Posted on 12/01/2007 10:20:35 AM PST by Cagey
Rosen: Fla. Lost Billions Of Dollars Because Of Incorrect Storm Outlook
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Central Florida's most famous hotel owner, Harris Rosen, lashed out at hurricane expert Dr. William Gray for his gloomy storm predictions saying they have damaged state tourism.
The hotel mogul said surveys show 70 percent of guests not returning to his hotels cited hurricane fears as the reason why.
"I suspect it costs the state billions of dollars," Rosen said. "Five thousand people scheduled to attend my association meeting and I'm looking at Orlando and it is September or October, I may say, 'Why take a chance.'"
Rosen said if people would stop paying attention to Gray, more people would come to Central Florida, Local 6's Chris Trenkmann said.
Other business owners are angry at Gray's predictions.
John Smith, who runs Storm Stoppers, a plywood alternative company that has benefited from busy storm seasons, spends thousand of dollars when an active year is predicted.
"What we do is stock up," Smith said. "When there is a let down, we have all of our capital invested in materials and you know, we have to wait until the next big weather event."
More and more business owners said they prefer that prognosticators keep their outlooks to themselves.
"A local meteorologist would not last as long as some of these prediction artists have been in business," Smith said.
Gray responded to Rosen's complaint, saying anytime there is a catastrophic hurricane season like in 2004, there will be a slowing down or hesitancy to return to Florida, Trenkmann reported.
Gray, of Colorado State University, predicted 17 named storms with nine becoming hurricanes.
The 2007 storm count came short of Gray's predicted totals and no hurricanes came near Florida in 2007.
The last time Central Floridians dealt with a major hurricane was in 2004.
Hurricane season officially ends Friday.
Wow, really? You guys are way too smart for me. You can all shove it. I've got better things to do. I just had a dream that someone would start sueing Al Gore... Michael Moore... zzzzzzzz.
NOAA’s taken to fudging the measurements of weather systems, too, so they can add a passing cloud that dumped one drop per a square meter of area as a “tropical storm”.
It is only a matter of time before someone gets around to filing a class action against the casualty insurance industry for using these nimrods’ “forecasts” to price windstorm insurance in Florida, more than doubling premiums, and resulting in unconscionable windfall profits.
I, for one, will find this to be of great entertainment value, and eagerly await it.
Harris Rosen? Nevah hoid of him!
I’m sure those forecasts were partially responsible for Nationwide not renewing my homeowner’s insurance.
Don’t know about Gray, but Gray’s boss, John Coleman, the founder of the WEather channel pokes fun at the gorebal worming cult all the time!
Joe Bastardi 2007 Hurricane Forecast
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For love of God, please change your last name!!!
I guess the cone of concern turned into the cone of silence.
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