Earlier this month, Alabama was once again in national media but this time for something not of its own doing.
What was perceived to be the National Weather Service in Birmingham responding directly to President Donald Trump was not that at all, according to NWS Birmingham meteorologist-in-charge Chris Darden.
On September 1, Trump had tweeted Hurricane Dorian threatened not only Florida but South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1168174613827899393
However, at the time of Trump’s tweet, most forecast models did not have the storm impacting Alabama. Twenty minutes after Trump’s tweet, the National Weather Service in Birmingham fired off a tweet announcing there would be no Dorian impacts on Alabama.
Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east. #alwx
— NWS Birmingham (@NWSBirmingham) September 1, 2019
During an appearance on Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal,” Darden told host Don Dailey the tweet was a reaction to a “flurry” of questions about the storm and not a response to Trump.
“That’s probably the thing that got misrepresented the most in the media,” he said. “That Sunday morning, we started getting a lot of calls in the office. People were calling in saying, ‘Why has the forecast changed? Why haven’t you put anything out? We had people asking if they needed to evacuate. We had questions on social media as well, like, you know, ‘Do I need to go down and get my mother or father?’ James Spann, of course, everyone knows James Spann in the state of Alabama, meteorologist in Birmingham — he was in church, apparently, when he was getting messages, frantic messages from people, why he had not notified them about the change in the track and Alabama would be impacted.”
“Based on this flurry of kind of these kinds of questions — that’s why we put the tweet and the Facebook post out,” Darden added. “At the time, we had no idea why this flurry was coming in.”
Darden said it was his impression that Trump cared deeply for Alabama based on Trump’s visit to Lee County after a series of devastating tornados earlier this year.
“I’ll say this: I was in Beauregard, Alabama, for a week after the tornados there and the 23 fatalities,” he said. “The president came in on Friday. He spent a lot of time with the folks down there. He clearly cares for the state of Alabama. He loves the residents. He was clearly distraught by what he saw down there. He has a keen interest in weather. There is absolutely nothing untoward in what we tried to do, in what we tried to communicate. I don’t think the President meant anything negative in what he was trying to put out as well. It was really just a misunderstanding. But it is something we can work on as an agency to communicate those things better.”
Darden also spoke of the media and actions of reporters covering the story that caused “tension” for him and his colleagues.
“There was a little bit of tension,” he said. ” I don’t think it was fear of retribution. But it was just we had so many people calling — so many different reporters calling. We had reporters going to people’s houses. My daughter got called. I don’t know how they got her number, but she is in class at Southern Miss. She got called. So, it was more of a frustration. You know, we just want to do our job. Our job is to forecast. Our job is to serve the public. We’re being distracted from that. We felt like it became more of a personal issue. When you’re trying to feed your baby at dinner time — that actually happened — two people show up, and you’re trying to put your baby to sleep, feed them and you can’t because two people knocking on your door, camped out in your yard. It just spun out of control.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.
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