Reuters AlertNet Lite - U.S. hurricane center gets new chief after discord

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U.S. hurricane center gets new chief after discord

25 Jan 2008 16:18:27 GMT
Source: Reuters

MIAMI, Jan 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Friday appointed a veteran weatherman as the head of its main hurricane monitoring center, filling a high-profile post that had been vacant since the last director was ousted by a staff revolt in the middle of the hurricane season.

Bill Read, who had been serving as the National Hurricane Center's acting deputy director since shortly after former director Bill Proenza was removed in July 2007, flew on hurricane hunter aircraft while in the U.S. Navy and directed the National Weather Service's Houston office in the 1990s.

"Bill has what it takes be the nation's hurricane center director," said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Miami-based hurricane center's forecasts are used by local governments in the United States to determine coastal evacuations and can move energy and insurance markets when storms threaten major population centers or oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. The center also issues weather information widely used by countries throughout the Caribbean basin.

Read's predecessor, Proenza, was driven out of his job amid a staff mutiny in the middle of the June 1-Nov. 30 Atlantic hurricane season.

Half the staff at the center signed a petition accusing Proenza of misrepresenting the importance of an aging weather satellite and of immersing the center in a distracting political skirmish with Washington just as the hurricane season was nearing its most active period. (Reporting by Michael Christie; Editing by Chris Wilson)

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