🚀 go-pugleaf

Although I suspected it already...I am beginning to see that in the Omaha
Metro area......"We are spoiled rotten"!  With 6 HAMS in the NWS office in
Omaha, a few more in the Grand Island NWS office, the Deputy Director of
my county EMA is a HAM, as are 3 or 4 others in the state as well, we have
an extremely good working relationship. It must be said though that most of
the less populated areas of Nebraska are not so fortunate.

For all of those that are EC's, or even non-HAM administrators, it is
appropriate here to quote from the Memorandum of Understanding that exists
between the NWS and the ARRL (American  Radio Relay League)
which states "SKYWARN is the spotter program sponsored by the NWS. Radio
Amateurs have assisted as communicators since its inception. In
areas where tornadoes and severe weather have been known to threaten,
NWS recruits volunteers and trains them in proper weather spotting
procedures and accepts the volunteers' reports during watches and episodes
of severe weather".

So it draws a line in the sand I guess. Spotters (be they HAMs, Law
Enforcement, Firefighters, REACT, etc.) who are "trained" by the NWS are in
effect an arm of but not under complete control of the NWS. When NWS
"requests" spotters they do so as just another " tool" to make their job of
warning the public a little easier and more accurate. Whether there are
spotters in the area or not, NWS still must do its job. As I said yesterday
activation of spotters can be requested by any official be it an ARES EC,
EMA director, Sheriff, Police Chief, Mayor, ...you get the idea. No matter
who calls them out however, it is important to remeber  that the information
reported, should go directly to the NWS  first.

To address Chris's question about "overzealous" local emergency management
officials, I do believe it is a common problem all over the US.
 Assuming for a moment that the spotters have done their job and the NWS is
issuing warnings for affected counties/cities, let's remove them (spotters)
from the picture. And forget about local Radio/TV too...they march to a
different drum anyway. What are we left with? The NWS issuing warnings and
whether or not the local governments are receiving/acting on them. Kinda
sounds like Ft. Smith  does'nt it? And the solution should be pretty obvious.

Like with any "public safety" issue, EDUCATION is they key. By enlarge I get
the impression that the public would prefer hear the sirens going off
uneccessarily than not at all. Tell them that even though a supercell may be
20-30 miles away, cities in the path of inflow or outflow boundries
can be affected by 60-70 mph gust fronts. We all know what wind like that
can do to a mobile home. If the decision were mine to make, I would much
rather field phone calls from people "pissed"  that they were woke up at
11:10 p.m. for "nothing" than from those who had loved ones die from a late
sounding or no sounding  at all. Which one do you think will get on Brokaw,
or Rather, or Jennings, or Prime Time Live??? (Having plugged the media back
into the equasion)

The information, the technology, the resources are there.(And in most cases
are free) If local government officials are not smart enough or don't care
enough to learn how to access/use them then perhaps they should not take on
the responsibility in the first place.

And like it or not we also need to place the NWS on a high pedestal so they
will be around for another 100 years. Even as you read this, members of
Congress are trying to turn the NWS responsibility over to commercial
venture In the guise of smaller govt. .  Will it then become like the
Weather Channel.....3 minutes of  "taped" weather and 10 minutes of
repeated commercials???
Ron Clark    N0POM
Emergency Coordinator-Sarpy County, NE
E-Mail  ronc@top.net
             a0321544@metro.mccneb.edu
Packet  N0POM@WB0BLR.#WIA.IA.USA.NA