By The River

The Susquehanna River continues to fall, allowing life in Shipoke to get back to a normal amount of drinking and partying. Hey, we'll take any excuse for a Happy Hour, but the real tension and anxiety of a flood, even one that doesn't occur, brings even more neighborhood residents than usual to impromptu parties in the street. Last night it was on Nagle Street near the big puddle that always forms on Race Street between Nagle and Tuscarora in the early stages of a flood. It was a pick-me-up for Officer Stephanie, the Harrisburg city police officer who lives on Nagle and is much appreciated by the neighborhood. She was halfway to St. Croix for a week's vacation when word came to her in the San Juan, P.R., airport that a flood was imminent. Back she came. Her house is among those in the neighborhood which are particularly prone to flooding.

The question going forward is what sort of investigation will be conducted of the National Weather Service and its predictions during the flood scare. You have to understand that forecasts by the Mid-Atlantic River Forecast Center in State College have been right on the money in past floods and near-floods. The crest predictions jumped around wildly this time, culminating in the 25-foot prediction that came out Tuesday around 4 p.m. That triggered a much higher level of response by the city of Harrisburg, because it meant a major flood was in the offing. On Tuesday night, the city was saying a crest of as much as 30 feet was possible, which would have made it the second-worst flood in the city's recorded history after Agnes in 1972.

I was the reporter who broke the 25-foot prediction. I had called MARFC to find out why their website was crashing and acting screwy. The forecaster to whom I spoke told me they have a weak, out-dated computer network across the Eastern Region. "It stinks," was how he put it. Before we hung up, he told me that the projected crest for Harrisburg was now 25 feet. I called back again, spoke to a different forecaster and got the same prediction. So did the city. One wonders if there were computer problems, as yet undisclosed, which affected forecasting during the flood threat this week. I was told that money woes at NOAA are to blame, that repeated complaints from forecasters have been largely ignored. I 've always suspected that all federal agencies are being starved to pay for the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and here is an example of what can happen.

It will be interesting to see if Sen. Rick Santorum, who is no friend of the National Weather Service, will use Mayor Reed's legitimate complaint as a hammer to force a serious look at work of the government forecasters. His complaints about the forecasting of Hurricane Katrina went nowhere. Maybe he's on to something. But it ought to be a broadly focused, non-ideological investigation of all aspects of their work, including the impact of Bush Administration budget cuts on the forecasters' ability to carry out their core mission.