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August 19, 2004
Morons
Many morons have been writing to my local newspapers, including this pinhead who feels that the meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center (a great number of whom have doctorates ) were criminally incompetent.
I guess this pinhead does not understand the definition of forecast . He is not the only one to write in complaining that we did not have a direct hurricane hit on the Tampa area. I think that is good news for those of us in the Tampa area, but these people are angry that their houses were not damaged and that they were not killed.
Most amusing was his final paragraph: "The intelligence agencies of this nation are undergoing a complete overhaul since 9/11. Hurricane Charley will be the 9/11 for the National Weather Service in general and the National Hurricane Center in particular."
NOAA, the NWS and the NHC/TPC are not part of the intelligence community to suggest that they are demonstrates the ignorance of the letter writer. The area that was hit by the hurricane was under a hurricane watch, and then a hurricane warning well before the storm arrived. The failure of people to keep themselves informed cannot be caused by the NHC. Those that chose to ignore the warnings, those that chose not to evacuate, those that failed to secure their property against damage are the only ones culpable. The NHC did its job admirably. They evaluated the data, the models, and created the best possible forecasts. To suggest that they were criminally incompetent is to demonstrate only the accusers ignorance.
Meteorologists, and librarians are similar (besides being underpaid government employees with long educational histories); we both provide information for the public. We can only make the information available, we can’t control how it is used.
Posted by Matthew at August 19, 2004 09:13 PM