Congressional Hearing Hears Warning Concerns

A senior National Weather Service official last week told a Congressional sub-committee that "dramatic improvement" is needed in the way flood information is communicated. Gary Carter, Director of Hydrologic Development of the National Weather Service said, "This really needs to be moved to a whole new level...where when we update a precipitation forecast, every one of our partners and the public see it instantly."

Carter was called before Congress to testify about the recent Nashville-area floods and concerns that flood warnings were issued too late, and not communicated well. Among others testifying to the Appropriations Sub-Committee of Energy and Water Development was the head of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce who said hundreds of millions of dollars of damage could have been avoided, had warnings been issued and communicated sooner.

Nashville area Congressman Jim Cooper was sharply critical of The Army Corps of Engineers. He told the hearing that the Corps after-action report was “putting a cheerful face on some really ugly facts. The Corps admits to no less than 27 categories of problems with their performance during the 2010 flood, so it’s hard to see how the Corps can give itself any kind of passing grade.”

Whit Adamson, President of the Tennessee Association of Broadcasters, asked for Congressional support for funding for modernization of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) in Tennessee. He said the upgrades required by the FCC and FEMA are "very expensive". Broadcasters, he said, need help with equipment purchases and funding for EAS training. In his written testimony, he pitched a statewide notification program that would span beyond EAS into telephone, text, and other alerting means. (Full disclosure: Galain is one of the co-authors of the plan.)

As we posted earlier, we saw the floods up close since we live in the Nashville area. We know first-hand how earlier and more effective warnings would have helped. It's pretty clear in this situation that there was a break-down in communications between the feds as the flood waters approached. The after-action report makes that clear. Local officials and FEMA have received high marks for their response. The community rallied. However, there are holes in the state's alert and warning system that need to be plugged.

All the best,

Rick