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Everything Weather Podcast
A conversational, educational, & educational weather podcast about everything weather. Exploring the world of weather, now every other Monday.
Everything Weather Podcast
Navigating the Storms of Life & Career with Becky DePodwin
In this episode of the Everything Weather Podcast, we talk with Becky DePodwin, a senior consultant at Guidehouse with expertise in customer experience, change management, emergency preparedness, business continuity, and risk communication. Becky shares her journey from being fascinated by weather as a child to pursuing a degree in meteorology and transitioning into emergency management. Becky also shares some thought-provoking insights on the importance of mental health, the role of FEMA, and the integration of weather information into business operations.
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About the Everything Weather Podcast
A weekly podcast where we talk with people about the weather world, explore and discuss everything weather and the many things that connect to it, and have a little fun along the way. The podcast is hosted and produced by Kyle David, a meteorologist and digital science content producer based in New Jersey.
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Hello and welcome to the Everything Weather Podcast, where we talk with people about the weather world, explore and discuss everything weather, and have a little fun along the way. I'm your host, Kyle David, and today on the podcast we're excited to have Becky DePodwin. Becky is a strategy and business transformation senior consultant for guidehouse, specializing in customer experience, change management, emergency preparedness, business continuity and risk communication. Hey there, Becky, and welcome to the Everything Weather Podcast.
Becky DePodwin:Hi Kyle, thanks for having me on today.
Kyle David:Absolutely. We're looking forward to getting into all of the different industries and sectors that you've connected your experiences to. But first we've got our first fun game for you. We have, would you rather a mix of weather themes and since you're from Pennsylvania, we have some Pennsylvania themes. Would you rather questions, we'll start with the weather one first and we'll alternate back and forth. Would you rather be in a center of a hurricane or blizzard?
Becky DePodwin:Is this like rapid fire?
Kyle David:You could think about it a little bit.
Becky DePodwin:Okay.
Kyle David:You could even talk about the thought process out loud.
Becky DePodwin:no, that's a tough one. it depends on the category of hurricane. Like tropical one. Tropical storm through like a category two. Yes. Anything beyond that? I'm a hard pass except if it's like in the middle of the eye because that would be really cool. But a blizzard, I bet even I've been in blizzards, but if there's thunder snow, I'm gonna go hurricane. I'm gonna go hurricane because like the middle of the hurricane is the eye and I've never experienced the eye of a hurricane and I think that'd be awesome.
Kyle David:I have not either. I think that would be a very cool experience, even though there's chaos and destruction going around in a hurricane. Usually good pick overall. All right. Would you rather eat a Philly chase steak with cheese whiz or with provolone?
Becky DePodwin:Provolone. Yeah, provolone.
Kyle David:Okay, that's good. Pick two. Would you rather have a week of above 100 degree heat with high humidity? So disgusting sweltering heat, or a week of Sub-Zero cold with strong winds cold
Becky DePodwin:every time
Kyle David:you can take the cold,
Becky DePodwin:you don't handle the heat well nor the humidity and might with the cold, you just keep putting on more layers or you stay inside. The wind is a, I don't love the wind when it's cold. It's a different factor, but I'd still rather be cold than hot.
Kyle David:Now. I'm just curious if it was, say, Antarctic cold. Would you still do the cold over the sweltering humidity and heat?
Becky DePodwin:Honestly, probably. I really don't handle heat. Well,
Kyle David:humidity. You, you got a point you can only put on, you could put so many layers on, but you can only take so many.
Becky DePodwin:Right. to cool. You can cover your face. You can layer up. I don't know. Yeah. I'd still go with cold. Okay.
Kyle David:All right. Would you rather see fall foliage in the Poconos or visit the Cherry Blossom Festival in Philadelphia?
Becky DePodwin:Fall foliage, Poconos.
Kyle David:Okay.
Becky DePodwin:I like trees, woods.
Kyle David:Trees and woods are good. Yep. Would you rather be struck by lightning and survive or get caught in a flash flood, but make it out?
Becky DePodwin:I feel like lightning because you'd probably be knocked unconscious and if you survives, you might have like the cool scar and like. A flash flood and like drowning. That really, that, I don't know. That seems far, that seems way scarier to me to like be, get caught up in water and feel outta control. Lighting, I feel like would be quick. I
Kyle David:You take the lightning over a flash?
Becky DePodwin:if you're gonna survive both.
Kyle David:Would you rather watch a Penn State football game at Beaver Stadium or a Steelers game at Acrisure Stadium? I think I said that right.
Becky DePodwin:Centre? I don't know. probably. I thought it was Heinz Field. It's not Hein Field anymore. I don't know. probably Steelers game. Beaver Stadium. I've been to games there, and it's not comfy. The stands, the bleachers are not, they're not comfortable. It's a fun environment. It's, it's worth going to, but I think NFL stadiums are probably a little more comfortable.
Kyle David:Interesting. Okay. All right. Would you rather be a storm chaser or a hurricane hunter?
Becky DePodwin:Hurricane Hunter.'cause I haven't done that.
Kyle David:Yeah, for me it'd be a storm chase.'cause like flying in hurricane, that's a hard pass for me. Don't do turbulence that well. So I'm not gonna do that.
Becky DePodwin:maybe ask me, if I were to do it once and it was like a really intense storm, maybe ask me if I'd do it again. I don't know. I try it once though. Try.
Kyle David:It'd probably just be like a one and done affair.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah.
Kyle David:Would you rather explore the historic sites of Gettysburg or the haunted sites of the Eastern State Penitentiary?
Becky DePodwin:Probably Gettysburg. I like the history, the historical context of it all. I think it's interesting.
Kyle David:And that might even be haunted too.'cause I've heard a lot of people say probably sightings and stuff, but probably, I think I'd take Gettysburg over the Eastern state penitentiary.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah, that doesn't, I'm good. I'll pass on that.
Kyle David:All right. One more for weather. Would you rather. Live in a place with constant, severe storms, but mild temperatures or in a place with extreme temperatures, but no storms.
Becky DePodwin:Storms. all the, yeah, definitely storms.
Kyle David:Storms, but mild temperatures.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah. I think so. I don't want, I don't want boring weather. Like the temps can be whatever, but I gotta have storms.
Kyle David:That's fair. Well,
Becky DePodwin:yeah, I like rain. I think I'd go with that.
Kyle David:Okay. And then one more for Pennsylvania. Would you rather ride the roller coasters? Actually, no, not that one. I'm gonna do. Would you rather take a scenic drive through Amish country or hike a trail in the Allegheny Mountains?
Becky DePodwin:hiking always. I love hiking,
Kyle David:What's your favorite trail in the Allegheny Mountains?
Becky DePodwin:Ooh. It's a good one. We have, Roth Rock State Forest. We actually like, it's like right there. We're really close to it. There's a shingle town gap, which is really nice. There's a lot of different route you can take with that. A mountain NI is a classic, but a lot of people go like straight up and straight down. You can go around the side and then like walk around the entire top of the mountain. Greenwood furnace is a good one. Black Shannon has a lot of good trails. I like hiking. A
Kyle David:lot of good trails for people to go and check out. All right. Well that said, that is the last, would you rather question and we've still got more fun sections to go, but before we get to those, let's get into talking about you, your experiences, and your weather story. So in the podcast or actually in the industry, people say the weather story and they refer to that as the day's weather, the week's weather, what's in store for the weather, for the location. But in the podcast I refer to it as what got you interested in the weather? What are some of the experiences along the way that led you to where you are today? So Becky, tell me your weather story. What got you interested in everything weather?
Becky DePodwin:Yeah, absolutely. So I, it's interesting, I don't have a story like a, like I was in the blizzard of 93 or like I went through a hurricane as a kid. Sometimes I feel like I was born with a love for weather when I was in elementary school. I remember going. To like the top part of the playground and looking west to see if I could see any storms coming. I grew up in Colorado and so a lot of the time storms would come from over the mountains. and so I, I just, I was always interested in what was going on outside. I would watch thunderstorms with my dog who was scared, and I would just look at the lightning across the sky. but the, there were two really pivotal events that really shifted my focus and how I like thought about meteorology and weather when I was in college, going to school to get my undergrad in meteorology, in Greeley at the University of Northern Colorado. An EF tornado hit my hometown of Windsor, Colorado, which was about 20 minutes away from where I was going to school. I, however, that day was chasing the high risk area in Kansas, so I am. All the way in Kansas, five, six hours away I get a call from my mom. We'd been seeing reports that there was a tornado moving northwest, almost parallel to I 25. Very unusual. It was like 1130 in the morning. This storm defied a lot of norms and we're like, yeah, of course. Like we drive to Kansas, there's gonna be a tornado in Colorado. And then my mom calls and tells me that she's out picking up really large hail. I'm like, well, that's not a good sign because what usually precedes a tornado? Really large hail. So I yell at her to get back inside, take the dog, go to the basement. The tornado misses my parents' house by about a mile, but impacts a lot of homes in the town that I grew up in, friends' homes, my piano teacher, I saw her and she told me that her piano was crazily out of tune after the tornado went by, which was really weird. The church I grew up in was the staging area for the Red Cross. And I remember driving through the damage in days after and just crying because it was so sobering to me to realize that the thing I was so passionate about, I was going to school to study it for the rest of my life, basically had just destroyed so many homes and upended life and, people were really impacted. That really stuck with me for a very long time. So I continued on, got the degree in meteorology, started working as an operational meteorologist, moved to Wichita, Kansas, and lived there for three months when we had a tornado outbreak. This was April 14th, 2012. If you're really into severe weather storm chasing, that's a date you probably know. there were a lot of long track, really strong tornadoes that day. one of which tracked from northern Oklahoma all the way up into Wichita, Kansas, and it hit my apartment complex directly. There were several of us who had damage in the area. I had stayed at work, because I lived on the second floor. This was one of those events that was like very well forecasted. We knew it was gonna be bad. PC had like a day two, day three moderate. Like it was known that it was gonna be a bad day. And I remember going into the apartment complex office saying, where should I take shelter if I'm at home? on a second story. And they're like, oh, don't worry. Tornadoes don't cross the Ark, Kansas, which is the river that goes through Wichita. And I was like, oh, okay, y'all really, like you live in Kansas. This is tornado alley guys. And it was just such a sort of a wake up call of like, people really don't take weather seriously. Anyway, it ended up happening. It happened pretty badly. Wichita had quite a bit of damage from that tornado. My apartment complex had damage. My apartment itself was mostly okay, some roof damage, some siding damage. But again, it was one of those things of like people are impacted very directly by severe weather and people don't always respond and react the way that we think they will. And so my focus from there has really shifted to the people side of things and how can we get people to better understand, to want to pay attention, to know what they need to do to be safe and protected during severe weather. and so then eventually several years later, I would go back for a degree in emergency management. I was trying to get away from operational meteorology. thought back to why I got into to weather in the first place and kept coming back to the human impact part of it.
Kyle David:I wanna take a step back to both those experiences you mentioned the EF three that tore through your hometown and the outbreak that had happened across the Plains and specifically Wichita. How did those events transform your perspective of the weather and the human impact of it?
Becky DePodwin:There were stories that e especially from the Colorado tornado, there were stories that came out of people responding. whether they, did they receive a warning? Did they not receive a warning? There was a daycare that ended up having the kids shelter in the bank fault of the bank next door. And so it was things like that. After the Wichita tornado, we were checking on neighbors and people had let upstairs neighbors shelter with our downstairs, downstairs neighbors. Then it talked about like not having any way to receive warnings. They didn't know it was coming. They didn't know it'd been forecasted. And it's like how we do all this really important work. We have the science, we have the technology, we have the communication methods, but it's not fully getting to where it needs to go. So that was part of it. The other part was, I think starting wanting to like try and educate people on weather and weather safety early. So after the Windsor tornado, my undergrad group actually partnered with a group of psychologists in the area because kids were scared. they had never experienced a tornado. It, it came through their area, it destroyed homes. It was a very scary event for kids in elementary school in particular. And so we went to a lot of schools, a lot of community events, and we shared information on why the storm was so unusual first off, but also a lot of ways that kids, you know, and parents and their families could stay safe and talk about a weather safety plan and. what do you do in the case of a tornado? What do you do when there's lightning? you go inside or so, and we, I think we shared a really, a lot of really positive messaging that gave kids some control back because obviously ultimately we don't have control over the weather. And that is a scary thing. But if you know how to prepare for it, you know how to find out what's coming and then you know how to respond and react in the moment, I think it can make you feel a lot more safer in control, So that was really impactful. And then I guess eventually that got me back to the emergency management side of things and preparedness and how do we best communicate risks, whether it's a weather hazard or some other kind of hazard.
Kyle David:And you had mentioned earlier that you originally were going for a meteorology degree, you got your undergraduate. Bachelor's in meteorology. And then you decided to go and pursue a graduate degree in emergency management. And I'm curious, since you already had forecasting experience up to your graduate school education, what are some things from the weather forecasting realm that you found transferred over to the emergency management side?
Becky DePodwin:No, that's a great question. So a lot of what I did as an operational forecaster was working directly with clients to implement or to help them implement site specific and threshold specific warnings into their emergency planning. So for reference, obviously the National Weather Service, a wonderful agency provides publicly available watches, warnings, forecasts, weather data. One of the things that the private sector of the weather industry does is fill in a niche for. Businesses that might need a little more specificity in their alerts. So think railroads are carrying things. They have a very low threshold for wind. If the winds are too high, they'll get derailed. If a tornado goes by, obviously they'll get derailed. If there's a wash out of the track, they will derail. And that's all tied to money and being able to have a functioning business. So they need very low threshold for winds. Outdoor events need to know about rain, need to know about lightning threats. So that's just a couple of examples. Manufacturing facilities is a lot of different use cases here. But what I would do is when I was working as an operational forecaster for AccuWeather, I would provide, weather briefings. so they, we would send out, a personalized warning for the site, whether it was, short term, longer term, and then they would call at any point they could call us twenty four seven and we would provide. An update on that, and provide them any details they needed to know. timing was obviously a really big thing, especially when it came to snow. likelihood of thunderstorms, likelihood of rain, how much rain. So initially I was providing mostly the weather side of things. Once I started getting a little more into some more like the business continuity, risk communication side of things, I was able to help integrate it into their emergency action plans. So my coworker and I would actually go on site to some facilities, large manufacturing facilities. They would show us, where they took shelter. They would run us through their plans and we would say, well, okay, this is not a good place to shelter because you are in tilt up construction. And if you're sheltering in the middle of the area, which might seem logical because you're away from Windows, all it takes is one. One wall to collapse and the entire thing's gonna come down. You have to shelter underground. So we would provide feedback like that. We would help them integrate the warnings to be, actionable and set off a trigger for safety measures. And I found that really rewarding. I really enjoyed doing that work and knowing that. The weather information that was being provided was really being used to keep people, employees, visitors safe.
Kyle David:And since you'd mentioned that's a very rewarding moment for you in that role, can you talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you faced in trying to connect weather information, weather safety to business operations, continuity and emergency management?
Becky DePodwin:I think some of the challenges were sometimes people just don't want to, they don't want to take the advice. Maybe they're not using the data in a way that's actually truly actionable. I think COVID changed a lot for better, for worse. That was a very weird time for us. Obviously everything went fully virtual. A lot of people were mainly focused on that. And there were some challenges with, conflicting advice between COVID and weather safety. So like do you get into like a mass shelter? And there's not social distancing, things like that.
Kyle David:You can talk about like a specific moment that really challenged you or, okay.
Becky DePodwin:Oh, I don't know if I have a good answer to that. I can talk about what ultimately drove me away from that was the company not really fully investing in that connection between weather and specifically the product they were offering, which was the site specific and threshold specific warnings and the ability to provide expert guidance and knowledge on integrating them with. Their emergency action plans. I think there was a huge market for that and it just wasn't really ever acted on. and that's ultimately why my coworker and I ended up leaving.
Kyle David:And before we talk about your transition to your next role, I'm curious, what is the importance of a business following that weather guidance that you were talking about in implementing that into their business operations? And in a sense, what would be the repercussions to not only the business but also the public as well?
Becky DePodwin:And I think the word that you used repercussions is really a crux of it. if you want, in the business world, everything comes down to one thing. It's money. It always comes back to the money. And if you want people to understand the importance of keeping people safe and protected during severe weather, you have to think about liability and insurance. And if something were to happen at your site and your employees were injured, your customers were injured, and there was something that you could have done to prevent that and you chose not to. You open yourself up to a lawsuit and I think that's a, it's a huge service to be offered, and obviously you have to be able to afford the service of having site specific and threshold specific warnings. But it's also a protection for you if a storm does happen and you follow the procedures that you know, your firm has laid out, your company has laid out for a tornado warning for hurricanes, for anything. And if, if the worst still comes to pass, you can at least say, well, we did everything we could. We had the information, we acted on it. We tried to keep people safe as best as we could. And so I li I think liability insurance, I think that's a big reason. Another thing to consider is for like supply chain. Even just having weather information of, is a hurricane gonna hit the southeast and is that going to impact supply chain down the road? Do I need to make adjustments? Do I need to move product around? There's. Weather impacts so, so much. And there's so much money that can be saved or made based on knowing the weather. I mean there's commodities, there's people trade based on the weather. So I just, it's always been surprising to me that more companies don't realize how critical it is to understand the weather.
Kyle David:Weather touches everything. It's not just public safety, but like you said, supply chains, businesses. I'm curious though, what is one connection to the weather that really surprised you or you didn't think of until you ex, experienced it?
Becky DePodwin:this seems obvious in hindsight, but like, there's all these big concerts, baseball games, football games that have been going on for decades, right. Every time a weather event happens, it seems like they're totally unprepared. And it still surprises me that we're like, we're in the year 2025 and these major events that are outdoor, in the summer, in the springtime, still do not have a good plan in place to protect the people that are attending the game or the event. I was at a game at Beaver Stadium several years ago, and the game had just like, just ended and we're all, this is a hundred, the stadium could see a hundred thousand people plus, and we're all just like dispersed and we're all just like fending for ourselves as there's this major thunderstorm happening. Thankfully we had a little bit more of a heads up because we're meteorologists, but like ends up being all these people just like out in the open. And I, it just, it always surprises me that there never seems to be a better plan for. Egress and getting people to safety.
Kyle David:I'm just taking a note to note that down real quick for the rest of the conversation. Yeah, and like with sporting events and music events, as you said, there are outdoors, they're impacted by the weather. And that story just highlights that the connection between the weather and outdoor events. I'm trying to think how to transition that, but we were talking earlier about some of the challenges from your prior role eventually leading you to transition outta that. Can you explain a little bit more where you transitioned to next and eventually, how did you get to your current role? At Greenhouse?
Becky DePodwin:Yeah, that was ultimately the reason that I eventually started looking for jobs elsewhere. I didn't feel like my expertise was really being utilized in the full way that it could. So I left and I went to work for a small consulting startup in the emergency management space. Unfortunately, it turned out to be an extremely toxic environment, and I worked for about three months and decided that I was too old for that. I just, I wasn't gonna sit here and put up with someone who was a narcissist and treated his employees very poorly. so I quit and I took a glorious seven months off, which is a very privileged thing to be able to do. I have a wonderful spouse who supported me through that. It was a really nice mental break. My mental health had been really struggling just dealing with the, three months of working for that firm. And even the time leading up to that where I was realizing that I, wasn't being valued as much as I could have been. So anyway, in the meantime, I'm looking for jobs and I stumbled across someone who. Used to work for fema and he had come to, when I was working at AccuWeather, he had come to AccuWeather to talk about preparedness on the AccuWeather network. And I got to interview him for the AccuWeather podcast at the time. And I saw that he was no longer with fema. I was like, oh, where are you working? He was like, oh, I'm doing, I work for guidehouse. And it's a consulting firm and we provide support to, a wide range of projects across fema. So I ended up applying and, started, my first project within GUIDEHOUSE was supporting the resilience organization within fema, which spun up in 2018. hadn't been, I don't know, necessarily spun up in the best way possible. So they were undergoing a current state assessment and eventually a reorganization. So. I helped support that. I did a lot of customer experience work. And then we got the contract to support the integrated public alert and warning system IPOs. So this is the federal alerting system. These are the wireless emergency alerts that come across your phone. The emergency alerts that you see on your tv. Usually only used in emergencies cases like tornado warnings, flash flood warnings, civil danger sometimes. So if there's a shooting, they get used for a lot of different things. So I was, I did worked on that project for about a year and a half. I was doing stakeholder engagement, and helping expand and support their partnerships. we did a lot of tribal engagements, helping tribes make the most use out of. Out of IPAs, especially in the case of missing. and, missing, there was a new code that was actually developed, the missing and endangered persons code, which is I think some amazing work that came out of that. And then I transitioned over to supports the office of the Chief Financial Officer and I currently do change management and, I'm helping them implement a new financial system. This is, something that a lot of Department of Homeland Security agencies are going through, and this will help everything within FEMA that's financial related, but hopefully improve like the grant process and things like that.
Kyle David:And we're gonna get a little more into the current work that you do, but I wanna take a moment to step back for a second.'cause you said you took a seven month break for mental health reasons to get back into your current role at Guidehouse. Can you talk a little bit more about that and the importance of also mental health as well?
Becky DePodwin:Absolutely. Mental health has always been very important to me. I met my husband when I was in the Wichita, Kansas office for Accu Weather. He was in the state college office. I eventually transferred to State College at the time of me moving, across the country. Fairly new relationship. I was also dealing with a lot of personal things. and I realized that I couldn't put all of that on this person that I had just started a relationship with. So I started seeing a therapist, and this was 11 years ago, and I'm still seeing the same therapist today. Not as often. It's every couple of months, but it's been extremely helpful. It was extremely helpful that I was already seeing her when I started doing shift work and eventually started struggling with depression. Shift work is very challenging. The lack of sleep, the odd hours, the lack of social interaction, the stress from the job. oftentimes we're forecasting severe, dangerous weather, and then we see it unfold and we see the impacts to people. All of that can contribute to having. pretty significant impacts on mental health. So yeah, I was eventually diagnosed with depression. I took an SSRI for a few years, and really what prompted me to go to grad school and get my master's was I had to get out of operational meteorology. I couldn't do the shift work anymore.
I was going to work at 2:00 AM I was getting, I don't know, three, four hours of sleep each night. It was not sustainable. And so that was ultimately a really good move for me. But it also was very eye-opening, in what a lot of meteorologists face and, the kind of the struggle of some mental health challenges. So eventually I took, myself and many others, took that conversation to a broader level and started having conversations at, a MS meetings, the American Meteorological Society and the National Weather Association, and breaking down the stigma surrounding talking about mental health. So yeah, when I quit my job with no other job lined up, it, I was burnt out. I was stressed. I was. Not having a good time, and to have that, that reset to, take my time, finding my new job to be able to go hiking. It was the fall, I think I quit in August and I literally just spent that entire fall hiking. It was so nice, and I wish I could give that gift to everyone who needs it to just have the time off to, to do what brings them joy. and it's still something that's really important. I think a lot of people within, both a MS and NWA have taken up the torch and are continuing to talk about it and, just raise awareness. That is, it's a thing that exists and a lot of us deal with it,
Kyle David:Yeah. We, you were talking a little bit earlier about not only, well, the impact of mental health to those who are impacted by the weather and that being a, a traumatic event for them, their communities. And we're talking now about forecasters, people in the chair. Helping people navigate the weather. They're also facing their own mental health battles. But what's one piece of advice before we go into our break? what's one piece of advice that you would give to find those lighthearted moments, those moments of sunshine, if you will, in the dark clouds of the extreme weather that's going on, whatever else that it brings as well,
Becky DePodwin:I think it's important to know your triggers and be able to identify them so that you can do whatever is needed to either, take yourself out of that immediate situation to, take a mental health day from work. I don't, whatever it may be to call a friend, to talk to your supervisor, anything like that. It can be, physical symptoms. You might feel sick to your stomach or nauseous. it might feel, like you are very withdrawn and you don't wanna talk to anybody. Yeah. it's hard. And I think one of the things that we hear often is this refrain of like, well, they should have just reached out for help. it's not really that simple because it's hard to reach out, it's hard to admit, supposed weakness. And that is, I think sometimes people still have this idea that, being depressed or having anxiety is a form of weakness. And it's not, it's just human. So I think also like noticing the signs in other people around you and taking the time to ask a coworker like, Hey, are you doing okay? Do you need to talk? Do you need a break? I know this is a lot, like, a lot of times I think we put the onus all on ourselves or on other people to like fully have it together and to take care of ourselves. And I think oftentimes it really just helps to know that someone else out there. Sees you and cares and, to meet somebody with empathy, if that makes sense.
Kyle David:That absolutely makes sense. And to end the first half on a light note, what's a fun weather story from either your before college days or leading up to today that still sticks with you
Becky DePodwin:okay. So there's this one time I was chasing, with a colleague. This was in Kansas. We were this, so this was probably 2012, either 2012 or 2013. So this was, I, so I wanna say this was before radar scope. And if radar scope did exist, it wasn't very good, or we didn't have a lot of, we didn't have great service. I don't know. It wasn't like chasing is today you, we generally relied on someone who was back, at home in front of a radar and could guide us. So my friend and I are chasing and we come across, just a beautiful mesocyclone. We're admiring it and then suddenly we start getting pel. With four inch hail. So we kinda go back to the car, wait the hail out, and then we go out and start picking up the hail. We didn't tell the guy now casting for us that we had stopped to pick up the hail. He thought we had kept driving. So when he realizes we stopped, he's like, he like loses it. He is like, you guys need to get out of there. Like, it's about to get really bad. There might be a tornado. Oh, he ripped us a new one. he was not happy that we didn't tell him that we'd stopped and that we had stopped to pick up hail because like, we're obviously very, now we're far too close at this point, but we just got really excited about the foreign hail. So we ended up getting, we ended up having to take shelter in the car on the side of the road. The back windshield got cracked. It wasn't great. We were fine, but I'll just never forget how mad our friend was. It's not really, it's funny. It was a wake up call. making sure we don't get too close and being safe.
Kyle David:It's important to be safe, but at the same time, it's not Every day you get to see four inch hail on the ground.
Becky DePodwin:It was pretty impressive.
Kyle David:So enjoy it safely, but you gotta enjoy the moments once in a while, take a moment to stop and yeah, enjoy what the weather is doing and what it's doing around you. All right, we haven't even, we're gonna dive more into your work and some reflections, insights. We're gonna take a quick break right here, but don't go anywhere. We've still got more everything. Weather Podcast with Becky Depaw. Coming up later on the morning of August 28th, new Orleans Mayor Ray Nagan ordered the first ever citywide mandatory evacuation. Warning that Katrina would be, quote, a storm that most of us have long fear. The National Weather Service Office in New Orleans also followed with another urgent bulletin predicting devastating damage and that anyone without shelter could face quote, certain death. This language is only reserved for the most extreme and life-threatening events later that day. Katrina's outer band started across the Gulf Coast, but the worst was yet to come. Most of New Orleans sits below sea level protected by a complex network of levies that keep the water from the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ponit trend from submerging the city. But on August 29th, the protective barriers would be pushed past their limits. Some levees were overtopped, allowing water to not only go over them, but also erode the ground underneath the levees.
At around 5:00 AM local time, a section of the industrial canal failed. Sending over 10 feet of water into Fillmore Garden. This would only be the beginning of a chain of levy failures at 6:10 AM Local time Katrina made its second landfall as an intense category three hurricane over plaques. Mines parish, Louisiana, about 45 miles southeast of New Orleans. Although Katrina had weakened slightly, its hurricane force winds extended almost 120 miles from the system center. Spelling, disaster far beyond the eye of the storm at around 7:45 AM Local time, another larger chunk of the industrial canal, explosively failed sending a 20 foot wall of water into the lower ninth ward. Any structures near the levee break were either destroyed or wiped away from
their foundations by 9:00 AM Local time. The entire neighborhood and surrounding areas were submerged under six to eight feet of water within 24 hours. Over 50 levee failures were reported on August 29th or the following day. Including several at the Industrial Canal, the London Avenue Canal, and the 17th Street Canal. Some of the pumping stations around the New Orleans area meant to pump any rain or coastal flood waters out of the city also failed to do the sheer amount of rainfall and storm surge that overwhelmed the system. These failures resulted in the flooding of about 80% of the city of New Orleans, all of the St. Bernard Parish and the East Bank of the Planks Mines parish. The flooding was unlike anything the city had experienced in its over 200 years of history of hurricanes and other extreme weather. Even the Superdome, which was designated a last refuge for more than 20,000 people who had not evacuated New Orleans sustained significant damage. The hurricane had compromised two sections of the Superdome's roof and peeled off some of the waterproofing material of the dome, exposing the tens of thousands in seeking shelter to the element. Most of the major connections into and out of New Orleans were also damaged with the only major intact highway into and out of the city. Being the Crescent City connection, the Huey P Long Bridge and the Lake Poncho Tran Causeway with available connections limited due to the extensive flooding across the city, or extensive storm damage aid needed to get into the city would have to face many bottlenecks. Katrina's landfall was only the beginning of what would become a full scale crisis for New Orleans and other areas of the Gulf Coast. In the next part of this special on this day, weather history will continue to track Katrina as it devastates parts of Mississippi and Alabama and the permanent scar and inflicted on the region. Hello and welcome back to the Everything Weather Podcast. I'm your host, Kyle David, and today on the podcast we've been talking with Becky DePodwin. She's a senior consultant for guidehouse, specializing in customer experience, change management, emergency preparedness, business continuity and risk communication. We've been talking about how she got interested in the weather and eventually transitioned into emergency management business and all those fun things that we've been talking about. We're gonna get back into that conversation. But first I've got another fun game for you, Becky.
Becky DePodwin:Alright,
Kyle David:we've got keep four, cut five of these baked goods. Ooh. So on the list, I've got nine baked goods. Your job is to keep four. And the five that do not get kept, they get gone. They get gone. They get cut to and sent to the ether and they disappear from reality or whatever.
Becky DePodwin:Okay,
Kyle David:so on the list we have croissants, chocolate, brownies, cupcakes, muffins, cheesecake, regular cake, cookies. We also have sourdough bread, bear claws. How do you say that? Is it Kon? No, I'm not gonna do that one. it wasn't Kon. I haven't even forgot what I said at this point. Jesus. All right, hold on one sec, take two. Keep four. Cut five of these baked goods. So we've got nine baked goods here for you to cut from and keep from. So you get to keep four of these. You cut five and those five get sent off to the either. So on the list we have cookies, we have brownies, croissants, sourdough bread, blueberry tart. Scones. I said sour bread. My apologies. Yeah. Hold on one second. My notes are glitching on it.
Becky DePodwin:You're giving me time to think here.
Kyle David:I guess that's a good thing. I don't know what is, technology's crapping out on me, so my apologies on that. That's all. So I'm gonna be on the fly. Okay. Think I'm good now. Okay. All right. Take three now. Jesus. all right. Keep four. Cut five of these baked goods. So your job is from this list of nine baked goods to keep. Four. And the rest of the baked goods get lost and cut and sent to the either. So on the list that I finally have, we have croissants, cinnamon rolls, cookies, blueberry muffin, I'll specify with the cookie. Chocolate chip, cookie, apple pie, banana, bread, macaroons, pumpkin bread, and cheesecake.
Becky DePodwin:Okay. Keeping croissant for sure. I love those. Probably keeping the classic chocolate chip cookie. I'm gonna get rid of banana bread. I don't need that. I don't need that. It's fine. It's fine. I can live without probably. Okay. So I kept two so far. I kept the croissant and the pumpkin bread. I've kept the croissant, the cookie and the pumpkin bread.
Kyle David:Pumpkin. Yes. And you cut the banana bread. So we've got three kept one cut. So you got one more to keep from the list?
Becky DePodwin:No, we're gonna cut. Blueberry muffin.
Kyle David:Oh, okay. Interesting pick.
Becky DePodwin:I'm gonna cut cinnamon rolls. That's a hot, it's too rich. It's too much,
Kyle David:but it's
Becky DePodwin:too much. So now it's between apple pie and cheesecake. Unless there's one that I'm missing here. I don't remember macaroons. Oh, those can go. I don't need those. Wait. Oh, wait. Hold on. are these the, oh, see there's two different ones. There's like the coconut macaroons. Or there's macarons, which are like the sandwichy ones. Are we talking about
Kyle David:sandwich ones? Oh, I love those. the French.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah. yeah. Which I've attempted to make once and it was successful. They're very hard to make.
Kyle David:They are. I know.
Becky DePodwin:I think apple pie's gonna have to go to, Ooh. All right. So croissant chocolate chip cookie, pumpkin bread. I love a good pumpkin bread. I think I'm gonna keep cheesecake over the macarons.
Kyle David:Wow. Okay. So we've got very interesting KE four cut five. So on the KE we have croissant chocolate, chip cookie, pumpkin bread and cheesecake. And for the other five, the cinnamon roll, the blueberry muffin, the apple pie, the banana bread. And you said the macaroons keep right.
Becky DePodwin:No,
Kyle David:those went and the macaroons Yeah. Get sent to the either Wow, that's, I know, but the banana bread,
Becky DePodwin:pumpkin bread. I see pumpkin bread's better than banana bread, in my opinion.
Kyle David:Ooh.
Becky DePodwin:But I do make banana bread a bit because you gotta use up those old bananas somehow.
Kyle David:Yeah. If they go over ripe, then that, that's the perfect use for it. I will say I've not had a good pumpkin bread. I've had like pumpkin muffins, but not pumpkin bread. Side question. what's your go-to pumpkin bread recipe?
Becky DePodwin:Probably one from either I am Baker or Sally's Baking Addiction. I like either of their recipes. I'm trying to keep it healthier for my daughter. I'll probably do something from like yummy toddler food. Which is mostly like less sugar, things like that. But I feel like to have like a really good one, like you need the sugar,
Kyle David:you gotta have a little bit of sweetness to everything. Otherwise then life isn't sweet,
Becky DePodwin:if you're in the northeast and you have a Wegmans near you, Wegmans makes the best pumpkin muffins. They're so good.
Kyle David:All right, so
Becky DePodwin:for Wegmans.
Kyle David:let's get back into our conversation that we've been having about your experiences in weather and how you've transitioned a little bit out of the weather to more of emergency management, to the business side of things. And I'm curious, 'cause I've had somebody already on talk about the local and state level emergency management, but what's the difference between. Those levels, the local, state and emergency management and the areas that you're familiar with? The national level of emergency management?
Becky DePodwin:Yeah, that's a good question. So the federal response, obviously the Federal Emergency Management Agency provides a lot of the funding that the state and local agencies use. Now, some of that funding is ongoing through grants and things like that, and some of it has to be obtained through a disaster de declaration. So oftentimes you'll see either before, during, or slightly after a governor declare an emergency, a declaration for a part of the state, or for all of the states for a specific disaster that's unfolded. That is so they can receive the federal funding from FEMA That will help. And the response recovery and rebuilding efforts. so that's really kinda one of the main functions is to provide that funding. But also FEMA does a lot of standardized training. So all of the courses, there's the Emergency Management Institute. I know it's since been renamed, but I think most of us are still calling it the Emergency Management Institute. I was actually just down there yesterday. It's in Emmetsburg, Maryland. I had to get my FEMA badge renewed, so I was on the campus. But it's providing, in-person some virtual training for all aspects of emergency management, whether it's, response, recovery, mitigation, planning, preparedness, all of that. So helping emergency managers be as best as they can be at their job. and, following some set of standardized guidelines when it comes to. Those aspects of emergency management. And that is to be clear, a very simplified version of what FEMA does. There's a lot more nuance, but high level, that's, it
Kyle David:definitely highlights the nuances of emergency management, definitely the differences between local and state and then the national level, which everybody thinks of FEMA when it comes to emergency management. I'm curious in the context of your current role, how do you work with femen? How do you see that work impacting people's lives?
Becky DePodwin:Yeah, so obviously as a contractor, I'm not a federal employee, but I support my clients are federal employees. So when I was, supporting IPAs, I was helping conduct outreach to various, Partners. So you know, one of their key partners is the National Weather Service, because they issue probably, it's like 80% of wireless emergency alerts are actually from the National Weather Service. So really just like making sure that they were aligned, having the conversation that stations that needed to be had, collaborating, talking with various stakeholders, some of the alert origination software providers, that's that, like the software that allows alerting authorities to actually send the alerts, making sure that they were, equipped, trained. They knew how to send a message, write a message. All of that actually is very tangible. I wasn't doing this work directly, but other people on my team work. It's updating the training for emergency managers who become alerting authorities, which is the term that's used for someone who can actually write and hit, send on a wireless emergency alert. And that is. If you, if your alert is not clear and actionable, it's probably not gonna be that useful. And there are a lot of examples of very bad WEAs out there. So knowing that the work that was being done to, to provide training, make sure that the communications that are going out over these messages is clear because it's going right to the public, right? It's going straight to every person in that vicinity to their phone to say, you need to take action on this. Whether it's to shelter for tornado to get to higher ground on a flash flood, it needs to be very clear, you know what the hazard is, who is sending the message? What is the timeframe? What is the action? And you would be surprised at how often that information is not there. So that's definitely one tangible thing that I think the work we're doing has a very direct impact on the public.
Kyle David:And I'm curious 'cause you. Touched upon it a little bit on communicating the risks and the impacts of different weather events and sometimes even other non weather related events. What are the challenges of balancing all of these things? Scientific accuracy, the timeliness of the message and getting out and effective message that gets people to react appropriately.
Becky DePodwin:Sorry, can you say that one more time? What is, so
Kyle David:how do you balance keeping a scientifically accurate message? Something that, what are some, lemme try that again.'cause I'm thinking on the fly a little bit with the question, but, how do you balance keeping the message scientifically accurate? Get the weather information out there, or whatever specific information, whether it be, I'm not sure of any non weather related examples, but how do you balance all of the. Weather related terms information and get out a good inform, good message to get people to take action.
Becky DePodwin:Well, first I'm actually gonna direct you, and hopefully you can link this in show notes to a website called the Warn Room. it's by Dr. Jeanette Sutton, who works at the University of Albany. And she and many others have done just incredible work on the social science aspects of warnings and what is the right amount of information to your question that people need to hear or to read in a message to feel confident in taking action. and she lays it all out really clearly of like, so we as can come in 90 characters or 360 characters. and so there's, you do have a bit of room with the 360 characters to expand on the hazard a little bit, but you also have to understand that people don't have. A lot of time to be reading this and reacting. So keeping it simple is actually really important. And choosing the words and the language that you're using carefully is really important. and so I think a lot of a tool that I think a lot of good emergency managers use is, first off, you have to understand the hazards that your area may face if their weather, that generally should be pretty easy because you should know the hazards. Human made hazards are a whole different ballgame. But you can write up general templates or even phrases to use that, when you're in the heat of the moment and you're having to put together a warning, you then quickly pull from those. And there they're phrases that you know, are, social science approved. People will understand, they're easy to understand. They're not jargon. Jargon is a big thing that, that Dr. Sutton recommends you stay away from. So, I'm not the expert in this by any means. I would highly recommend linking to her website if you can. I think it's really useful. And I've seen just incredible feedback from emergency managers who have started using that formatting in their alerts.
Kyle David:Yeah, we'll definitely include that in the show notes as well, that specific website because we always like to show different resources for people who are in the weather, who are passionate about the weather, to learn more about what goes into warning them, relaying weather information.'cause it's very important to do these days. Yes. So continuing our conversation about what you currently do, can you share a memorable experience from your current role that still sticks with you today?
Becky DePodwin:Well, so this last fall, if you'll recall there was, there were back to back hurricanes. There was Celine, which obviously devastated a lot of the southeast and southern Appalachians. And then shortly after there was, oh gosh. Milton, say, Michael, it's not, it was Milton who looked like it was gonna take a, a somewhat similar path. And so one of the things that we did, this is when I was still supporting IPOs, was we were basically all hands on deck for several days in that week. Like, the couple of, like, the couple of days leading up to Milton HA had already happened. But knowing that FEMA itself was stretched very thin at that point, and knowing that as contractors, like we had the ability to surge and to provide a little more support. So there were people who, were in, and this is outside of IPOs, but there were people who went into FEMA and were providing support in the NRC, which is the National Response Coordinator. That in that room and just doing whatever was needed to provide support to the feds. At that point, we were providing updates to our main client on IPOs, making sure, like he was aware of what alerts and warnings had gone out, had they. Had they been effective? It's, hurricanes are tricky because there's not necessarily a lot of really time sensitive alerts that go out sometimes, obviously when you have like tornadoes and spin ups and things like that. But that was a pretty memorable couple of weeks. it's just supporting FEMA generally was seeing how back to back disasters impacted the agency. we had, we had clients that were getting called out into the field and deployed when it was like, not their normal job whatsoever because of the, just the widespread nature of response that was needed at that time.
Kyle David:And I'm glad you brought up, excuse me, yeast. I'm
Becky DePodwin:passing on my, losing my voice to you.
Kyle David:Hold on one second. Yeah, I don't know where that came from. Something got stuck in my throat. All right. Now that's up. I'm glad you brought up Hurricane Milton and Helene, because not only were those particularly challenging weather events to go through, you're relaying weather information. The perception of these organizations was challenging. fema for example, there was a lot of people saying, what is FEMA doing? They were criticizing fema. And like you said, FEMA's stretched thin and local emergency management, state emergency management is also stretched thin during these big impact events, especially ones that are back to back. can you talk a little bit about that and what message do you hope to relay about the role of emergency management?
Becky DePodwin:Yeah. there's, there's a lot of misinformation out there right now. Sadly, a lot of people intentionally spreading misinformation and disinformation about what the government's role in response is. And I, I think the main point that I want to get across is that I have never met a single person within FEMA who did not want to help and provide support in whatever capacity they could to the American people, to, to people living in this country. And that may come in the form of being the person at the other end of the phone call who is helping them with a grant application. It may come in the form of someone with, providing boots on the ground assistance. it, it can come in all sorts of different forms, but I, the people who are working for fema, and this really goes for people who are civil servants regardless, across all agencies, national Weather Service, et cetera. People who are in these jobs are very passionate people. They care about the work they do. They care that the work they do impacts the people who are their neighbors, in their community across this country that is. Very different than, that's a different answer than the question you asked, but that's the answer that I wanted to give, is that I don't think there's really ever ill intent intended when people are trying to help. they really just want to help after a disaster.
Kyle David:No, you helped in a way understand, help people understand what people in emergency management are doing. And you relayed that message that people are passionate about what they do and they care about people. So that definitely answered that question.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah. I think one of the things you may have been getting at, maybe not, I don't know, there was a rumor that, FEMA was not going to houses with, like Trump signs. And I don't know whether that's true or not. but I think there was potentially some fear. you don't know what you're gonna come across at a house. Of someone who has just undergone, a shock. They've just gone through a disaster. People react and respond in all sorts of different ways and whether or not, that particular rumor was true, I think it's a natural human reaction to be wary and cautious of what you might find. But at the end of the day, I think people do still want to help regardless of any political affiliation.
Kyle David:This is just off the record, I wasn't going in that direction. I just, it was just because I know offhand that there was some talk about FEMA and Yeah, discussion of what they're doing during Helene and Milton. I did not realize that was a theory that was going around about FEMA at the time during, was it Helene or Milton, or both?
Becky DePodwin:I think Helene, yeah. No, there was a whistleblower or someone, anyway, it was a whole thing. You can Google it, but it was one of those things that was, a little disappointing to think that was a perception that was. Being held by some people was that FEMA didn't want to help. And I just, I don't think that's true.
Kyle David:Yeah. That's disturbing to, I knew a little bit of the talk about it, but I didn't realize there was something like that out there at the time. Yeah. and
Becky DePodwin:people are stressed. It's, I, people have, like I said, people have a lot of different reactions to, their home and their way of life being fundamentally altered by a natural hazard ties back, a little bit to the mental health conversation from earlier.
Kyle David:it does in a way. Yeah. and trying to weather the bad weather, it, that sounds corny, but, to get through the bad weather and the extreme weather that's going on, and emotions are at high, your community is devastated from extreme events like Helene or Milton. It's hard and you try to play place the blame on other things that, because like you said earlier, the weather can't be controlled. It does what it wants, and at the end of the day we are at its mercy.
Becky DePodwin:Yep.
Kyle David:So, on that note, what would you, trying to think, what would you say to people who are going through those events? what are some things that they can do to not only keep themselves out of a bad mental cease, but also move forward and recover from these events?
Becky DePodwin:a lot of it is what you do before, for better or for worse. One of the big things that, my now boss and I talked about when he, Was on the AccuWeather network and the podcast was the importance of documenting everything in your home. That is a value, with pictures, with video, so that when you go to submit an insurance claim and replace things like, you know exactly what you lost. that's a big like, financial thing that you can do beforehand. But I think one of the other big things that, that helps in the moments and days immediately after is community. are your neighbors coming together to help one another out? Do you have family or friends nearby that you know you can stay with or can provide a meal if need be? I've seen a lot of stories of people who, have had their homes flooded out and it, it sucks. It's awful. Right? But they seem generally, as upbeat as they can be when they have a community around them helping. and I think that's just so key and something that I. It's easy to get, get lost when you feel like your entire world has just been upended. And it feels very isolating. But I think reaching out or having people reach out to you knowing that there are people out there who are going to help, whether it's fema, whether it's your state and local agencies, whether it's the restaurant down the road providing meals or your neighbor letting you crash. It's, there's so many different ways that you can help after a disaster. And so I think getting to know your community before anything ever happens is really key.
Kyle David:Yeah, and like you said, it's, it comes down to a little bit of how they prepare for it. And we were talking a little bit earlier about businesses planning for the weather. How can both businesses and the public make better plans to adjust for these weather events, especially if they're gonna be changing down the road?
Becky DePodwin:I actually wrote a whole LinkedIn article about this. I can send you that link. The number one thing you have to know before you can do anything is you have to understand what hazards you're gonna be dealing with. Are you on the coast and you might have hurricanes or flooding, like coastal flooding. Are you near a river and you're gonna have river flooding? Are you on the planes? You're gonna have tornadoes. Do you deal with high winds? Often you can't plan for any type of hazard and, recovery from a hazard if you don't know what that hazard is. So that's the first step. Then I think it's understanding the impact that might have, and this is where people have to get a little creative in the emergency management space. It's called fantasy planning, and you have to think through, well, what's the worst case scenario that could happen? a category five with, this amount of flooding. any number of scenarios. and again, there's natural hazards and there are manmade hazards and it's hard, it's really hard to think worst case scenario, to think in a way that is catastrophic. And there are some of us whose minds just work that way and it sucks, but it's also very helpful if you can provide that perspective and at least ask the right questions. and I think that's where the role of an emergency manager comes in really well, because they can ask these questions, whether it's to a community generally to, an organization, a business. They could ask you the questions of like, what happens if this happens? how are your employees impacted? How is your business impacted? How long would you need to be closed for? How much money would you lose if this happened? All of these questions, and it's mostly questions that need to be answered, but it's having the ability to think of the right questions to ask that will then get you to outline the plan and document the steps that would need to be taken to make sure that you are as prepared as possible to withstand a storm, and then be able to build back better, if not stronger.
Kyle David:Good questions are always, the best tool in terms of preparing and reacting to severe weather. And I'm gonna ask you a question about questions. What's the best question that you've been asked? And then also what's been the most frustrating question that you've been asked?
Becky DePodwin:That's gonna take me back ways. the best question, I should have a better answer to this. If you, if I had time to think about this one, I would, I think I'd be able to come up with some good ones. You could think about it for a second if you want. I think one of the more frustrating ones though is to being asked to give a percentage of precipitation and like wanting to be very precise. It's, it can be a very easy answer. It's like, oh, it's a hundred percent chance of rain. Or it can be like, I don't know, there might be pop-up thunderstorms that's really hard to quantify. Like it might be a mile away from you and it's raining, so therefore like the percentage chance is about 40. But for you, and people don't, people have a hard time with uncertainty and I know there are a handful of clients that just like, really did not like that. I would get like very upset if you said, 20 to 30 and it ended up raining on it and be like, well you said 20 to 30. It's like, well, you don't understand what percentage of precipitation actually meets, which most people don't. That's fine. As far as, best question, there's definitely, I always appreciated when clients would show like a decent level of understanding of the weather. we knew they had taken the time to. At least be familiar with some of the terms and they would, get them right when they would ask. I can't think of a specific example, but I always like that.
Kyle David:So where the client is a little, they've done their homework in a way, and yeah, they come up with some educated questions for you.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle David:Okay. And then I'll edit this part to pop it back towards the pops. Can you just real quick explain that a little bit more? Do I have to, you don't have to if you want to, but you know, I figured that would be a good opportunity to, there's some people in the meteorology world that don't know what it is. like, I know what it is. It's like 20, 30% is, 20 to 30% of the area will get rain. Or there's also the definition of, 20 to 30% of the time a certain area will get the rain.
Becky DePodwin:Right. There's definitely two schools of thought and I think the general. Right one. And this is what people often miss. People see like a 40% and they think at my exact point, there is a 40% chance of brain. And that is not what it means. It means over the general area, somewhere in that area has a 40% chance of getting precip. And I'm not even sure I'm explaining that correctly. Like this is one of those concepts that like should be really simple and it's, but it's the area, the forecast area that I think people don't always take into account.
Kyle David:just goes to show you that needs like a standard definition. That could be, across the board
Becky DePodwin:I had arguments with my husband about this. This is what happens when you're both meteorologists. Good times. Good times.
Kyle David:That's funny. But you, we've been talking about your work experience a little bit. And I wanna real quick talk about, you'd mentioned earlier that you met your husband at AccuWeather and he's also a meteorologist as well. Just outta curiosity, what is that like? And do you guys often have heated debates about the weather?
Becky DePodwin:No, not really. It's great overall, it's, I think it's really cool to like have your significant other be someone who completely understands and also lives like the same level of nerdiness. I'm not as in touch with weather anymore. He still is very much in touch with the weather as the director of forecast s at AccuWeather. But like, we're both like, if there's a thunderstorm happening, like we're both, all right, let's go to our spot, we're gonna watch it. Like we've taken our daughter with us to like hang out in the car and like see the storm come in. we had a really special moment, I think last summer where we had a storm come through and we're sitting with her on the couch and she's just like, like, it just enraptured, hearing the thunder and seeing the rain. it's also one of those things that like though I am no longer in operational meteorology, I understand the nature of the business. And so if he has to work weekends or nights or, gets called in during a storm, like, I get it, you can't change the weather. if you know it's busy and they need, search support or if he needs to bring, food into his team, I'll help bake cookies and send stuff in. So I think just like having someone that understands the business helps a lot and then just having someone to totally nerd out about, like he can, drop Oh yeah. The GFS was showing this and I think we're going, SPC day three, and it's like, I know exactly what that means, it's like we have our own way of talking, but if I, if I wasn't in weather, he would, that wouldn't be a conversation that happens right. So I love it personally. I am glad we don't work for the same company anymore. That was, it was fine, but it's good to now have our separate careers.
Kyle David:And, I'm curious, before we talk about the other stuff that you do with the American Meteorological Society, be honest, when you're watching a weather movie or TV show or something that's got the weather in it, do you both sit there and critique the weather accuracy of it? Or can shut that part of your brain off and enjoy the show, enjoy the movie, or whatever's being watched?
Becky DePodwin:No, we usually critique, we watched, twisters recently and it was funny we both wouldn't do it and we're dubious of like, I don't know, this is gonna be very good. Then we both came at it, we're like, no, that was actually really good. And like the science was pretty, pretty accurate. Like, we were much more impressed with the science in that than the first twister.
Kyle David:And side note, I will say I am impressed by the level of weather terms that they threw in there. And I was like, oh, whoa. Okay. And even though the plot point, and if this makes it into the file cut, but spoil alert, with the weather modification, it's correct, but on the level that it is portrayed is not correct. Like you can modify the weather with, I forgot it was silver iodide, I think, but not to the level that they were, depicting in the movie. But yeah, I find it hard to turn that part of my brain off when I'm watching weather movies or TV shows and stuff, but I still have love for the original twisters. I could occasionally shut that off. Yes. But we've been talking about your work with Guidehouse, but we haven't really touched upon your stuff with the American Meteorological Society.'cause I don't know if we said this in the intro, but you are involved with that as well. You're very involved in terms of the different branches of a MS, the boards that the American Meteorological Society has. But I'll let you, I'll let you talk about it a little more. Can you talk about what that experience is like and what you do there?
Becky DePodwin:Yeah, so I'm currently an elected council member. They're each year council members from the different sectors, private sector, government and academia, are elected. There are. I think 16 counselors total. There's four to four to five that are elected each year. I'm in my, just starting my third year. So I've been on council for two years now. And essentially you can think of us as the board of a nonprofit because a MS is a nonprofit. but we help with governance. We engage with the staff and the executive leadership to help inform some of the overall decisions that are made. So some of the statements that you've seen put out recently, there was the one that, opened up a lot of the a MS job services, support that people who have lost their jobs might find useful. we helped write that statement. There was the statement and support of Noah and federal agencies. We all helped contribute and write and approve that. And then, we make decisions about the budget and, meetings and should meetings be more consolidated and how do we. go about the, publications. Are people still reading print magazines or do we wanna, go more, online, things like that? So we meet several times a year, mostly virtually, obviously we have a meeting at the annual meeting that takes place in January. Usually right now we are going through a search for a new executive director. So that has involved a lot of time in the past year or so. yeah, it's essentially like a nonprofit board.
Kyle David:Yeah. And in a way it's helping people out, like your consulting job, but in a different degree. You're helping a lot of
Becky DePodwin:parallels.
Kyle David:Yeah. I'm curious, what are some of your standout moments from your experiences dealing with the A MS and being involved with the a MS?
Becky DePodwin:Yeah. I've been involved for quite some time now. I was, I was. On and then chair of the board for early career professionals in the late 20 teens. I was, an in inaugural member of the Early Career Leadership Academy, which is probably my standout moment. that was a really pivotal, experience for me. and I've also been chair of the board, for Enterprise Strategic Topics, which helped plan a symposium at the annual meeting. Did a lot of work with NAMS, and, but I think ECLA was really just an awesome experience being part of the first class. and then I actually transitioned to be part of the planning team and was co-chair of the planning team for a couple of years, with Matt Lakey. And we planned an a successfully held one in-person event. So the academy is a couple of months of virtual events culminating in an in-person event. We had one, it was great. And then the next year COVID happened. and so we're in the middle of this whole like kind of the beginning part when everything shut down in March. And we've been planning to have our in-person in June and we ended up having to pivot the entire program to be fully virtual. And it was spread out over like a year and a half because we kept thinking we're gonna be able to be in person in the fall or maybe next spring. And obviously we all know that just, it didn't happen for a while, but the comradery that came out of that particular class and out of the planning team for that class is something that I'll never forget. We were all collectively going through this thing together that was scary and life changing. And none of us had ever experienced a global pandemic before. and so being able to help, help establish these peer connections and mentoring groups and. Building space for people to, to come together in a time that was, very isolating for some, was really rewarding. So it took a lot of leadership skills and knowledge away from being in the class itself, but also from, being on the planning team for those few years.
Kyle David:And for context, can you say what ECHO stands for?
Becky DePodwin:Sorry. Early Career Leadership Academy.
Kyle David:No, that's fine. when we're talking we like the acronym stuff. Yeah, acronym. I knew what it meant, but, I always like to get people to elaborate on the acronyms.
Becky DePodwin:If, yeah, if interested, you can Google it. They take applications at the beginning of the year, so it's closed for this year, but definitely look it up for next year.
Kyle David:We link that in the show notes for, if you're listening to this later on in the year or into the next year, whenever you're listening to this, you could always check it out and learn more about not only a MS, but the Early Career Leadership Academy and all the amazing stuff that a MS is doing. And real quick, what are for some of those that may not be a part of the American Meteorological Society and maybe they're just passionate about the weather, they're interested about it. what's the importance of a MS in the weather community?
Becky DePodwin:there's a lot that I could go to here. I think one of the biggest things though is networking and the people, and the ability to be connected to so many different people across different sectors of the enterprise. I would not have the knowledge that I do of, how the government works, how academia works if I hadn't made friends and connections through a MS. So obviously it's networking to get a job potentially and, find new opportunities, but also to, to have a full understanding and a bigger picture of how awesome the US weather enterprise is and how it functions there. Yeah, there obviously are job board. Those are actually open to everyone now for the time being. As we go through what we're going through as a country. The meetings are phenomenal. You can learn so much from people. There's just so much amazing work being done. Mentoring. There are mentoring programs. There are, there's a group called The Weather Band, which is for enthusiasts. So even if aren't a degreed meteorologist, that's completely fine. And we wanna make sure that we're, reaching everyone who has any interest in the weather. There are, forums, little old school, but you can, talk about the weather with people who are really knowledgeable. I think that's, that can be fun. Webinars, there's boards and committees to get involved with, to feel like, you're making a difference and, able to give back to some of the more early career folks or helping to plan, a symposium or an event. it's just the world is your oyster. I think when it comes to a MS.
Kyle David:I think you gave a very good, I don't think it was intended to be a sales pitch, but that was a very good sales pitch for a MS.
Becky DePodwin:I have enjoyed my time
Kyle David:and I'll, I will chime in and say, it's definitely a good organization to get involved if you're a weather professional or even if you're just passionate about the weather, just interested in wearing more of this, just a wealth of information. And we'll link them to show notes as well. If you wanna learn more about joining a MS and being a part of the awesome weather community.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah. And the career fair, that happens with the annual meeting is responsible for hiring a lot of meteorologists over the years.
Kyle David:Yeah. But as we get towards the end of our conversation and talking about your experiences, your transition from meteorology to, the introduction says it all, a wide array of different things. It's an interesting story and I'm curious, what's one piece of advice that you'd like to leave for those who wanna transition from meteorology to another field that connects to so many different things, or the vice versa, connecting from one industry to meteorology. So
Becky DePodwin:figure out what your why is. I, you asked at the very beginning, what's your weather story? And it may have something to do with that, but like, what is, why did you get involved in weather in the first place? What really makes you tick? For some reason, for some people it's gonna be a really niche research topic that might have, far reaching impacts. For some people it might be, broadcast and wanting to share weather. What is that why for you? And does it. Is it really specifically meteorology or is it some connection to meteorology? And there are so many different career paths now that involve meteorology but might not be directly related to the science, and that is perfectly okay. I think we're getting more to an understanding that you don't always have to have like the hardcore science to be impactful when it comes to, being someone in meteorology and in terms of changing careers and, all, your career path is not linear. It's curvy, it's wavy, it's all over the place. And that's okay to, I went through, I was fortunate that I could explore a lot of different roles at the same company. I did things like, customer experience, product management, which I really didn't like. although it's some of what I do now in a different way. I worked directly with clients, which I really loved. Try things out. You don't know what you like or don't like until you, you're, you try something out. I personally don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to change jobs if you need to. It's a stigma of like, job hopping every couple of years. Maybe if you're trying to figure out what it is you like or don't like, I think that's okay. it's about getting the experience and all of these things add up to be valuable. I have taken something away from every role that I've had and applied it somehow in some way to the work that I do now. If you're a bit of a jack of all trades, check out consulting. That's basically what we do. It's where you take every skill you've ever learned and you randomly apply it somehow and just, I get creative. There are, like we said also earlier in the show, meteorology impacts pretty much everything. It's a good creative and definitely talk to people if there's a job that you're interested in. See how they came across that job.
Kyle David:you said consulting, here's another one. Podcasting. You're doing a whole bunch of different things with that. You're doing script writing, you're doing public speaking, communications, marketing, social media. You may even dabble into Samaria. There is as you explore podcasting. But consulting is definitely a good spot.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah. And you can also learn a lot in consulting and, very transferrable skills.
Kyle David:Absolutely. And we're nearing the end. This is our second to final segment. Before we get to our last final fun section of the podcast in our conversation, I'm calling this the sunset segment where we get to open it up a little bit more too. Wherever you wanna take it. With that said, are there any things that you'd like to talk about that we didn't touch upon that much or at all during our conversation? Any myths that you wanna bust? I've had some people bust myths or any final parting thoughts that you'd like to leave for our listeners?
Becky DePodwin:I think one of the biggest pieces of advice that I would give people, whether you're starting out in your career, starting a new job, never be afraid to ask questions. A can learn a ton, which is helpful, but you also show that you're interested. make sure you're doing whatever it is you're supposed to be doing the correct way. You don't have to go back and redo it. it's not a bad thing to ask questions. It's not a bad thing to not have all of the answers. No one has all the answers. And I think too often ego gets in the way and is actually, detrimental. So. Just don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to say you don't know something. People are usually more than happy to explain something to you, to help you. I think the same goes to networking as well. Don't be afraid to, to cold email somebody and say, Hey, could we, grab a coffee and chat. We virtually meet people like talking. Really don't be afraid to reach out.
Kyle David:I'll say most people like to talk.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah.
Kyle David:But are there any other things that you'd like to add or say?
Becky DePodwin:Not that I can think of.
Kyle David:all right. Well, that said, we are, at the end of our sunset segment. The sun is setting on our conversation, but it is not the end of our episode just yet. We've got one more fun game for you before we go, and that is whether or not we've got a mix of weather themed, non weather themed questions or trivia questions that are part of this game, and they're all revolving around your interest inside of and outside of the weather. And with that said, are you ready to play our last game?
Becky DePodwin:Let's do it.
Kyle David:All right. This is whether or not your first question is related to baking. What is the main leavening agent in a classic sponge cake? Is it a baking soda, B baking powder, C yeast, or D whipped egg whites
Becky DePodwin:in a sponge cake?
Kyle David:Yes.
Becky DePodwin:I'm gonna go whipped egg whites.
Kyle David:Final guess is whipped egg whites.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah,
Kyle David:you are correct. It is whipped egg whites. All right. This is whether or not your next question is related to storm chasing. What is the term used to describe the area under a super cell where extreme hail is possible? Is it A, the bears cage B, the lion's den C, the chase target, or D, the corkscrew.
Becky DePodwin:These are amazing, but it's the bears cage. I like the lion's den though. I feel like that could work just as well.
Kyle David:So corkscrew bears cage is the final guess. Yeah, you are correct. It is the bears cage. So you are correct. It is the bears cage and the lion then could be a good one too for something else. All right. This is whether or not your next question is related to Legos. What does the word Lego mean in Danish? Is it a fun times B, creative blocks C play Well or D build together?
Becky DePodwin:I don't know. This one. I'm gonna guess. Build together.
Kyle David:Build together is your final guess.
Becky DePodwin:Yeah.
Kyle David:Sorry to say you are incorrect. It is c play well and I did not actually know that it meant anything in Danish. So both of us are learning something with this trivia question. So, and shout out to Legos. I love Lego. Me too. Side note, what is your favorite Lego set that you have built?
Becky DePodwin:So I'm finishing one right now. That's a bouquet of flowers, which is really pretty. I just got one for my birthday. It's an owl and it's like really intense and I'm very excited for, it's 2000 pieces. Two. Yeah. I don't know how long it's gonna take me. I just opened it.
Kyle David:Good luck with finishing the thank you 2000 piece set. this won't make it, but I've got a couple of these. Yes. Flower. I love
Becky DePodwin:the botanical ones. I have the centerpiece.
Kyle David:Every time I see 'em at Costco I get it. I'm like, oh, I'm getting that. And fun little thing. If you wanna do something that you don't wanna do, like podcast editing, build the thing. Yes. As a reward for yourself while you're doing it.
Becky DePodwin:We did, on election night to like not doom scroll. Both my husband and I did Allego.
Kyle David:It's very effective. That's, I love that one. That's good. All right. Excuse me. All right, continuing on now. this is whether or not your next question is related to flash flooding response. Where is the best place for someone to go when flash flooding is occurring in or around their house? Is it a stay where they are? B, go to the lowest level, C go to the highest level, or D, grab? Yeah. I don't like that answer, so I'll just, or d go outside,
Becky DePodwin:go to the highest level. Final answer.
Kyle David:Go to the highest level of final answer.
Becky DePodwin:Yes,
Kyle David:you are correct. It is go to the highest level. This one's gonna be a little bit interesting. This is whether or not your last question is related to Pennsylvania. What is the capital city of Pennsylvania? Is it a Philadelphia b Pittsburgh, c Harrisburg, or d Lancaster?
Becky DePodwin:It is Harrisburg. I just drove through Harrisburg yesterday.
Kyle David:Final guest is Harrisburg. Yep, you are correct. It is Harrisburg. And that is the last whether or not trivia question the end of the episode. But before we go, how can people stay in touch with all of the awesome work that you're doing in a MS and just in general
Becky DePodwin:by LinkedIn? You find me at Becky de Podin or Blue Sky? wx. Bes Fair warning. I don't post a lot anywhere anymore. I'm a mom. I don't have a lot of time, but if I do post anywhere, it's probably those two places.
Kyle David:Kudos to you for being a parent and doing all these things at the same time, so, we'll, it's worth, we'll make sure to link those in the podcast notes for everybody to go and follow you and stay up to touch with. Everything that you're doing in the weather world. With that said, Becky, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast, and thank you to the listener for listening to the Everything Weather Podcast. It will catch you on the next episode.
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