Friends Remember Pacific Region Director Dick Hagemeyer

The National Weather Service, along with the world meteorological community, is mourning the recent death of NWS Pacific Region Director, Dick Hagemeyer. You can read anecdotes posted by his colleagues from around the world at the Memories of Dick Hagemeyer site, and you may add your own by sending it to Hagemeyer.memories@noaa.gov.

Since the site first opened, a collection of photo memories of Dick has been added. In addition, the following sites are recommended:

• Visit the NWS Public Affairs site for a full press release and biography of Dick Hagemeyer.
• See the NWS Pacific Region Home Page for addresses for cards and contributions.

Jim Weyman, MIC at WFO Honolulu, has been appointed Acting Director of Pacific Region until a permanent replacement is selected.

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New Flood Outlook is Operational

A new five-day flood outlook became an official NWS product on November 1. The outlook identifies areas at risk of significant river flooding. For the past two months NWS River Forecast Centers tested the product and solicited feedback from partners and customers. The outlook is developed by each of the 13 regional RFCs throughout the United States, and is available to the public with a graphical display on the Internet. An additional map showing flood potential for the contiguous 48 states will be available through the Emergency Managers Weather Information Network, NOAA Port, the Family of Services and the NOAA Web site.

More information and Web links to these new flood outlooks can be found at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hic/flood_outlook/index.html.

Click here for the initial NOAA's NWS Focus story on the flood outlook http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/fs082901.htm.

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On October 30, 2001, the NWS released a Service Assessment for the Texas/Louisiana flood event associated with Tropical Storm Allison. The costliest tropical storm in the nation's history, in June 2001 Allison left 24 dead and caused more than $5 billion in damage in Texas and Louisiana before moving eastward to wreak havoc along the Gulf and East Coasts of the United States. Read the full NOAA news story here http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s797.htm. The report is available online at http://205.156.54.206/om/service_assessments/.

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Mike Hudson and Mark Rew, members of the NWS Corporate Web Image Design Team, received the NOAATECH 2002 award for IT accessibility on behalf of their team for creating a new corporate web image for the NWS, during the NOAATECH 2002 workshop, held October 22-24, 2001, in Silver Spring, MD. The award is for web sites that show the greatest range of accessibility for all users. The citation listed the features that make the new NWS corporate web design exceptional:

• A common graphical presentation consistently using the NOAA colors,
• Quick navigation features to useful and urgent information, and
• Section 508-compliant features built into the design providing accessibility and usability for people with disabilities.

In presenting the award at the conference, Bill Turnbull, Deputy NOAA CIO, stated that the "NWS internet corporate image work is a good Section 508 best practice which illustrates that one can have full compliance with Section 508 and still have a high degree of graphics." An abstract of Mike Hudson's conference paper, "Developing an Internet Corporate Image for the National Weather Service" has been posted on the NOAATECH 2002 website. Here is a complete list of the members of the NWS Corporate Web Image Design Team.

The current schedule calls for the new NWS web design to be deployed throughout the organization during the Summer 2002.

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Health Insurance Costs on the Rise

Health insurance premiums for federal workers will rise approximately 13 percent in 2002 according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). On average, enrollees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) will pay about $4.32 more biweekly than this year, while families will see their biweekly payments rise an average $11.77, according to a recent OPM press release. The new premiums go into effect in January 2002. The FEHBP open season runs from November 12 to December 10, 2001.

Health insurance premiums for the nine million FEHBP enrollees have risen a combined 37 percent in the last four years - nearly ten percent higher than the combined national rate increase over the same period according to a new study by the Center for Studying Health System Change. Outpatient care and rising drug costs are identified as the primary reasons for rising health care premiums nationwide.

Robin Johnson is on the front line of all of these changes in her position as a NOAA Human Resources Specialist working in the Benefits office. She often counsels employees, "The changes in the health care industry are causing all of us to closely evaluate our situations and select a plan that best meets our needs, knowing that the cost of services continue to rise. Even so, I believe that the federal government still offers one of the best benefits packages of all employers nationwide." OPM Director Kay Coles James agrees, saying in a recent OPM press release, "While I am not pleased the FEHBP premiums are going up in January, we can say with certainty that the FEHBP continues to be a strong model. The FEHBP has important features, including choice of health plans and competitive benefit packages, as well as no pre-existing condition limitations or waiting periods. Also, in sharp contrast with trends in the private sector, the FEHBP plans continue to cover all eligible retirees and their spouses."

During the upcoming open season, all eligible federal employees and retirees can select a new health plan or stay with their current one. If you plan to stay with your current carrier, you do not have to do anything. Employees are encouraged to use the FEHBP website to review open season information: www.opm.gov/insure/health.

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WFO Brownsville Conducts Weather-Focused Spanish Language Training

With WFO Brownsville, TX, situated so close to the Mexican border, the office has an interest in communicating in Spanish. To enhance services provided by the office, SOO Shawn Bennett recently made arrangements with the Villa Maria Language Institute in Brownsville for 40 hours of onsite Spanish language instruction for ten WFO staff members. "We want to have more capacity and have more ability to respond to our customers' needs," said Bennett, who previously worked at WFO San Juan, PR, where he participated in a similar Spanish training effort. He said about 70 percent of people served by the Brownsville office speak Spanish as their primary language, and the staff get many requests for interviews from Spanish-language news media. The staff members who took the class had varying levels of Spanish-language skills. Two instructors divided the group into a beginners and an intermediate/advanced class, and two-hour classes were held Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays over a seven week period in August and September. Bennett said the training included writing and speaking lessons and conversational immersion led by an instructor. The class studied meteorological terms, translated newspaper articles about the weather, and performed mock radio and television interviews.

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Comma Here, She Said

Leave it in, take it out? One of the most irksome punctuation decisions writers and editors face is when to use a comma. And, when to do without. If you refer to the GPO Style Manual, http://www.access.gpo.gov/styleman/2000/browse-sm-00.html, you'll find more than 20 rules on the use of this tiny, troublesome mark.

Let's examine several of the many ways commas are properly used:

• to separate two main clauses (each clause expresses a complete thought),
• in a compound sentence (a combining of two simple sentences), and
• when they are joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor).

Examples:

Two simple sentences expressing complete thoughts:

• Funds are available to revise the programming study.
• The cost, schedule, and space allocation must be reviewed.

A compound sentence combining the two thoughts joined by a coordinating conjunction:

• Funds are available to revise the programming study, but the cost, schedule, and space allocation must be reviewed.

The example above is for one type of separating comma. In a future issue of NOAA's NWS Focus, we'll look at more commas of separation: serial commas and those that separate multiple adjectives.

In the meantime, when in doubt, look it up!

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