[EAS] Kerrville and Ruidoso

[Bill Ruck]

 From The Economist

Weather warnings are a science, but also an art

One man who lived in the region for nearly half a century explains that 
residents have "become somewhat calloused to weather forecasters' 
warnings". When people live in dangerous places they get bombarded with 
warning messages. Some storms do become dire, as this one did, but other 
alerts turn out to be false alarms. That has brought about a feeling 
that forecasters are "crying wolf". If the river did not breach its 
banks the last ten times you got a message like this, do you really need 
to evacuate now? One meteorologist told me that some of the cabins at 
the summer camp by the river where many children died were so close to 
higher ground that had the girls walked a few hundred yards before the 
flooding began they could have survived. Instead, counsellors told 
campers who woke up from the rain to go back to sleep.

Choosing when and how to send out warnings is surely a science, but it 
is also an art that requires a deep understanding of human behaviour. 
Research has shown that people need the messages to be confirmed by 
multiple sources. Their content matters too. Academics at the University 
at Albany analysed over 6,000 of the emergency alerts that went to 
American cell phones between 2012 and 2022 and found that only 8.5% 
included the most necessary content: information about the hazard, its 
location, source and timing, and guidance about what to do. As storms 
become more unpredictable--this one in Texas intensified faster than 
meteorologists predicted--it becomes harder for the weather service and 
local politicians to know what to say and when to raise the alarm. 
Getting it wrong can not only be deadly in the moment, but can also lead 
to mistrust later on. Emergency managers say people are listening less.

Late on Wednesday night I was sitting on my couch in Atlanta, Georgia, 
reading stories of the people who were swept away in the Texas 
floodwaters--eight-year-old girls, police officers, families on camping 
holidays. Suddenly my phone buzzed. There was a flash-flood warning for 
my county. I looked outside and noticed the rain pounding against my 
windows. It didn't look so bad to me, and after all, my neighbourhood 
rarely floods. I decided it was time to go to bed.

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Bill Ruck
Curmudgeon
San Francisco