DALLAS - This week’s killer freeze in the U.S. was no surprise.Government and private meteorologists saw it coming, some nearly three weeks in advance.
They started sounding warnings two weeks ahead of time. They talked to officials. They issued blunt warnings through social media.And yet catastrophe happened.
At least 20 people have died and 4 million homes at some point lost power, heat or water.Experts said meteorologists had both types of sciences down right: the math-oriented atmospheric physics for the forecast and the squishy social sciences on how to get their message across."This became a disaster because of human and infrastructure frailty, a lack of planning for the worst case scenario and the enormity of the extreme weather,".