2016 is looming as the year during which a gap in weather satellites could leave the nation without some of the severe storm data that’s vital to early warnings. After 2011’s record-breaking severe weather — with 12 disasters that cost more than $1 billion — it seems counterintuitive that budget reductions may create a period of 12 to 18 months during which severe warnings days in advance of a storm likely won’t be available, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predictions.

Vital to weather forecasting, two polar-orbiting satellites collect data above the Earth’s poles 14 times per day and feed data into a computer model. According to NOAA, the satellites’ orbits “provide two complete views of weather around the world,” which allow meteorologists to “develop models to predict the weather out to five to 10 days.” In addition, polar-orbiting weather satellites provide about 90 percent of the data used in National Weather Service forecast models.

The two satellites provide continuity of information, with one providing data during the mid-morning orbit and the other in the early afternoon. The first is run by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, which partners with NOAA and benefits from the information collected in the afternoon orbit. The second satellite is owned by the United States — and is where the information gap issue lies.

Because of a funding reduction, Ajay Mehta, deputy director for NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), said the launch of the new satellite, called JPSS-1, was delayed. JPSS-1 will replace a NASA satellite that was launched on Oct. 28, 2011. NASA’s satellite — called the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project, or NPP for short — will provide operational data for four or five years.

“That is an important thing for our continuity because [it’s] the last of the old generation of satellites we had launched in 2009,” Mehta said. “That one is only going to last for another couple of years.”

While NASA’s satellite is providing continuity of information, its life cycle is expected to end in 2016, and Mehta estimated that JPSS-1 won’t be fully operational until 2017. The time between NPP and JPSS-1 is when the information gap is expected.

“For the polar orbit, we have had operational satellites since 1979, so this mission is critical to provide continuity of NOAA operational data sets,” said Mitch Goldberg, JPSS program scientist. “NOAA has products and services, such as weather forecasting, and they depend on this constant flow of data from satellites going to weather prediction models.”

Funding Issues Abound

Last year was rife with concerns over how much funding NOAA’s satellite program would receive and what that would mean for the future of severe weather forecasting in the United States. NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco had many poignant sound bites in 2011, including that budget cuts to the satellite would be a “disaster in the making;” that in a few years, the agency may not be able to do the severe storm warnings that people have come to expect; and that it could cost three to five times more to rebuild the project than to keep funds flowing toward it.

President Barack Obama requested a little more than $1 billion for 2011 and beyond for the polar-orbiting satellite program. On Nov. 18, 2011, legislation was enacted that gave JPSS $924 million for 2012. “While we’re happy with the level of funding in this fiscal environment, it was still almost $150 [million] less than the president’s request — therefore it will not eliminate the possibility of a gap,” Mehta said via email.

Accuracy Is Key

When thinking about impacts that the information gap could have on emergency management, a question arises: What would be different?

To help assess how beneficial the information from polar-orbiting satellites is to weather forecasting, the National Weather Service reran forecasts for Snowmageddon, the blizzard that hit the East Coast in February 2010, without the satellites’ data. “When they took the data out, they ended up mis-forecasting it by almost 50 percent,” Mehta said. With the polar-orbiting data, a 20-inch snowfall was predicted, and without it the forecast was 10 inches of snow. In reality during the week of storms, 28.6 inches of snow fell in Washington, D.C. — the most since 1922, according to NOAA.

“You can imagine the difference for decision-makers,” said Goldberg. “If someone tells you there is going to be a seven-inch snowstorm or two-foot snowstorm, you’re going to make different decisions based on those two scenarios.”

The last year also has seen an increase in severe weather. From the tornadoes in Alabama and Missouri to Hurricane Irene impacting the East Coast, tremendous amounts of devastation have occurred across the U.S., the forecasts for which have been “very good,” Goldberg said. Without data from the polar-orbiting satellites, however, he said there would be a major degradation of weather forecast performance.

Another issue is this information can’t be obtained from other sources. Although the United States partners with Europe’s satellite program, data from both orbits is needed, said Mehta. He added that NOAA is exploring all options and has looked into privately owned satellites — but that would not help prevent the predicted information gap.

“Our estimates show that for somebody to build a new instrument and launch it, it’s going to take much longer,” he said, “because we’ve already started building the instruments and spacecraft for JPSS-1.”

 And the lack of additional information sources also applies to state and local emergency management agencies. Larry Gispert, past president of the International Association of Emergency Managers and former emergency management director of Hillsborough County, Fla., said everyone — the private and public sectors — relies on NOAA and the National Weather Service for severe weather information. He said some companies will process that data and put their own spin on it — “but they all get that data from the federal government.”

Impacts on Emergency Management

What it comes down to is that emergency managers need severe weather data — and it must be as accurate as possible and provide enough time for preparing and evacuating people if needed. The island of Key West, Fla., is the year-round home to about 25,000 people, but sees more than 1 million visitors annually. Craig Marston, Key West’s division chief of emergency management and training, said evacuation procedures begin 96 to 72 hours before a storm is predicted to make landfall and having good, up-to-date information is key.

“We’re pretty far out there, so what really concerns us is that NOAA is able to maintain its air flights,” he said.

Marston works closely with the National Hurricane Center and the local Weather Forecast Office to know what the weather is doing and what to expect. In the event that severe weather data isn’t available for more than three days in advance, Key West’s ability to evacuate health-care patients and other populations could be jeopardized — 72 hours is the minimum amount of time needed to fly patients from the area. “We rely heavily on the Weather Service for its information,” Marston said.

Hillsborough County’s Gispert said the large numbers of people who live in coastal areas make storm information necessary to help with evacuations. “Emergency management people have a tough enough job without getting accurate data and some kind of advanced warning of potential threats,” he said.

Like most issues, it all comes down to money, and Gispert said public safety is one of government’s ultimate responsibilities. “If my congressman would ask me, and I often tell them, if it was a choice between funding one more bomb to Afghanistan or putting up a weather satellite, guess which one I am going to vote for.” 

County Judge Bob Hebert in conjunction with the Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management would like to recognize Municipal District Services, Severn Trent, SouthWest Water Company, Environmental Development Partners and Fort Bend County Municipal Utility District No.25 for participating in a voluntary National Incident Management System (NIMS) Program that he initiated in 2009.  In 2011, each company completed the requirements of the program and are hereby recognized as “NIMS Competent First Responders.”

Those recognized have earned the distinction by taking actions to become an integral part of the County’s emergency management network. The program involves a series of actions to be taken to make these operating companies more prepared for Hurricane Season, improve communications with emergency management staff at the County level, and truly begin to make the County’s water districts responsible for emergency management activities. County Judge Bob Hebert stated, “The program is based on assuring that participating operating companies are fully informed on the workings of the National Incident Management System and the role of the county in supporting all first responders during a declared emergency. The idea is to ensure improved communications between emergency management personnel and utility operators and to include utility district representation in the County EOC in all future activities.”

The conditions of the program included having employees from each utility operating company complete four NIMS on-line training courses (100, 200, 700 and 800).  Additionally, multiple employees have attended training sessions at the Fort Bend County Emergency Operations Center (EOC). During these sessions, attendees learned key definitions, the difference between crisis management and consequence management, the emergency response realities for municipal utility districts, the purpose and objectives of the County EOC, and the framework for the State of Texas Emergency Management Plan.

Jeff Braun, the County’s Emergency Management Coordinator, notes that “OEM staff is committed to expanding the readiness program and he is hopeful that additional companies will take advantage of the training offered in the voluntary program.”  Overall, the program is intended to ensure a more coordinated and effective response to water emergencies that may occur in the future in Fort Bend County.

The National Weather Service indicates that the City of Houston recorded 24.57 inches of rain in 2011, making 2011 the third driest year on record.  Further, the National Weather Service indicated that the rainfall totals this year rival the normal rainfall values for some cities in west Texas; places such as Abilene and San Angelo.

Over the years, Fort Bend County OEM has utilized its federal grant funds wisely, focusing on utilizing homeland security money for needed equipment and and systems; perhaps some jurisdictions in the United States have not effectively used grant funds, as suggested by Eric Holdeman, in the article below, but that is not the case in Fort Bend County.  Instead Fort Bend County has utilized available federal funding to purchase items that were both NEEDED and that would not be financially obtainable without the federal aid.

The Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management uses an “all-hazards” approach for protecting the County from threats.  Such an approach means that we are working on projects designed to project our citizens from all type of hazards (e.g. chemical spills, hurricanes, river flooding,etc…), not just terrorism hazards.  Clearly, much federal money has been made available to local governments to combat unseen terrorism threats.  However, it is imperative that investments in emergency management deliver a tangible benefit on a daily basis not just potential benefit in the relatively unlikely event of an attack in Fort Bend County.

Improving outdated radio equipment used by the County’s first responders has been a primary focus of homeland security expenditures in the County.  As many are well aware, lack of interoperable communications equipment compounded the problems in New York City on September 11, 2011.  However, using the federal funds to purchase new state-of-the-art radio equipment for our first responders facilitates effective response during a terrorist attack OR during daily routine.  The same equipment used to respond daily to accidents and crime scenes is exactly the same equipment that will be used during disasters caused by terrorists.  The key is to find dual-benefit solutions; Fort Bend County has done exactly that.

“Killing two birds” with one stone is the concept of a dual-benefit solution— an armored vehicle used by SWAT during a hostage situation can also be used by EMS crews to rescue injured citizens in them midst of hurricane force winds.  Developing two hazardous materials response teams in the County provides for quick and effective response to 18-wheelers that overturn on US 59, but the equipment and trained firefighters, doubling as trained haz-mat response experts, stand ready if an Oklahoma City bombing situation occurs in our area.  Prior to the development of a County-wide Hazardous Materials Response Team, responders would have to wait 30 or 45 minutes for a team to respond from the City of Houston.  In a County of almost 600,000 citizens, such a response time is unacceptable.  Instead, grant funds were effectively used to meet the intent of the DHS program while also assisting in everyday emergency management situations.

This article from Andrea Stone, Huffington Post, was published yesterday.  It is a pretty fair read on the situation.  We are definitely in time where budgets are lean and elected officials have to struggle to allocate limited resources against competing priorities.  As you read the article, please rest assured that the activities of Fort Bend County, led by County Judge Bob Hebert, are undertaken with the specific goal of enhancing security in the long-term, while simultaneously delivering benefit to daily operations.

When the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapse in 2007, a specially equipped urban search and rescue team based in the Twin Cities responded immediately, precious hours before a unit from Chicago could arrive.

When a lone deranged gunman shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 18 others in a supermarket parking lot last January, Tucson police monitored the chaotic scene with a real-time aircraft-to-land video link.

And when a devastating tornado destroyed Joplin, Mo., in May, a mobile command vehicle based in Kansas City rushed there to help coordinate the response.

In every case, federal grant money intended to help urban areas plan, equip and train for a terrorist attack was used to respond to the non-terrorist emergency. Now, a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, deep cuts in funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Area Security Initiative  (UASI) threaten to leave those cities and dozens of other smaller population centers without the money to maintain programs into which the federal government has already sunk millions of tax dollars.

It’s already happened in Tucson. In October, the city shut down the reverse 911 notification system paid for with UASI funds. Police have advised residents to check for alerts on Twitter– even though most don’t use the social networking site.

Advocates for continued funding warn of a not-too-distant future filled with mothballed, broken and outdated equipment; unemployed and expensively trained intelligence analysts; and fewer training exercises for first responders. A recent report by the UASI managers group argued that the federal government has “an equity stake” in improved local and state radio communications, information sharing, hazardous material response and regional planning and that it is not in the interests of taxpayers to see them “wither and eventually evaporate over time.”

“Whether it’s a bridge collapse or a skyscraper coming down, a natural or man-made disaster, tornado or terrorist — it’s the same kind of response,” said Bill Anderson, a Minneapolis emergency manager who heads the National UASI Association. “It’s crazy that DHS would bring people to this level of preparedness and then cut them off and walk away.”

But others are pleased that Congress has cut spending that they say has spiraled out of control.

“UASI funding should be directed to those urban areas at greatest risk, not spread far and wide to satisfy each mayor, governor or congressman’s inherent desire to have the maximum amount of homeland security funding,” said Daniel Kaniewski, deputy director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University and a former official in President George W. Bush’s White House. “The budget reality in Washington requires that scarce federal resources be allocated according to risk profiles, not wish lists.”

Until recently, Congress has granted the wishes of emergency managers from Bridgeport, Conn., to Oxnard, Calif. Since 2003, the UASI program has handed out $6.5 billion — most of it initially to 10 “Tier I” metro areas considered at the greatest risk of terrorist attack: New York, Washington, Los Angeles/Long Beach, Chicago, Houston, the San Francisco Bay area, Jersey City/Newark, Philadelphia, Boston and Dallas/Fort Worth.

Once the gravy train left the station, though, lawmakers and officials in 54 smaller, second-tier cities clamored for and received money to buy new equipment, conduct training and create regional information-sharing organizations known as fusion centers. Suddenly, places like Bakersfield, Calif.; Salt Lake City; Toledo; Memphis and El Paso, Texas — hardly obvious al Qaida targets — were getting millions.

“Everybody and his brother got a shiny new command vehicle, a communications van, patrol vessels, fire and police boats,” said Eric Holdeman, former emergency manager for Seattle and the surrounding King County. “It’s going to be very hard to sustain a lot of these.”

CUTS COMING

Especially now. In the 2011 budget, Congress cut 33 “Tier II’ cities from the program, including Providence, R.I.; Omaha, Neb.; and Sacramento. Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester and Albany were zeroed out in New York state, leaving only New York City in UASI.

More cuts are expected in 2012. Under the recently passed spending bill for DHS, state and local grants will be reduced by about $1 billion. The remaining $959 million in homeland security grants will be divvied up among at least nine different programs covering everything from port security to emergency medical response.

The legislation specifies that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano allocate no less than $100 million for “areas at the highest threat of terrorist attack.” Joshua Filler, a former DHS official who helped create UASI, recently wrote that while it was “reasonable” to assume that money would go to urban areas, Napolitano has discretion to distribute it “according to threat, vulnerability and consequence.”

Napolitano isn’t expected to announce a decision until late February. But many observers expect DHS will shrink the program back to the original 10 metro areas. That would leave Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, Miami and Seattle among those left out in the cold, with smaller metro areas already feeling the sting of budget cuts in areas such as bio-terrorism preparedness.

Democrats have railed against reduced funding. Rep. Brian Higgins of Buffalo has said the cuts pose “the potential of creating gaping holes in regions making significant contributions to our national security.”

Anderson and other UASI managers have asked Napolitano to allot $600 million for urban area grants, including $60 million for “sustainment and preservation of the capabilities developed over the past decade” in cities no longer eligible for funding in 2012.

But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and critics in Congress question the value of UASI grants. They say there has been little research into their effectiveness and even less oversight. Many point to millions in “unspent” grants sitting in city coffers, despite the fact that cities are given three years to spend grant money for services or equipment that has yet to be delivered.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, whose Long Island district lost more than 150 constituents on 9/11, has said it is time to stop spending money on low-risk regions of the country and instead concentrate increasingly scarce resources on big cities that remain the main targets of terrorists. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, also defended the cuts, arguing that “more government and more spending does not necessarily equal more security.”

“It never made sense for these grants to turn into permanent subsidies,” said Benjamin Friedman, a research fellow in homeland security studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “If states and localities think they need more emergency response capability or port security or whatever, then they ought to pay for it themselves. They have a better sense of what the relative priorities are.”

NOT JUST NEW YORK OR WASHINGTON

Supporters of continued funding point out that Osama bin Laden had been urging his followers to target smaller cities when he died and that recent terrorism suspects grew up or lived in American suburbs. They insist it is naive to think state and local governments walloped by the recession can fill the gap left by a cutoff of federal funds.

Before 9/11, counterterrorism was almost exclusively a federal issue. Today, in part due to federal homeland security grant programs like UASI, every state and 22 major urban areas have fusion centers, where analysts from local, state and federal agencies sift through and interpret threat data. Several big-city police departments, most controversially in New York, have set up their own intelligence divisions. The infusion of federal money also has contributed to an unwelcome militarization of police departments, which have bought Army-style armored personnel vehicles to use for crowd control and drug sweeps.

Despite some questionable purchases, Filler, the former DHS official, pointed out that UASI funds have played a small but critical role in securing cities against man-made and natural disasters by giving them “certain exotic capabilities they could not otherwise afford.” New York’s bomb squad used a UASI-funded remote-controlled robot to handle a car bomb in Times Square. Minneapolis has blasted federally funded sirens to warn of impending tornadoes. Miami purchased a fireboat to handle emergencies on cruise ships in its port.

By far the biggest chunk of UASI funds, $1.2 billion, has gone toward interoperable communications that allow first responders from different jurisdictions to talk to each other during emergencies. The 9/11 Commission Report cited construction of wireless networks as a top priority, and major cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles have deployed systems with help from the federal government. But smaller cities are still playing catch-up and worry funding cuts will reverse the progress they’ve made.

New Orleans was one of the first UASI cities to upgrade after a lack of interoperable communications during 2005′s Hurricane Katrina hobbled rescue efforts already struggling with the wholesale destruction of electrical networks and cell towers. Since then, new national standards for public safety communications have been introduced, but the city was cut from UASI in 2011 and doesn’t have the $36 million it needs to upgrade its equipment, said New Orleans’ UASI project manager, Robert Williams.

Bob Maloney, director of the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management in Baltimore, said his city spent $10 million in UASI money to build compatible regional communications with enough redundancy to work even if part of the system is knocked out. But with Baltimore on the list of cities that could be cut from the program and with Maryland facing a projected 2012 budget shortfall of $1.4 billion, Maloney doesn’t know where he will find the $850,000 he needs each year just to maintain the system. “It’s disastrous,” he said.

“Everything has a shelf life. People retire, equipment fades,” Filler said. “Investing in these capabilities and then to turn it basically off is to guarantee you’re going to lose the capability over time. The reason the feds invested in these in the first place is that they knew state and local governments couldn’t do it and needed it.”

UNSUSTAINABLE?

To Holdeman, who blogs about disaster management, the drawdown in homeland security funding a decade after 9/11 parallels the tale of the federal government’s Cold War civil defense program. All the fallout shelters stocked with food and water “just kind of wasted away,” he said, as the threat of nuclear annihilation waned. “The U.S. mentality is not one of sustainment,” Holdeman said. “We don’t have the persistence to maintain a long-term effort.”

Tim Johnstone runs the central California fusion center, a multi-agency operation that covers 34 counties from the Oregon border to Bakersfield. It not only collects and synthesizes information but trains intelligence analysts and police who handle community outreach to religious and ethnic minorities. One-quarter of the center’s $2.4 million operating budget comes from UASI, but that will run out in 2013 because Sacramento was dropped from the program in 2011. Unless he can find an extra $850,000, Johnstone will have to lay off analysts and cancel training.

“It is time we reprioritize and stop buying gas masks, mobile command vehicles and fire trucks, and focus on prevention, education and information sharing in a sustainable model,” Johnstone said. “These cuts will take us backwards [to] a time that is as dangerous threat-wise as prior to 9/11.”

Friedman, the Cato researcher, isn’t worried. “The odds of a terrorist attack in most parts of the country, even in most urban areas, are so low that I don’t think [UASI is] a particularly good investment,” he said.

That attitude is taking over, Holdeman warned.

“Advocacy for homeland security will continue to dwindle — until the next attack,” he recently wrote. “20 years from now emergency managers will tell their children and grandchildren about the heyday of homeland security funding from 2003-2010. At Christmas they will relate how the money flowed in great streams, nay rivers of funding. There were trucks, mobile command posts, bomb robots, chemical detectors and all sorts of suits. It was a wonderful time of toys for boys.”

On the other hand, it seems that the rain that we all wished for is causing some serious problems for our roadways.  Over the last couple of days, Sally MacDonald, myFOXHouston, has reported on the effect the recent rain has had on our County’s rural roads.  She reported on October 10th and 11th:

After our weekend rain, there are new concerns about area roads damaged by months of drought, but the full impact won’t be known for years. How bad the ground shifts all depends on what the weather does in coming months. 

It’s a smooth ride now, but right around the corner rural, asphalt roads in Fort Bend County are splitting wide open.   The cracks are happening faster than Marc Grant’s crews can make it out to repair them. 

“I’d say a minimum of 30% of our roads are in disarray right now,” said Grant, Fort Bend County Road Commissioner. 

Grant says drivers aren’t in danger. 

Homeowner Terence Romney acknowledges, though, that some of the larger cracks have almost swallowed his Boxer, Bruce. 

“Sometimes his foot goes in, and if his foot goes in the next time he’s walking he’s going to be jumping,” said Romney. 

Blame the unrelenting sun for cutting the life span of one of the roads in Bridlewood Estates in half. It’ll take a lot more rain than what we got on Sunday before experts can truly grasp the scope of the problem. 

“If we get small rains, short rains these cracks may firm back up. If we get large, inches upon inches and days and days of rain it could really be bad for us,” said Grant.

That’s because too much moisture inside the cracks will wreak even more havoc on the shifting ground. 

“Eventually this roadway will start pushing laterally into the ditch,” said Grant. 

In the past road crews have tried to repair the cracks. 

“This is the filling they did last time, and look what happened it’s right back to where it was and even got wider,” said Romney. 

This time Grant says crews will wait to fix less traveled rural roads until a full weather pattern has run its course.   Busy roads are getting immediate attention. Grant says he won’t know the financial impact until we get more rain.

A fire that burned 400 acres and charred a barn in the Needville area earlier this month was intentionally set, officials said.  The blaze, dubbed the Baker Road Fire, started at the corner of a pasture on Foster School Road near Brinkmeyer on Sept. 7, according to the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office.

The blaze raced southwest and jumped Baker Road. It also destroyed a facility that housed two vehicles and travel tailer. More than 100 firefighters from 20 agencies from nearby areas, including the Needville Fire Department, battled the blaze.

Officials said one firefighter, whose name has not been released, was injured. Officials did not release the firefighter’s injury or condition.  A total of $10,000, including $5,000 from Fort Bend County Crime Stoppers, Inc. and another $5,000 from a private property owner, has been offered for information leading to the charging or arrest of the person or persons responsible for the blaze, officials said.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office at 281-341-4665 or Fort Bend County Crime Stoppers, Inc. at 281-342-TIPS.

wildfire in a rural portion of Fort Bend County northwest of Needville burned about 500 acres on Sept. 7. Here, Ben McCary and Dale Oberhoff of the Fairchilds Volunteer Fire Department battle the fire.