Roger Pielke Jr.’s The Honest Broker Substack has a guest post by Mike Smith that’s well worth reading.
This is a guest post by Mike Smith. He is an incredibly successful scientist and entrepreneur, with 30+ U.S. and foreign patents, awards from three professional societies, and his publication record in the field of severe thunderstorms. He tells me that his proudest professional accomplishment is the thousands of lives saved by the forecasts made by Mike and his team at WeatherData — which he founded — and later at AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions, after his company was acquired. I served on his board of directors for several years and watched him work first-hand. We are fortunate to have his voice here at THB. —RP
The Case for a US Disaster Review Board, by Mike Smith
Compared to the past decade, the first quarter of 2025 has been terrible for America’s commercial aviation industry and its passengers. It has experienced:
- near Washington’s Reagan Airport, the first mid-air collision involving an airliner since 1960 — with the loss of 67 lives;
- a crash landing at Toronto’s Pearson Airport;
- an extreme near-miss of a Southwest Airlines 737 and a business jet at Chicago’s Midway Airport;
There have been at least three other incidents involving emergency evacuations of aircraft with preliminary indications fires were in progress.
Yet, given the extensive media coverage, there has been little, if any, loss of passenger traffic since these accidents and incidents occurred.
Why?
I believe airline passengers have a great deal of confidence that these issues will be investigated and solved by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). With legislative origins dating back almost 100 years, Congress created the NTSB as an independent agency of the federal government in 1974 and since then, the NTSB has developed an outstanding reputation for fair and accurate analysis of accidents and incidents involving all modes of transportation.
In my career, I assisted the NTSB in a small way with two of its investigations. In 1997, my company, WeatherData was investigated by the Board for our flash flood warnings and services offered to our railroad clientele after the derailment of Amtrak’s Southwest Chief near Kingman, Arizona. The board was thorough and professional and we received a clean bill of health (see their report).
Based on my considerable experience in both the workings of the NTSB and more than 50 years of experience in the field of consulting, forecasting, and warning of extreme weather and its effects, I believe that Congress should create a U.S. Disaster Review Board (DRB) modeled after the extremely successful NTSB.
Just as the first quarter of 2025 has been a bad run for U.S. aviation, the past 15 years have experienced a series of natural disasters with significant fatalities and billion-dollar-plus damage tolls (in 2025-dollar values). These include:
- 2011 Joplin Tornado, 161 fatalities, $3.9 billion
- 2018 “Camp” Fire, 85 fatalities, $17 billion
- 2022 Hurricane Ian, 161 fatalities, $112 billion
- 2023 Maui Wildfire, 102+ fatalities, $5.5 billion
- 2024 Hurricane Helene Appalachian flooding, 230+ fatalities, final damage toll TBD
- 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires, 28+ fatalities (more than 30 missing), preliminary financial loss is estimated to be between $250 and $275 billion dollars, which would surpass Hurricane Katrina as the most expensive natural disaster in United States history.
When a plane crashes, aviation officials know exactly what to do to identify what happened, why, and to use this information to propose and implement changes to prevent future occurrences.
What about disasters? As a popular movie once asked, “Who ya gonna call?”
Unlike other nations — such as the United Kingdom — the U.S. has no systematic process for investigating disasters and applying lessons learned to future mitigation. Based on my considerable experience in the workings of the NTSB and more than 50 years of experience in the field of consulting, forecasting, and warning of extreme weather and its effects, I believe that Congress should create a U.S. Disaster Review Board (DRB) modeled after the extremely successful NTSB.
The NTSB was established by Congress originally in 1967 within the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT). Seven years later, Congress determined the potential for conflicts of interest existed when the NTSB investigated other agencies of the DoT such as the Federal Aviation Administration.
So, Congress made the NTSB an independent federal agency.
The DRB would be staffed with experts in applied (as opposed to theoretical) meteorology, geology, oceanography, emergency response, and related fields, with an ability to appoint relevant experts to its investigatory panels as appropriate. The purview of the DRB would be on natural disasters including:
- Hurricanes and tropical storms
- Tornadoes and other severe convective storms such as derechoes and downbursts
- Tsunamis
- Floods
- Wildfires
- Earthquakes
- Volcanic eruptions
Major disasters such as medical pandemics or technology related disasters (i.e., a radiation leak or chemical spill) will be beyond the purview of the DRB. Some of these human-created disasters are already handled by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.
One of the reasons for the NTSB’s high level of success is the underlying focus on transportation. If the DRB were to be assigned, say, pandemics that would require a signifcantly different focus and expertise than natural disasters – however, clearly the US also needs a capability to evaluate responses to pandemics as well.
In October, 2021, California Representative Katie Porter introduced a bi-partisan bill to create a Natural Disaster Safety Board which passed the House of Representatives (but not the Senate). Her bill provided $70 million for first-year expenses and specified that the Board must be either co-located with an existing government research facility (which I oppose because of the potential for conflicts of interest, similar to those of the early years of the NTSB) or a university campus.
To help insulate a DRB from politics and to make it equally accessible to the entire nation, the DRB should be headquartered outside the Beltway and the constantly shifting winds of politics Washington. My recommendation is that it be in the central United States to insure equal access to all parts of the nation and that potential conflicts of interest be considered, and avoided, when a site is chosen.
Like the NTSB, the DRB would be an independent agency. The NTSB has five Board Members, each nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve 5-year terms. The President designates a Board Member as Chair and other a Vice Chair for 3-year terms. I recommend the same for the DRB. To their credit, both political parties have respected the essential requirement of the Board’s independence.
To read the rest, go to Roger Pielke Jr.’s The Honest Broker Substack
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Applied common sense.
Mike Smith has his priorities straight.
Good luck finding it.
I disagree. There may be an immediate need for a committee, but committees once created are difficult to terminate. That’s the tragedy of the Government.
A good idea, but some people will try to make any organization a political tool.
If you did it in Australia the union and lefties would make sure it got stacked and basically become a leftwing mouthpiece. The ABC national broadcaster is a prime example.
If you were going to do it perhaps just max 4-6 year terms for ANY employee would work try and keep fresh faces and ideas without allowing a lefty swamp to build.
Or keep it mostly contractors, and with the supervision overtly political, as in both parties in Congress get to nominate senior staff. “Nonpartisan” gets to be always Democrat in the US, as with “Nondenominational” churches being indistinguishable from Baptists.
Yep we know exactly what it will become-
UN report warns of a ‘frightening’ future: ‘Your five-year-old now faces a future with 7 times more heatwaves’
“I’ve been providing comments like these for my entire career, and honestly, I’m not quite sure what to do next. Scream these findings from the tops of buildings? Write my comments in capitals? Saying all this while dancing on TikTok? I don’t know. But unless we see real climate leadership from governments and businesses, I will save this response and send it through again next year.”
Well howsabout world leaders announcing that forthwith no publicly paid official will remain airconditioned on their watch for starters? They can dress for climate at the office and in Gummint cars and use the windows appropriately just like those who work in the great outdoors and under the iron rooves of the factories and workshops. Back to the future for the sake of the grandkiddies (less work for DOGE too methinks)
This is an idea worth developing. One reason the NTSB is successful, and rightfully regarded as authoritative, is its methodology and self-discipline. When it is able to determine a probable cause, it will eventually say so, and if not, so be it.
“To their credit, both political parties have respected the essential requirement of the Board’s independence.”
Considering the hot-button nature of the climate craze, though, it seems a stretch to think that a DRB could fully resist the pressure to make findings of probable cause conform to a preconceived agenda. Still, it’s worth a try. An emphasis on fact-finding before analysis is a good example from the NTSB to start with.
What is that theory, that all organizations, unless expressly conservative at the onset, tend to move farther and farther to the left over time.
I don’t think it’s leftward politically, so much as bureaucracies expand because that is their only measure of success: more subordinates, regulations, and budgets. The last thing they want is to solve the problems that created their jobs and sustain them.
And guess which political wing wants more bureaucrats?
The Republicans lean towards corporate bureaucracies while the Democrats lean towards government bureaucracies although both sides have lots of both kinds. Big bureaucracies are how large, complicated things are managed.
The difference is that governments are monopolies. Market bureaucracies have some competition to keep them in check. Bankruptcy is a fearsome mental focuser.
It is more that they follow Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy, that those who master the internal politics of the group end up running it, to the detriment of its purported purpose. Wayne LaPierre at the NRA was an example, or General Motors pre bankruptcy.
While that principle is well known and well established, it seems it does not apply to the NSTB.
Nope, it may be a good idea but must be divorced from the government to the greatest extent possible. How many government agencies and departments do we already have at the federal and state level studying, reporting and advising on disasters now, human caused and natural? Many of these same agencies are aware of and have warned of the dangers for catastrophic wildfires in California and other places think Colorado and Hawaii. Everybody knew there was great danger and that there ere things we could do to lessen the danger and the damage yet here we are with catastrophic fires in California, Colorado, Hawaii and many other places. Why? Because local, state and federal government think they know better and did nothing to defend against catastrophe. Plus the age old question, who decides what is a potential catastrophe or disaster? The same people who think added CO2 emissions are catastrophic? No thank you. What should be done is to hold our leaders accountable individually. You don’t have to look any further than the latest wildfire in Los Angeles. They have been warned for decades that they have a problem, they were told what needed to be done. We don’t need anymore government agencies telling us what to do, we need responsible government to do what needs to be done.
When visiting from Australia in 1986 I stood on the man-made bank of Lake Pontchartrain with a fellow engineer and we talked about what would happen if the wall was breached which seemed to me to be very probable given enough time. He said that a lot of New Orleans would be immediately flooded. He said that funding has been sought for 40 years to improve the integrity of the barrier, but no money had even been approved. Just sayin’…
If I recall correctly, plenty of funding has been directed to New Orleans over past decades to address the potential for catastrophic flooding; and somehow the work just never gets done.
I’m not sure adding more bureaucracy will help the government manage disasters better.
Yeah, take away their liability and accountability, what could go wrong?
The bureaucracy is the managers of the system. There is probably an optimal level depending on the tasks being managed.
It absolutely won’t. We need fewer political fiefdoms, and far more accountability.
Splashdown of the Space-X astronauts over the last few hours was an event. I slept through some parts but I learned this much. Elon Musk must be very happy.
Private enterprise vs government ???
Australia can do some of this but has totally avoided any systematic review of Covid and the lessons we should learn. Only works if politicians and senior bureaucrats can blame someone else. Otherwise, it is cover up all the way!
These things do get studied now, so I have two questions:
#1: Each of the named disasters seems to need special expertise, so how does this get sorted out?
#2: The USofA is already greatly in debt, so this will be another negative to the looming federal crisis.
3 of the 6 “disasters” delineated were the results of wildfires that we know how to prepare for and mitigate. The flawed priorities of government agencies that designate human life as a far lower priority than various owls and fishes, and elevate maintaining a “pristine,” wholly unmanaged environment will not be addressed by the same kind of bureaucracies that allowed these disasters to occur.
It is instructional to note that all 3 wildfire disasters occurred in two of the most liberally governed states in the US, places where objective reality is considered to be of little value.
Flying military helicopter training junkets in the flight path of a major commercial airport will not be remedied by another government bureaucracy.
I do not view the DRB as proposed as another government bureaucracy.
No. No more Democrat manipulated “Boards”, “Committees” or “Commissions”. We are ripping the guts out of all this crap. NO. MORE.
This clearly aligns with the need for improved government efficiency.
Weather and not “climate change” is imperative in the charter.
Noting that this is a failure review board of sorts.
FRBs investigate what happened to determine cause and identify corrective action(s).
It is not the FRB charter to implement mitigation, just identify it.
An honest assessment of any given natural disaster would be to determine what could be done in the future to lessen the impact, not prevent the natural disaster (exception is wild fires due to bad forest management). Contrary to the 97% consensus, humans cannot control weather or earthquakes or tsunamis or volcanos. We can learn how better to survive natural disasters and take steps to reduce the damage loss.
NTSB is an excellent model that can and should be applied to other, specific, areas.
Such a thing would necessarily require an honest assessment of climate and weather, as well as the allocation of resources. That would never facilitate the climate crisis industry and indeed be in direct conflict with it. As we are all too aware, the need for fear to facilitate power is incompatible with solving actual problems and honest governance.