[sbe-eas] WEA in RI during severe rain

[Aaron Read]

RIEMA has not said a damn thing about it, as far as I know.  Their twitter
feed was relatively active during the flooding (mostly retweeting RISP and
RIDOT, who themselves were mostly retweeting WPRI TV12's reporting) but
nothing in the WEA department.

I went back and checked, the WEA's sent were very vague.  Flash Flood
Warning until 7:30pm, do not travel, etc.  Nothing about roads actually
being closed.  Same WEA was sent at 3:25pm and again at 4:55pm.   Browsing
thru tweets, it would appear I-95 became impassable around 2:30 or 3pm, and
was cleared around 6pm.

FWIW, I think had this happened under our previous Governor,
now-SecCommerce Gina Raimondo, she would've cut through the crap and
personally ordered RIEMA to issue the WEA's.  If memory serves, she did do
something similar at one point.  Our current Governor ascended because
Raimondo left; the Lt Gov position is - by design - a totally useless
elected position.  It has zero connection, during the election and
day-to-day, with the Governor's administration.  McKee largely won his race
because nobody else wanted the job, and the town he was mayor of
(Cumberland) wanted him out after he did such a lousy job running the
place; he's just savvy enough to feed the political machine that keeps him
winning races.   Needless to say, he's been underwhelming as Governor, and
he's getting torn a new rear end over such a dismal "crisis performance" on
Sept 5th after also botching the same weather disaster on Aug 23rd.  It
could very well cost him the primary election next week.

I say this to complement Sean's post; there is no doubt a great deal of
bureaucratic indifference behind the lack of WEA in this situation.

- Aaron


On Thu, Sep 8, 2022 at 7:45 PM Rob Dale <rdale at skywatch.org> wrote:

> If the Interstate closure is a life safety issue - then by all means a WEA
> is relevant. A Public Safety Alert WEA might also apply in that case if
> it’s not “life safety” but still a major issue.
>
> What did the local emergency management agency say in reply to the
> concerns?
>
> - Rob
>
> On Sep 8, 2022, at 7:42 PM, Aaron Read <readaaron at friedbagels.com> wrote:
>
>
> And I have to wonder the same question myself!  WEA is authorized to send
> out messages about roads being closed due to severe, but temporary, events
> like rain-induced flooding, aren't they?
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------
> Aaron Read
> readaaron at friedbagels.com
> www.friedbagels.com
> "Engineering: it's like math but LOUDER!"
>
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-- 
------------------------------------------
Aaron Read
readaaron at friedbagels.com
www.friedbagels.com
"Engineering: it's like math but LOUDER!"
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