1.
***ARE WE SERIOUS IN ST. LUCIA?***
I don't even know where to start. I remember as a young boy in my teens hearing
about the three B's principle: Bullshit Baffles Brains. I am so confused right now,
like most St. Lucians, about anything which comes from NEMO or the MET Office.
Tonight we hear the French authorities deny that their radar was ever out of
service! The french official went on further to say that it appears the St. Lucia MET
office was using the PUBLIC website to their weather service and not the official
source for agencies. He stated that during the time of the weather conditions in
question the public accessed website was offline because their ISP (internet service
provider) in Martinique experienced an outage.
What this suggests is that the MET office has been passing on information to the St.
Lucian public as well as NEMO from a source which is freely available to the
public. Apparently nobody over there had any backup plans to secure weather
information from any other source and that they did not access that information
from the 'official' source at all. If this procedure had been setup correctly and
officially (apparently) there would not have been a lapse in weather data, and there
a lack of information with which to warn the people of St. Lucia in a timely manner.
The excuse, tonight, by the gentle man from the MET office is more baloney
involving smoke and mirrors. He claims that the weather report did state that
thunderstorms had been forecast and that people were advised to be alert in flood
prone areas. Messieur, this is a warning which is given almost every time
thunderstorms are expected. This announcement does not convey any urgency or
impending danger. During a hurricane low lying areas are prone to flooding just as
well as any period of prolonged rainfall. What needs to be done is for them to report
the number of inches expected. This would, in my opinion, give a more accurate
depiction of the expected precipitation.
2. And if as they say they use the radar in Martinique, which is most likely Doppler
radar, then they should know that this kind of radar is actually designed to indicate
the expected amount of precipitation. Maybe they did not get that important bit of
information because they used the public website rather than the official MET office
in Martinique.