Following the terrible flooding disaster on the Guadalupe River in Texas, the New York Times has examined underinvestment in early warning systems ("Around the World, Early Warning Systems Struggle to Prevent Flash Flooding Disasters," July 14, 2025). The article points out the difficulty of prediction as a fundamental challenge and suggets that false alarms can lull communities into inaction--the so-called "cry wolf" problem.
I looked around for research on this cry wolf issue and found an interesting article by Sawada, Kanai and Kotani (2022)* that summarizes past research on this phenomenon. They find that past research generally supports the importance of "cry wolf" effects, though several studies find neglible or insignificant effects.
Recent research by Kotani, Ogawa and Matshushima (2025)** using data from floods in Japan in 2018 finds support for the economic and social consequences of a higher number of false alarms. They find that a greater number of false alarms is related to a higher number of fatalities, injuries and economic losses.
I also find a lot of research on early warning systems for flooding and other natural disasters that emphasizes the complex chain that leads from data to modeling to prediction to warning (see, for example, Fernández-Nóvoa, González-Cao and García-Feal (2024)***).
The conclusion I draw from this research is that high quality early warning systems are important and can save lives, but we need to be aware of how early warning systems can interact negatively with public perceptions of risk.
*Sawada, Y., Kanai, R., and Kotani, H.: Impact of cry wolf effects on social preparedness and the efficiency of flood early warning systems, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 4265–4278, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-4265-2022, 2022).
**Kotani, H., Ogawa, W., & Matsushima, K. (2025). Does the performance of a flood early warning system affect casualties and economic losses? Empirical analysis using open data from the 2018 Japan Floods. Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan. Ser. II, 103(4), 481-496.
***Fernández-Nóvoa, D., González-Cao, J., & García-Feal, O. (2024). Enhancing flood risk management: a comprehensive review on flood early warning systems with emphasis on numerical modeling. Water, 16(10), 1408.