Welcome to The Weather Scene segment! Each week here on Geek Alabama, The Weather Scene will feature weather related content. Editor / publisher Nathan Young loves weather related content. And this segment will feature something about the weather every week.
The Bulletin is an oral history short documentary that recounts the eve of Hurricane Katrina – along with the immediate impact and the years of investment in forecasting improvement that followed – through the lens of the local forecast bulletin issued by forecasters at the National Weather Service in Slidell on August 28, 2005.
The bulletin, written by meteorologist Robert Ricks, was unlike any before it in the manner it communicated the potential destructive force of Hurricane Katrina. It encapsulates the intricate relationship between federal agencies like NOAA, the National Hurricane Center and FEMA and the local authorities who have the trust of the communities they serve.
The Bulletin will weave together oral histories from a number of principle figures to create a narrative that not only reveals what went into making and delivering that forecast, but also provides first-person lived experiences that recount the sheer force of Hurricane Katrina. And, to bring all of that forward to today, The Bulletin will examine the current state of hurricane forecasting and disaster response in light of the many cuts made at the federal level to NOAA, the NWS and FEMA.
