A NWS forecasters perspective on decision support services around the Deepwater Horizon disaster

Decision Support Services (DSS) permeate every aspect of the National Weather Service (NWS), from fires to floods. Another area of support was recently made evident through services provided for the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) disaster. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of this support, from a NWS forecaster's perspective, a questionnaire is under development for local and visiting meteorologists who were directly and indirectly involved with the DSS. Research aims to be an initial assessment of where DSS accomplished its goal, as well as identify areas for improvement. Future use of this data can assist in the development of strategic plans on how to handle varying disasters at the field level.