An amazingly universal phenomenon strikes politicians of all stripes whenever they are caught flat-footed and unprepared by a storm. See, they couldn't prevent the storm, so why is the public all bitchy about it? An equally plausible explanation for what happened in Georgia this week is a raging case of rightwing Deficit Obsession Syndrome; the irrational fear that government may have to spend taxpayer money to protect and serve taxpayers. Time to scapegoat gubmint weather scientists!
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal threw the National Weather Service under the bus -- but his statement shows a complete misunderstanding of the role of the NWS forecasters and the role of emergency decision-makers, including himself. The meteorologists make the weather forecasts, the emergency managers and decision-makers at cities, counties, states, and school boards are supposed to understand the impact of the weather, direct the government response, and communicate recommended actions to the public. Shockingly, the governor and the Atlanta mayor didn’t see that as their responsibility. This is distressingly similar to Hurricane Sandy, of course. A major city, along with the state in this case, in spite of direct communications with the National Weather Service, is unable to put the pieces together to understand the RISK to their citizens.
In my book the undisputed king of this blame shifting genre is Michael Chertoff. The head of Homeland Security actually implied with a straight face on live TV, multiple times on all major networks, that one reason his department dropped the ball during Katrina was due to a purported, never identified
newspaper headline he read the next morning saying NOLA may have dodged a bullet.
- Isaac Asimov was eerily accurate 50 years ago.
- Face/palm: a UFO conspiracy nut takes NASA to court to force them to tell The Truth, which he must know is surely Out There.
- Many of us in the science-blogging community are virtually wincing just thinking about how Creationists might try and clumsily latch onto this blame-the-Neanders research.
- There has got to be a way to blame poor people making minimum wage, while sparing job creating Koch funded think-tanks and industrial waste, for crashing butterfly and plummeting baby penguin populations.
- Here's your Superbowl weather forecast, and if it turns out wrong, you know who to blame!
“There will be a two or three day window up there where some milder air moving in and it will be some relatively calm Sunday through Monday,” said Michael Palmer, a lead meteorologist from the Weather Channel. “The NFL is going to seriously luck out this weekend.”
