Jim Whittington🔥
Retired BLM/NPS/USFS - Courtesy faculty with Oregon State's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. Interested in wildland fire, incident management, climate change, history, public health, & crisis comms. Texas expat. Birthday: 318.51
- "Moving people around" to minimally cover for lost hurricane expertise means less precise hurricane forecasts and the NWS offices that deal with tornadoes, floods, and wildfires will be even more diminished as staff move. All of NWS is breaking by the minute and this whole thing is untenable.
- The National Weather Service seeks to fill 155 "critical" vacancies ahead of Hurricane Season, through internal transfers between offices. The step illustrates how depleted the agency's ranks are at particular posts around the U.S. www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/w...
- We map tsunami zones and flood zones. We have volcanoes. People still buy/build in and around those areas. A state-level fire map meant to inform should be no different--the insurance companies already have similar info. Ignoring risk does not remove the risk. (Of course, there's mis/dis info.)
- And now Landsat? Ugh.
- Lots of excited discussions in the wildland fire community about the President's Budget, which consolidates wildland fire programs under one new agency within the Dept. of the Interior. Folks, be cautious. The devil is in the details and the details are few. A thread. 1/
- Just great.
- Great point. Get your filters and box fans now.
- Yesterday, the National Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook showed us the first glimpse of August & it is not pretty. Neither is July. As for June, it looks rough in the SW. This, with diminished federal response capacity & who knows what with FEMA. Buckle up--you're probably on your own.
- Hey folks, I'll be in Philly on Thursday with nothing to do until a late afternoon flight--where should I eat lunch? I'll start out the morning in Conshohocken but will have a rental. Thanks for your responses.
- Firefighters don’t expect electeds to be part of the culture, but it would help if they tried to respect it. This is absolute disrespect and it’s another pro-cancer move by this crew.
- My younger self wouldn't say much when people made ignorant jokes about federal employees or went on an anti-government rant when I told them what I did for a living. I just smiled and moved the discussion along. That changed on this date in 1995. 1/
- Seeing a number of fed friends announce their "retirement" on FB today. This is probably not what they wanted, but in every case there was a sense of relief to be out of there. Lots of experience and institutional knowledge in critical areas is now just gone with no replacements in sight.
- Our ability to efficiently identify hazards and effectively manage risk exposure is quickly disappearing. There will be residual expertise amongst the degraded and disappeared products, but changing conditions tend to outstrip our earned expertise. This is foolhardy and destructive.
- NOAA to decommission 14 datasets related to earthquakes, oceans, satellites, agency announces nesdis.noaa.gov/about/docume...
- These are critical for wildland fire potential outlooks, which allow the fire community to plan & prepare. We're about to be driving around with a black-painted windshield and without air bags or seat belts--have your personal evac plan ready.
- Reposted by Jim Whittington🔥[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Jim Whittington🔥[Not loaded yet]
- Another group that does enormous good, who have a mission more important than self.
- There's also the emergency response side. We've done a great job in the US of making a chaotic & unsafe world seem much more predictable & safe than it really is. So much so that unlike earlier eras, when people die before their time it is now noticed & not just accepted. We're going backwards.
- “Many people don’t realize how high the American quality of life is because of the competent & stable enforcement of regulations, &if that goes away a lot of lives are at risk,” said Steve Cicala… “This affects airplane safety, baby formula safety, the safety of meat, vegetables and packaged foods…”
