[KHOU Channel 11]Dr. Neil Frank's last day is tonight at 10pm

I remember watching him do hurricane coverage while I was still at Houston.

That was a long time ago.

 

Did he cry? I missed it.

 

Anyone who lives northwest of the southeast corner of loop 610 needs to worry about hurricane destruction about as much as people from Dallas. (ok, that's a hair exaggerative, but you get the gist.)

No offense, but I was completely unworried, and at home, when Rita was approaching.

He had people evacuating as far north as Cleveland. Seriously. We do NOT need "Dr." Neil Frank ever again for hurricanes.

 

You beat me to it. I'm glad this loser is retiring. His exaggeration about Rita still makes me mad. Because of jerks like him, my family (and hundreds of thousands of others) wouldn't listen to reason and evacuated for no reason at all. This caused the people who NEEDED to evacuate to get stuck for 18-24 hours on the road trying. I'm a forgiving person, but the anger is still there at watching this guy overhype the odds of Rita hitting Galveston and the risk to Houston if she did. My sister came up with the term "Katrina Syndrome" to describe the overreaction. If Neil Frank had been true to his profession, he would have educated people on how Rita was decreasing in strength would be only a Cat 3 (at best) storm when striking the coast. He also didn't want to admit it was curving north and would likely miss our region altogether.

You could see the disappointment in his face as time went by and he could no longer deny a major weather event wasn't going to strike Houston. It's like he wanted to be a part of history was was disappointed he lost his chance. Many of you will say I'm exaggerating, but I watched Neil Frank for hours for two consecutive days with my blood boiling.

In contrast, Frank Billingsley was realistic and on the money. He was straightforward about the odds of Rita hitting our coast, how strong it would likely be and what the weather conditions would be in the Houston metro area. He accurately said Ft. Bend County would get nothing more than rain and some hard winds. There was no hyperbole or tendency to overstate what would happen. Too bad Neil Frank let the city down when so many listened to him when it counted.

I watch TV weatherman probably once/year so Neil Frank doesn't have the history with me that he does with some of you. My memory of him is pretty bad. I'm sure he was a nice person but his unprofessional performance during Rita contributed to the stupid paranoia the caused so many to get on the road unnecessarily.

This is my 2 cents, take it or leave it. Fatty, I can't ever remember agreeing with you on anything, so there's a first time for everything.

 

Man, I don't want to have this conversation again....but I've lived through a hurricane in Houston. They spawn twisters like crazy...you're without power for weeks...and that's in a borderline cat 2/cat 3 storm. A twister hit my home growing up during Alicia out on the west side of town...it took part of the roof off and we lived in a hotel for 2 months. It did an assload of damage in Houston. Rita was a significantly stronger storm that caused tons more damage...had that made a direct hit, it would have been a nightmare for Houston. We were fortunate.

 

But even after it was clear that we were going to avoid a direct hit, and even as all the other weathermen in town were saying as much, Frank was still in panic mode. And he was the only one.

Agree with A_3PO, especially this part:

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed.

 

That's fair..I didn't see that. I wasn't specifically talking about Neil...talking about hurricanes generally and their potential impact on Houston.