Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
If anything was good about this event, it was the fact that it was so well
forecast. There were days ahead of time that we were able to tell people
that there was going to be a pretty good risk of
significant severe weather on that day.
So that did allow a lot of people to be prepared for it.
Unfortunately there was loss of life which we
always hate to see, and I think it's difficult
on the staff when that happens. You do feel responsible
even though when you issued the warning, and
you issued a good warning with good lead time, you still feel
I think somewhat responsible when people lose their lives.
I think anytime you have an event like
this, it affects everyone whether they were part of the event
or just happened to be on a day off. And that's the funny thing as a meteorologist
working a rotating schedule is you might miss
two tornado outbreaks in a row because you just happened to land a
day off, but then the next one happens the following year on the midnight shift
or the evening shift and then suddenly you're part of it. So I think everyone here
realizes
wow, if I wasn't part of that
I very well may be a part of the next one. I need to
learn and be part of the process
even though I wasn't part of the process on that day.
And I think that's how we approach things here at the Wilmington office is
even if you're not part of an event
you relive the event
by talking and discussing how we could have done things better
and where there are weaknesses in our operations and training.
And we come out of that being better meteorologists
in the long run. So I think whether
staff members are directly involved or not really doesn't matter
its part of their day-to-day job and they know that they very well may be facing the next one
and be making those same decisions.
Everybody worked really well together. There was really excellent preparation
because this was forecasted in
advance and everybody kind of had their positions.
They were ready. They were
broken into different sectors monitoring different areas.
Even the phone calls never really seemed to get
overwhelming. It was all managed really well
for something that you can drill
and you can discuss it
but the real thing is always just
something you can't completely prepare for and everybody worked
as efficiently as they could.
And that was impressive.
Kind of looking back on how things unfolded and, you know, I had a--
I guess you would call it a sense of pride
of being part of that team and I felt
how everyone really worked well together and
you know, things were hectic. Some things might've
not been done perfectly, but at the same time
I was really
honored to be a part of that team and
felt very
blessed to be working with people who
cared so much about the weather and were such
hard workers and did everything in their power to get the word out and to do
everything that needed to
be done during this event. And I just felt very
fortunate to be a part of that team and
call those people my coworkers.
The office ended up receiving the Department of Commerce
bronze medal for their work on this event. The bronze medal is the
third-highest
award that the Department of Commerce gives out.
And to have the employees acknowledged
for their hard work that day, for the
tremendous lead times that they provided to the public that day
was fantastic. This was the biggest day
that many my staff members have worked, and I think they did come away as very
different people.
For the first time in their careers, they saw what a significant difference
that they can make in saving lives and property
in real time--sitting on the radar and putting out
real-time tornado warnings and trying to give people
30 minutes of lead time to be able to take the appropriate action
to save their lives with the tornadoes, and knowing that
you had something to do with that-- I think that will change these peoples'
lives forever. It
happened in their own backyard, and they had a hand in saving lives
and protecting property.
Being in the Weather Service for roughly 20 years, I also was part of the team that surveyed the damage after
the 1997
flood that killed 22 people in Kentucky.
Surveying that damage and surveying this damage,
the 1997 flood does remain
the deadliest and most devastating event we've had in our
office's history. One thing that struck me
when I did the damage survey for the 1997 flood,
particularly in the Falmouth area and several other
areas where the flooding was rapid, was how similar
it was to tornadic damage in that homes were just completely wiped off their
foundation. We found homes on top of cars
just that tornadic damage is certainly deadly and all
tornado warnings do need to be heeded as if they are an EF-4
tornado. The same goes for
flood and flash floods--if it's a high-end type flood event it can be
just as deadly.
I would say March 2nd is one of the more significant events that I've been involved with during my career.
I have been in the Weather Service for quite a long time,
and I did experience Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina
which wreaked tremendous damage along the coast.
A hurricane really covers a much larger
area but damage very similar to what we saw
with March 2nd, so it does rank
right up there with the events that I've seen.
This has to be up there as one of the top events, because
I've been at this office for a few tornado outbreaks that we've had,
including November 10th, 2002 and also the
April 9th, 1999 Blue Ash tornado
northeast of Cincinnati. And by far this was the biggest event
including the aftermath and the storm damage surveys that we have to conduct.
The events that we experienced on March 2nd, 2012--
those type of tornadoes are not something that we see routinely here in the Ohio
River Valley in our section of the country. But we prepare for them
continuously by working with our partners, both in the emergency management
community and the media to prepare for them--
make sure everyone's educated and that the systems work.
So we've done a lot of severe weather spotter training,
workshops with the media and emergency management,
to increase the level of awareness and preparedness.
Anytime you have a significant event in an area,
after that event you do see an increased attendance
at severe weather spotter training classes.
That's a plus for us because the more eyes
and ears that we have out there, the better job
we're able to do. And even coming into this year,
I've seen an increased attendance, so I think
that effect is even lasting into this year as well.
So from that aspect
you hate to see these events, but they do increase peoples'
awareness and their interest in becoming
were knowledgeable about severe weather and more prepared for it.
This event really helped
first raise awareness of our social media presence
but also kind of gave us a guide as to what we wanted to
do in the future in terms of alerting people to
potentially hazardous weather, both in the preparedness
stage in terms of the severe weather preparedness weeks giving them
safety tips and that type of thing and also
kind of expanding our role and the
display of information we give them
as the severe weather events are unfolding
or just prior to them unfolding and able to kind of
spell things out in both graphical and
and text information and making that clear
and just within the past year since that event has
occurred our presence has really grown and we've seen a
much larger number of people sharing our information with others and really
getting the word out.
What I take away from this event is just the confirmation that significant tornado outbreaks are very possible here.
They've happened before. They're going to happen again.
And people are going to need to be prepared for severe weather
at any time of the year, and as weather forecasters
we need to be prepared to do our best no matter when,
no matter how, no matter how many, to get the word out and get people to safety when
we need to.
Voice of Ken Haydu: Despite the commotion and frenzy within our office
that afternoon and evening, the staff of the National Weather Service office in
Wilmington, Ohio
came together to issue timely and accurate warnings
and to provide critical weather information to our media
and emergency management partners. Protecting lives and property
has always been at the heart the National Weather Service mission.
It's what motivates us when the weather takes a turn for the worse,
when stressful warning decisions need to be made quickly,
no matter the time of day or night. Our thoughts and prayers are with those
who were affected by the damaging storms of March 2nd, 2012
and especially those who lost their loved ones on that day.
We especially want to thank our partners
who helped us that critical day-- the emergency management community at both
the county and the state level,
who've worked with us throughout the years to help people to prepare to take the right action--
the media, who are very critical in helping us to get the word out--
and then our spotters and amateur radio people who help provide us critical information
during the heat of the battle. To all these individuals
we express our thanks.