Thread by @GarySzatkowski

Have read this article and feel that it provides some insight into what happened with the #Ida flooding in NYC. I will sound like a one note horn, but I still feel this is primary a failure of political leadership. 1/x

https://twitter.com/dcehlk/status/1433779196468383751

The weather community is doing its part in looking at communication of the event, what was in the forecast and the warnings and when was it issued, but communication is a two-way street, and senior political leadership in NY/NYC did a stunning job of not listening. 2/x

Even if you are buying what the senior political leadership is selling, i.e., the storm was worse than forecast (Spoiler alert: The forecast and warnings were just fine), there is a level of obliviousness during the event that is simply negligent. 3/x

Because in the runup to the event, all they had to do was pay attention to what was going on around them, particularly upstream in a weather sense. Earlier that day, there is an uncontrolled release from a dam near Johnstown, PA (gee, that seems bad). 4/x

And then a little later, water rescues are occurring in the Pennsylvania suburbs west of Philadelphia (gee, that seems really bad). And then someone had to note, gee this seems to be heading toward NYC. Could it be that bad here? Answer: Yes. 5/x

Could more preparedness have stopped all the bad things that happened from the flooding? Of course not. But if you could have gotten some of the traffic off the roads earlier, if you could have protected some of the MTA infrastructure... 6/x

If you could have given more warning to people living in basement apartments and more flood prone areas, you give yourself a fighting chance to save more lives and better protect infrastructure. 7/x

And I am saying all of this was possible with 4 to 6 hours of lead time by just watching what was going on upstream and asking one or two smart questions. It sure doesn't sound like they did even that. 8/x

If you want 24 to 48 hours lead time for preparation, then listen to the forecast and the forecasters and understand the potential worst case scenario. It sure doesn't sound like they did that at all. 9/x

Looping back to the weather community, again, I see the search is underway to more effectively communicate impacts and risks. And we should do that. But we have been doing that a lot over recent years. I think it will take more than that. 10/x

As I mentioned earlier, communication is a two-way street and the most finely crafted forecast/warning goes nowhere when it encounters those not willing to listen. However, I will argue that senior political leaders, whatever their other qualities, are good listeners. 11/x

When I say that, I mean that a successful politician has to be able to read a crowd, understand how people will react to a policy position, get people to want to vote for them when they are at the ballot box. 12/x

A politician who doesn't listen well will tend to fail over the medium to long haul. So, when they are not listening to a weather forecast/warning, it is because they are choosing to, not because the weather community crafted it poorly. 13/x

And why not? If they wind up in the Natural Hazards penalty box because of a poor decision they made, they can always use the Get Out of Trouble card labelled "Blame the weather forecast." We have seen this countless times. 14/x

And it makes sense. It helps shape the media narrative and discussion. When the weather community openly discusses how to communicate better, one of the unfortunate side effects is that it contributes to the perception there was something 'wrong' with the forecast. 15/x

So my position is that the NYC Mayor and NY Governor left a disastrously huge amount of good/great information on the table unused. They failed to leverage it. The weather community can put even more good/great information on the table for future events. 16/x

But if senior political leaders/key decision makers leave it there unused, then this pattern will repeat. And I think we all know the definition of doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result. 17/fin