agencies that order evacuations are just "crying wolf."
Gee, maybe some other day I'll tell ya how I really feel... :)
Personally, I agree with everything Wi Weather Buff said :-)
There is a growing trend in some areas that can afford it (or have the right sponsorship connections, which isn't necessarily a bad thing) to have live storm chaser video/audio. However, the people in that category - at least for now - are responsible and have some sort of affiliation with the station they're providing content for. The information is invaluable as it gives real information from a qualified source on a rapidly changing situation.
Hurricanes... not so much. Something that's lumbering along at 15-20 mph that has generally little in the way of change (except in localized spots) doesn't need, as you said, live updates every 15 minutes.
The difficult part of our job in trying to get people to understand warnings isn't that we can't think of ways for people to understand. It's that many just don't WANT to even care to begin with, unless something is bearing down on their house at that very moment. THEN they want to know.
Note that this is my personal opinion and not necessarily that of any of my fellow meteorologists or my employer. :)
It's that many just don't WANT to even care to begin with, unless something is bearing down on their house at that very moment. THEN they want to know.
I believe that in the (not-so-distant) future GIS technologies integrated with various kinds of e-delivery systems will allow that to happen.
Post a Comment