Don McKinnon, executive director of the Jones County Emergency Management Agency, was recently chosen to serve on the Southeast U.S. assessment team for the National Weather Service. The nine member team was formed following the historic flooding of the Atlanta, Ga., area. McKinnon is the only EMA director from across the United States on the team.

According to information provided, the purpose of a service assessment is “to assess the external services and international operations of the National Weather Service, which are national in scope and service related.” The teams conducts interviews with NWS personnel, local emergency managers, political leaders and media representatives and reviews documents to determine the following:

• What happened during the emergency event — in this case, major flash flooding and river and stream flooding affecting a large land mass in the metropolitan Atlanta area

• How well the NWS and its sub-agencies (WFO, RFC, NCEP, etc.) performed in all phases of the event

• Which practices worked well and which do not

• What actions will improve performance during future events

“Participating on the National Service Assessment Team is a great opportunity to positively affect life safety and mitigate damages in future disasters as our findings and recommendations are forwarded across the NWS organization and to emergency service providers,” McKinnon said. “It is our great hope that citizens will heed warnings not to venture onto flooded roadways either in vehicles or on foot during flash flooding and stream and river flooding such as occurred in the Atlanta area.

“We work hard to educate the public on the dangers associated with various disaster situations and prepare our emergency service providers with information, which will help them effectively manage an event,” he added. “If the results of the hard work that this team put forth results in saving just one life, then it will have been worth all of the time spent and resources expended.”

A national service assessment may be conducted if there is significant impact on the economy of a large area or population, a significant number of fatalities and/or injuries requiring hospitalization occurs, extensive national public interest or media coverage develops or there is an unusual level of scrutiny of NWS operations.  In the case of the Atlanta flooding, 10 individuals lost their lives and 17 counties were declared Presidential disaster areas with tens of millions of dollars in reported losses.

The team met October 12-17 in Peachtree City, Ga., and conducted extensive and exhaustive reviews of data, interviews and deliberations. The team is developing information for a draft report of their findings. Following staff reviews of the findings, the NWS will publish a final report which will be released for distribution.