Good Thursday evening. This is Daniel Allott with The Hill's Top Opinions.
As Tropical Storm Ian continues to batter Florida, the cost in lives lost and damage done is just starting to be tallied. But we also shouldn't overlook the massive impact of such storms on our nation's military, writes Rear Admiral (Ret.) Tim Gallaudet.
Florida is home to numerous defense assets, and on Monday, the commander of MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa ordered an installation-wide evacuation.
It was a prudent measure at the time, argues Gallaudet, a former deputy administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and assistant secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere.
But it was a weighty decision because MacDill houses two vital commands — U.S. Central Command, which "ran the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," and U.S. Special Operations Command, which "planned and executed such high visibility activities as the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden." Both are vital to America's national security.
But it soon appeared that the MacDill evacuation may not have been necessary.
The point, writes Gallaudet, is "to illustrate the critical importance of precise prediction in weather and climate."
"In this case, we see that small errors in the hurricane forecast track may have led to the unnecessary evacuation of thousands of people from a DOD installation. Such a miscalculation disrupts training, reduces readiness and imposes significant costs."
Gallaudet offers three ideas for correcting the situation.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said that when it comes to extreme weather, "planning for today and into the future is our business."
Gallaudet concludes, "If the DOD and its federal partners do not boost their budgets to better predict these extreme events, that business may go bankrupt."
Read Gallaudet's full piece here.
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