Were Met E Correct to Extend the Red Warning Countrywide

And if it wasn't a Red Alert and people died, you'd be first on complaining that they didn't do enough. Very easy for people sitting behind their comfortable computer never having to make an important decision in their lives, giving out about the people who have to make the hard decisions.

Of course it was the right call. If it hadn't been issued countrywide and people died or places got destroyed in an area that didn't have a red warning there would be uproar. Some people are never happy.

I follow this thread all the time but rarely post. I think they were right in their decision. They gave a red warning and there were still people out putting their lives, and potentially the lives of the rescue services at risk by swimming in the sea etc. Most people did take the advice. I think if they had a lower warning a lot more people would have taken it casually. I'm in Waterford and it was pretty scary here yesterday afternoon. I was nervous. Not my normal style at all. This had never happened before so being cautious was the right approach. 3 people lost their lives. There could have been more.

This has all been said already, but I'd like to write my thoughts down as I think the context for these decisions is easily forgotten and already was being lost yesterday, never mind a couple of months down the line.

The important thing when judging this decision is to try and rid your mind of all hindsight, because nobody at ME is psychic, so far as I know. Then you have to consider the context:

First thing to remember is that on Saturday and Sunday, multiple models were giving slightly different tracks that altered the course of the storm by the most marginal of degrees. However, in an Irish context, those marginal degrees were the difference between the more westerly track the storm did take, and one that was maybe 50 miles more easterly. Had the track been more easterly, it would have more significantly affected the east coast than the strong effects it did have.

The second piece of context is that the judgement call for warning levels made on Sunday morning was inarguably going to be the one that had the most impact. Issue a nationwide Orange warning, with Red warnings for the southwest, and then change that on Sunday evening, and you would have had complete chaos. People in the newly affected Red Warning areas would be caught completely unprepared, never mind the local authorities that relied on those warnings to get ready.

Put those 2 things together, and the result is this - Met Eireann had to make a call on Sunday morning at the latest as to what they thought the worst conditions Ophelia could bring might be. They had to do this with the benefit of a lot of meteorological insight that was just imprecise enough to not be able to narrow the potential effects to a specific area of the country.

Now you can start thinking about all the other things that are relevant to this judgement call in hindsight:

1. I don't think anybody at all is arguing that the Red warnings for the southwest counties weren't warranted, that is being widely accepted as the right call and an extremely necessary one.
2. People outside of the track of the modelled worst effects of the storm died (particularly the poor fellow in Ravensdale who was out long before the storm was due to truly impact that part of the country).
3. Belfast, Dublin and many other cities that were 'less affected' had countless amounts of trees that collapsed onto roads. As we sadly saw with 2 of the deaths, that is extremely dangerous.

Now throw that hindsight together with the original context that I wrote about:

If you think that the red warnings for the Southwest were justified, and you accept that Met Eireann had to make their call by Sunday morning at the latest, and you understand that at that point the forecast models were showing small differences in track that would have resulted in more easterly effects, you have to come to the conclusion that the red warnings were justified for the entire country.

There's one other thing to consider, and I posted this in another thread, and I'll just use the metaphor I did there:

Think about how in the lead up to the year 2000, there was a lot of hype and anxiety about the Y2K bug. Perhaps you didn't live through that, but it was a huge story, which was that a core, date-based flaw to computer systems could cause widespread system failures, or even just a ****load of software bugs that would be annoying as hell. So, in 1999 there was an absolutely huge global effort to upgrade affected systems and software to be "Y2K Compliant". For the most part a vast majority of people took the advice and everyone rushed to have their devices and their apps ready and prepared. Certainly nearly all the vital systems like Air Traffic Control or power station automation were 'fixed'. People though were still very anxious about what would happen come the new year.

Fast forward to January 1st 2000, and lo-and-behold, airplanes didn't fall out of the sky, and nuclear power stations didn't explode.

Yet, the response wasn't "Great, we avoided this huge catastrophe (or this huge pain in the ass at the very least) by preparing for it and being ready". No, the response was "That Y2K thing was a whole load of bull****, nothing happened!".

Can you see the flaw in the logical thinking there?

To bring it back to the topic, we had a Red Warning countrywide, and as a result lots of people prepared for the storm, and made arrangements to be able to stay indoors and safe at home. Businesses stayed closed, public transport operators kept their vehicles and drivers off the streets. And as a result of that, the response should be "Great, we avoided further widespread deaths and injuries by preparing for it and being ready", and people who don't want to respond that way should consider what might have been the alternative.

100% the correct decision to issue a red warning. Certainly the majority of people stayed indoors and headed the warning. In my opinion a red warning should mean all schools, businesses, factories shut down. It seems for the private sector there was no real guideline and particularly on a weekend it may have been difficult for some employers contact there employee and many went to work but but were told to go home. Should legislation come into effect to remove the any ambiguity for private sector workers i.e Red Warning = Do Not Come to Work.