Washington (AP) – former federal officials and external experts have warned for months that President Donald Trump’s depths of HR sections against the national weather service could endanger life.
After flowing rains and floods Beaten at Texas Hill Country on FridayThe weather service was under fire from local officials who criticized what they described as inadequate forecasts, although most were to blame Trump’s reductions in the state controlled by Republicans. Meanwhile, the Democrats wasted little time to combine the reduction of employees with the catastrophe that is held responsible for the death of at least 80 people, including more than two dozen girls and consultants who took part in a summer camp at the Guadalupe river.
The NWS office responsible for this region had five employees because thunderstorms were founded in Texas on Thursday evening. The current and former NWS officials defended the agency and pointed out urgent flood flood warnings that were exhibited in the hours before dawn before the river rise.
“This was an extraordinary service that first comes out with the catastrophic flood warning, and this shows the awareness of the meteorologists in the layer in the NWS office,” said Brian Lamarre, who was retired at the end of April as a meteorologist of the NWS forecast in Tampa, Florida. “There is always a challenge to put extreme values, but the fact that the catastrophic warning initially issued urgency.”
Questions linger about coordination level
On the night of the disaster, however, there are questions about the coordination and communication between NWS and local officials. The Trump government has Cut hundreds of jobs at NWSwith With at least 20% a personnel section With almost half of the 122 NWS branches nationally and at least half a dozen no more occupied 24 hours a day. Hundreds of more experienced forecastics and senior employees were encouraged to retire early.
The White House has also proposed to reduce the budget of its parents’ agency by 27% and to eliminate federal research centers that concentrate on the examination of worldwide weather, climate and oceans.
The website for the NWS office for Austin/San AntonioWhich covers the region, which includes hard -hit Kerr County, shows that six out of 27 positions are listed as empty. The job offers include an important manager who is responsible for issuing warnings and coordination with local emergency management officers. An online resume for the employee who last held the job showed that after more than 17 years in April, he was sent to employees who request them to retire at an early stage or to put potential layoffs at an early stage.
The Democrats pushed the Trump government on Monday to receive details of the cuts. Chuck Schumer, Chairman of Senate Minister, demanded the administration examine Whether a lack of personnel contributed to the “catastrophic loss of life” in Texas.
In the meantime, Trump said that the order excretions did not disabled any weather forecasts. The raging water, he said on Sunday, were “one thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it.”
Former officials warn that job cuts could hinder future forecasts
Former federal officials and experts said Trump’s indiscriminately shortcuts at NWS and other weather -related agencies will lead to a brain drain that endangers the ability of the federal government to enact timely and precise forecasts. Such predictions can save lives, especially for those on the way of rapidly moving storms.
“This situation comes to the point where something could break,” said Louis Uccellini, a meteorologist who acted among three presidents as NWS director, including during Trump’s first term. “People are tired, work through the night and are there during the day because the next shift is short. Something could create a situation in which important elements of forecasts and warnings are overlooked.”
After Trump returned to office in January, he gave a Series of management orders Authorization of the Department of Government Efficiency, originally from Mega-Milliardenary-Elon-Musk to Mega billionaire Receive the reductions of the HR personnel And terminate contracts in federal authorities and deal with significant supervision of the congress.
Although Muschus has now left Washington and had a very public striving with TrumpThe employees of Doge and the cuts he had requested have largely remained and increased the life of tens of thousands of federal employees.
The cuts follow a decades of republican efforts to reduce and privatize many of the duties of the national ocean and atmospheric management, the agency within the trade department that includes the NWS. The reductions have come when Trump civil servants with connections to private companies that benefit from benefiting from the taxpayer financed by the taxpayer for the prediction of the weather that handed over the top public contributions.
Project 2025, the conservative Leading blueprint This Trump distanced itself during the 2024 campaign, but that it generally moves in office, dismantled the NOAA and further commercializes the weather service.
Chronic lack of personnel have caused a handful of offices to limit the frequency of regional forecasts and Weather balloon starts Need to collect atmospheric data. The weather service in April Abrupt -ended translations His forecasts and emergency warnings in languages other than English, including Spanish. The service was soon reinstated After a public outcry.
The main satellite operations of NOAA appeared at the beginning of this year on a list of excess government real estate that is to be sold. Trump’s proposed budget also tries to close key facilities for the persecution of climate change. The proposed cuts include the observatory on the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii, which has been documenting the steady increase in carbon dioxide of herbal carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere for decades by burning fossil fuels.
On June 25th, Noaa announced abruptly that the US Department of Defense would no longer process or transfer data from three weather satellites experts Crucial to keep the path and strength of hurricanes carefully at sea.
“Removing data from the defense satellite is similar to removing another piece into the puzzle of public security for the prognosis of hurricane intensity,” said Lamarre, now a private consultant. “The more pieces have been removed, the less clear the image that can reduce the quality of life -saving warnings.”
Trump officials say that they have not fired meteorologists
In the case of two hearings in the Congress last month, Minister of Commerce Howard Lutnick described it as “false news” that the Trump government had enlarged all meteorologists despite meteorologists Detailed reporting from the Associated Press And other media organizations that recorded the layoffs.
“We are full of forecastics and scientists,” said Lutnick on June 4 before a sub -committee of the Senate. “Under no circumstances, I will have public security or public forecast touched.”
Despite the broad freezing of Trump’s nationwide attitude, Noaa announced last month to fill more than 100 “Mission -critical field positions”, “ Plug holes in some regional weather offices by re -assigning the staff. These positions have not yet been published publicly, although a Noaa spokesman said on Sunday that they would be soon.
When asked by AP, how the NWS could be fully occupied at the same time, and still promote “business -critical positions”, said trading spokesman Kristen Eichamer, the “National Hurricane Center was fully staffed to meet the requirements of this season, and all recruitment efforts are simply intended to deepen our talent pool.”
“The secretary undertakes to provide the Americans the most accurate and up -to -date weather data by ensuring that the national weather service is fully equipped with the staff and the technology he needs,” said Eichamer. “For the first time we integrate technology that is more precise and agile than ever to achieve this goal, and the NWS is ready to provide the Americans critical weather information.”
Uccellini and the four former NWS directors, which served under Democratic and Republican Presidents, criticized the Trump cuts in an open letter published in May. They said that the administration measures had led to a departure of around 550 employees – an overall reduction of more than 10 percent.
“NWS employees will have an impossible task to continue their current service level,” they wrote. “Our worst nightmare is that weather forecasts will be so understaffed that there will be unnecessary loss of life. We know that it is a nightmare that is shared by those for the forecast front lines – and on people who depend on their efforts.”
The NOAA budget for the 2024 financial year was almost 6.4 billion US dollars, of which fewer than 1.4 billion US dollars went to NWS.
Experts care for forecasts for hurricanes
While experts say that it would be illegal for Trump to eliminate Noaa without the approval of the congress, some former federal officials fear that the cuts could lead to a patchwork system in which taxpayers have to finance the operation of satellites and the collection of atmospheric data, but have to pay private services that would issue forecasts and storm warriors. According to critics, this agreement could lead to delays or missed emergencies, which in turn could lead to avoidable deaths.
D. James Baker, who acted as a Noaa administrator during the Clinton administration, questioned whether private forecast companies would make services available to the public that did not make a profit.
“Would you be interested in serving small communities in Maine, we say?” Asked Baker. “Is there a business model that receives all citizens who need data? Will companies take legal risks, share information with disaster administrative agencies and be held accountable, since government agencies simply shorten NOAA without determining how the forecasts are still available is dangerous.”
Although the National Hurricane Center in Miami, as in regional NWS offices, was largely spared the employees of employees, some specialists who rely on federal forecasts and data welcomed the tropical weather season with profound concern.
In an unusual transmission warned his viewers The cuts of the Trump administration meant that he could not deliver as precise forecasts for hurricanes as he had in recent years. In NWS offices from Tampa to Key West, he quoted personnel lack of 20% and 40% and asked his NBC 6 audience in Greater Miami to call her congress representatives.
“We see that the quality of the forecasts is deteriorated,” said Morales. “And we may not know exactly how strong a hurricane is before reaching the coast.”
