The U.S. Disaster Review Commission’s Case – Watt?

Roger Pielke Jr. Honest broker Replace with a guest post by Mike Smith, worth reading.

This is a guest post by Mike Smith. He is a very successful scientist and entrepreneur with more than 30 US and foreign patents, awards from three professional societies, and his publication record in the field of severe thunderstorms. He told me that his proudest career achievement was the thousands of lives that Mike and his team saved at Weatherdata (which he founded) and later acquired the company at Accuweather Enterprise Solutions. I served on his board for a few years, watching him work directly. We are lucky to have the sound in THB. – RP

Mike Smith's U.S. Disaster Review Board case

The first quarter of 2025 is horrible for the U.S. commercial aviation industry and its passengers compared to the past decade. It has gone through:

• Near Reagan Airport in Washington, this was the first air collision since 1960, involving a passenger plane – 67 people were killed;
• A crash occurred at Pearson Airport in Toronto;
• Southwest Airlines 737's extreme mistakes and business planes at Chicago Midway Airport;

There are at least three other incidents involving emergency evacuation of the aircraft, which show initial signs.

However, given the extensive media coverage, due to these accidents and incidents, few (if any) lost passenger traffic.

Why?

I believe airline passengers are confident that these issues will be investigated and resolved by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Congress, with the origins of legislation, dated back nearly 100 years, created the NTSB as an independent body of the federal government in 1974, and since then, the NTSB has gained an outstanding reputation for a fair and accurate analysis of accidents and events involving all modes of transportation.

During my career, I assisted the NTSB in two surveys in a very small way. In 1997, the Board of Directors conducted an investigation into my company Weatherdata in an effort to provide flash flood warnings and services to our railway customers after Amtrak's derailment. Southwest Chief Near Kingman, Arizona. The board is thorough and professional and we received a clear list of health (see their report).

Based on my extensive experience in the work of NTSB, and over 50 years of experience in consulting, forecasting and extreme weather and its impacts, I believe Congress should create a U.S. Disaster Review Board (DRB) after a very successful NTSB.

Just as it did poorly for American Airlines in the first quarter of 2025, there has been a series of deaths and more than one billion dollars in damage tolls (USD value in 2025). These include:

• Joplin tornado in 2011, 161 people died, $3.9 billion
• 85 people died in 2018, $17 billion
• Hurricane Ian in 2022, 161 people died, $112 billion
• Maui wildfire in 2023, multiple deaths of 102, $5.5 billion
• Hurricane Helen Appalachian floods in 2024, killing more than 230 people, ultimately harming TOLL TBD
• More than 28 people died (more than 30 missing) in Los Angeles wildfires in 2025, with preliminary financial losses estimated between $250 and $275 One billion The dollar, which will surpass Hurricane Katrina, is the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.

When the plane crashes, aviation officials know exactly what to do to determine what happened and why, and use this information to propose and implement changes to prevent future occurrences.

What about the disaster? As a popular movie once asked, “Who are you going to call?”

Unlike other countries, such as the United Kingdom, the United States does not have a systematic process to investigate disasters and apply lessons to future mitigation measures. Based on my extensive experience in NTSB operations and over 50 years of experience in consulting, forecasting and extreme weather and its impacts, I believe Congress should establish an established American Disaster Review Board (DRB) following the very successful NTSB.

The NTSB was originally established by Congress in 1967 at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Seven years later, Congress determined that there was a potential for conflicts of interest when the NTSB investigated other agencies at the site, such as the Federal Aviation Administration.

Therefore, Congress made the NTSB an independent federal agency.

DRB will be equipped with application experts (and theory) experts in meteorology, geology, oceanography, emergency response and related fields, and will be able to appoint relevant experts as their investigation teams in appropriate ways. The permissions of DRB will be natural disasters, including:

• Hurricanes and tropical storms
• Tornadoes and other severe convective storms such as deterioration and outbreaks
• Tsunami
• flood
• Wildfire
• earthquake
• Volcanic eruption

Major catastrophes such as medical pandemics or technology-related catastrophes (i.e., radiation leakage or chemical spillover) will exceed the authority of the DRB. Some of these human-caused disasters have been handled by the U.S. Commission on Chemical Safety and Hazards.

One of the reasons for the high level of NTSB success is the fundamental focus of transportation. For example, if DRB is to be allocated, then pandemics will need a significantly different focus and expertise from natural disasters, but, obviously, the United States also needs to evaluate its ability to respond to Pandemics.

In October 2021, California Representative Katie Porter introduced a dual-partisan bill to create a natural disaster safety committee that passed the House (but no Senate). Her bill provides $70 million in first-year fees and specifies that the board must be separated from existing government research institutions (similar to the early conflicts of interest in the NTSB due to the possibility of conflicts of interest, which I object to) or to the university campus.

To help isolate DRB from politics and make the entire country equally accessible, DRB should be headquartered outside the ring road, and the ever-changing political ethos in Washington. My advice is to ensure equal access to the country in the central U.S. and to consider and avoid potential conflicts of interest when choosing a location.

Like NTSB, DRB will be an independent agency. NTSB has five board members, each nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a five-year term. The president appointed members of the board as chairman, and the other vice chairmen lasted for three years. I suggest the same is true for DRB. To their credit, both parties respect the basic requirements for the independence of the board.

To read the rest, head to Roger Pilk Jr. Honest broker Alternative

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