§9705 Improving National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Communication of Future Flood Risks and Hazardous Flash Flood Events

Summary

The NOAA Administrator must, within 2 years after December 27, 2022, review National Weather Service flash flood watches and warnings and how flood information is sent to the public. The Administrator must send a report to Congress about the findings. The review must check if the watches and warnings clearly show risk, help people and responders take life‑saving and property‑protecting steps, and give information in a way that leads to the right actions. The review should give recommendations for laws, agency changes, and needed research. It must look at better ways to explain flash flood risks, how to give useful local or map-based details (including working with emergency agencies), and how information is delivered for preparation and response. The Administrator must talk with academics (including social and behavioral scientists), other weather services, media, floodplain managers, emergency planners and responders (State, local, and Tribal), other government users (for example the Federal Highway Administration), and other federal agencies. The Administrator should, when useful, ask the National Academy of Sciences to check the review. The review must use commonly accepted methods, including social and behavioral science. After the review, the Administrator must improve watches and warnings as needed to better explain flash flood risk and to provide usable geographic details. Any recommendation that would be a major change must be backed by social and behavioral science with a generalizable sample, consider different ages, vulnerable groups, and regions, meet the needs of Federal, State, local, Tribal, and media partners, and account for needed changes to how watches and warnings are sent and shared. For this law, a “watch” or “warning” means NOAA products for the general public that alert people to possible or current flash floods and tell them to take action; it does not mean technical forecasts or model guidance. The term “weather enterprise” is defined elsewhere in law.