By Ted Besesparis
Vice President, Communications
PIA National

On the eve of what could be a disastrous hurricane season, a bureaucratic war has broken out which could undermine our nation’s disaster preparedness.

Both the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service are part of a larger government agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But both have their own directors, their own staffs and their own budgets.

Over the years, people have come to depend on the hurricane center for timely tropical storm-related information, and the weather service for weather information that’s not tropical. Both agencies have earned the public’s trust through years of competence and professionalism. They are two areas of federal disaster preparedness that work well.

In an example of bureaucrats attempting to break something that is not broken, NOAA is now trying to “re-brand” storm and weather information the public receives as coming from NOAA.  NOAA is attempting to raise its own prominence, implying that the hurricane center is of lesser importance. This is a mistake.

Demoting the National Hurricane Center in this manner undermines its well established credibility with the public. It risks creating confusion in the run-up to disasters. Confusion is something responsible emergency preparedness officials should always want to avoid.

There is more at work here than a few inflated egos at NOAA.

Research vs. Image

The new director of the National Hurricane Center, Bill Proenza, created a firestorm of controversy recently when he lashed out at his superiors at NOAA, saying the agency is more concerned with image-building than bolstering storm forecasting.  Proenza is perturbed because he says NOAA plans to spend as much as $4 million on a 200-year anniversary celebration. Meanwhile, he said, the agency has shortchanged hurricane research by about $700,000.

The hurricane center director also indicated that it is disingenuous for NOAA to be throwing a 200th anniversary celebration for itself because the agency was created in 1970. A NOAA spokesman said one of the agency’s predecessors, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, dates from 1807. The NOAA spokesman also said $1.5 million, not $4 million, is the amount being spent for NOAA’s anniversary.

After this dispute started playing out, NOAA announced that it has slashed the flight time of “hurricane hunter” flights to 354 hours in 2007, down from 707 hours in 2005. It is not known if NOAA’s move to cut the flight time by the famed forecasting aircraft is related to the fact that Mr. Proenza went public with his criticisms of NOAA. One would hope not.

Proenza said there is a broader NOAA agenda at work to publicize its name and diminish the profile of the weather service and the hurricane center. He said emergency managers have complained that would create a credibility problem, hampering the effectiveness of severe weather warnings.

One need only look at what happened to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after it got gobbled up by the Department of Homeland Security to see why NOAA’s actions are ill-conceived.  FEMA was transformed from an excellent agency serving a critical public need into an ineffective organization that failed to respond appropriately after Hurricane Katrina.

Not related to this, but still ominous to people living in the path of hurricanes, was the news that FEMA will miss the Congressionally-mandated June 1 deadline for updates to its national disaster plan. A week after informing Congress that the update would not be ready, FEMA Director R. David Paulison was telling a conference of emergency managers in Florida, “don’t believe the stories that you’ve heard that FEMA and the federal government are not ready.”

No Way to Prepare

This is no way to prepare for a hurricane season. Small wonder that a recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that only three in 10 Americans believe the federal government is prepared for a disaster.

Congress needs to step up and put an end to NOAA’s counterproductive efforts. There is absolutely no excuse for spending any taxpayer dollars — be it $4 million or $1.5 million — to “celebrate” NOAA’s 200th anniversary, or its 37th anniversary, whichever it is.  In addition, NOAA should be bolstering the National Hurricane Center, not attempting to take credit for its excellent work.

Two years ago, the whole country witnessed the people of New Orleans suffer the massive destruction that a killer hurricane can cause. To prepare for the next hurricanes, we don’t need an expensive “celebration” paid for with millions of taxpayers dollars. We need more research to improve the accuracy of hurricane forecasts. And as another storm season looms, shifting the public’s attention away from the National Hurricane Center makes no sense at all.

A clear message must be sent to NOAA: knock it off!
 
Ted Besesparis tedbe@pianet.org is vice president of communications for PIA National.

This article originally appeared in the May 2007 PIA Connection.