The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

WAYNE Neely, a forecaster at the Department of Meteorology, was adamant yesterday that the department’s Doppler radar was not functioning for several hours during the passage of Hurricane Joaquin.

Mr Neely, who is at the heart of controversial claims that as the category four storm battered several Family Islands the department was without the important weather instrument, said he would have never pinpointed issues with the radar if they did not exist.

This conflicts with Transport and Aviation Minister Glenys Hanna Martin’s statements on Monday that the radar was never inoperable. She said the issue boiled down to a simple rebooting of the monitor at the Meteorology Office, which displays the information from the Doppler radar.

However, while as a guest on the 96.9FM radio talk show “The Revolution”, Mr Neely said on Friday, October 2, a technician was called in to the department to repair the radar. He questioned the reasoning behind calling in the technician if it was just a simple reboot issue that a forecaster could have dealt with.

Asked if he could specifically state how long the radar had been down, Mr Neely could not but instead said it had been repaired during his shift and was running by the time he left the department at 7am. He said several other department heads were present and could substantiate his claims.

He said the minister’s denial suggested that she and meteorology officials took Bahamians for “fools”.

Mr Neely said: “The radar technician came in after I was working (for) several hours and he went to the radar screen. I don’t know what he did to get it working and he now said ‘Okay the radar is now up’ which is many hours (later).

“He came in there with another unidentified person. Now yesterday (Monday) they claimed that the system just needed rebooting. If the system needed rebooting he could have called me from his home, he didn’t have to drive all the way to the airport. It (was) in the middle of the night, a storm is in our country he didn’t have to come in he could have picked up any phone and called me and said ‘Wayne we need you to reboot the radar.’”

He added: “I don’t mind you attacking me. I have been thrown under the bus many times so much so that I know what under the bus looks like. So at the end of the day I stand by what I say. I said I came in at 8.04pm that night (and) the radar was not working. The radar never came on until later that night.

“If the radar was down he could have picked up the phone and called me and said ‘we need you to reboot the radar.’ Don’t take me and the public for fools they know better.”

Mr Neely said he found it “laughable” that Met Department officials said on Monday that the radar is only a supplemental tool for storm forecasting, as it can only detect weather conditions within a 150-mile radius.

He said the importance of the radar could be easily proven from Cabinet papers that show the department’s reasoning for acquiring certain weather instruments.

“For a Doppler radar, you have to defend the reason why you get it and every single piece of equipment that you get in the Department of Meteorology that the government spends money for you have to defend why you need that piece of equipment.”

On Monday, Mrs Hanna Martin held a press conference to refute allegations that the radar was non-operational during parts of the hurricane. The claims were published in The Nassau Guardian on Monday.

She said the claims were “erroneous”.

Mrs Hanna Martin, who has the Meteorology Department in her portfolio, insisted that the issues with the accuracy of the category four storm’s track had to do with the erratic nature of Joaquin and not with forecast equipment in the Bahamas.

She maintained that the Doppler radar was operating throughout the storm, despite reported notations in the Meteorology Department’s log book on October 2 which read: “Major storm Joaquin is over the Bahamas and the Doppler radar is not working. The Met lab is not working, no hurricane supplies, no bus, when will we get it right in the Bahamas.”

The radar provides details on rainfall intensity, thunderstorms, and tornadic activity, including waterspouts effectively within a 150-mile range, Mrs Hanna Martin said. Therefore, she said, the radar is best used by officials as a supplemental tool to satellite imagery, the lightning detection network and computer modelling from a variety of official international sources.