By Brian Slodysk and Michael Bieceker
Washington (AP) For months, former federal officials and independent experts have cautioned that the National Weather Service’s severe staffing reduction under President Donald Trump may put lives at jeopardy.
Although most in the Republican-controlled state stopped clear of criticizing Trump’s cuts, local officials slammed the meteorological service for what they called poor forecasts after Friday’s flash flooding and torrential rains hit the Texas Hill Country. The incident, which is being held responsible for the deaths of at least 80 people, including over two dozen girls and counselors attending a summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, was quickly linked by Democrats to the personnel reductions.
As thunderstorms developed over Texas Thursday evening, the NWS office in charge of that area had five staffers on duty, which is the typical number for an overnight shift when severe weather is anticipated. NWS officials, both past and present, defended the service by citing urgent flash flood warnings that were issued just before sunrise.
According to Brian LaMarre, who left at the end of April as the meteorologist-in-charge of the NWS forecast office in Tampa, Florida, “this was an exceptional service to come out first with the catastrophic flash flood warning and this shows the awareness of the meteorologists on shift at the NWS office.” Although identifying extreme numbers is never easy, the fact that the catastrophic warning was sent first demonstrated how urgent the situation was.
However, there are still concerns over the degree of cooperation and communication that occurred on the night of the accident between NWS and local officials. At least half of the 122 NWS field offices nationwide now have at least 20% fewer employees, and at least six of them are no longer staffed around-the-clock as a result of the Trump administration’s cuts to hundreds of NWS jobs. Senior management and hundreds more seasoned forecasts were urged to retire early.
In addition, the White House has suggested cutting the budget of its parent agency by 27% and dismantling federal research institutes that study the weather, climate, and oceans of the world.
Six out of 27 positions are listed as open on the website of the NWS office for Austin/San Antonio, which serves the area that includes Kerr County, which has been particularly heavily hit. A key manager in charge of sending out alerts and liaising with regional emergency management authorities is one of the open positions. The person who last worked there resigned in April after more than 17 years, according to his online resume, just after a wave of letters was issued to all staff telling them to retire early or risk being laid off.
The Trump administration was questioned by Democrats on Monday on the cuts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer insisted that the government look into whether the devastating death toll in Texas was caused by a lack of staff.
Trump, meanwhile, claimed that no weather forecasting was hampered by the employment cuts. He claimed on Sunday that the raging waves occurred in a matter of seconds. Nobody anticipated it. It went unnoticed.
Trump’s indiscriminate employment cuts at NWS and other weather-related organizations, according to former federal officials and experts, would cause brain drain and jeopardize the federal government’s capacity to provide timely and accurate forecasts. These forecasts can save lives, especially for people who are in the path of swift-moving storms.
According to Louis Uccellini, a meteorologist who oversaw NWS as director under three presidents, including Trump’s first term, the situation is reaching a breaking point. Because the next shift is understaffed, the workers are exhausted, working through the night and then remaining there during the day. Anything similar could lead to a situation where crucial forecast and warning components are overlooked.
Following his return to office in January, Trump issued a series of executive orders that, without much Congressional scrutiny, gave the Department of Government Efficiency—at first headed by megabillionaire Elon Musk—the authority to implement massive personnel reductions and terminate contracts at federal agencies.
Tens of thousands of government employees’ lives have been upended by the DOGE staffers Musk hired and the cuts he sought, even though he has since left Washington and had a highly public disagreement with Trump.
The changes come after ten years of Republican attempts to privatize and undermine many of the responsibilities of the NWS’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is part of the Commerce Department. The cuts coincide with Trump’s appointment of high-ranking governmental officials to positions connected to private businesses that stand to gain financially by undermining the taxpayer-funded weather forecasting system.
The conservative government model known as Project 2025, which Trump disassociated himself from during the 2024 campaign but has mostly moved to implement while in office, advocates for increasing commercialization of the weather service and the destruction of NOAA.
A few offices have reduced the frequency of regional forecasts and weather balloon launches required to gather atmospheric data due to ongoing staffing shortages. The meteorological service abruptly stopped translating its predictions and emergency notifications into Spanish and other languages besides English in April. After public uproar, the service was quickly restored.
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Earlier this year, NOAA’s main satellite operations center was temporarily listed as surplus government real estate that was going up for sale. The shutdown of important climate change monitoring facilities is another goal of Trump’s planned budget. The observatory atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, which has been recording the gradual increase in plant-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to the combustion of fossil fuels for decades, is one of the sites that would be removed.
The U.S. Department of Defense abruptly declared on June 25 that it would no longer handle or send data from three meteorological satellites, which experts claimed are essential to precisely forecasting the route and intensity of hurricanes at sea.
LaMarre, who is currently a private consultant, compared the removal of data from the defense satellite to the removal of another component from the public safety puzzle for hurricane intensity predictions. The quality of life-saving alerts may suffer as the picture gets less clear as more components are eliminated.
Despite thorough reporting from The Associated Press and other media outlets that documented the layoffs, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick referred to the Trump administration’s decision to fire any meteorologists as false news during two congressional hearings last month.
In front of a Senate budget subcommittee on June 4, Lutnick stated, “We have forecasters and scientists on staff.” I will not, under any circumstances, allow public forecasting or safety to be affected.
NOAA said last month that it would try to fill over 100 mission-critical field roles and fill staff vacancies at several regional meteorological offices by reassigning employees, despite Trump’s widespread hiring block. Although a NOAA representative stated on Sunday that those jobs would soon be made public, they have not yet.
When AP questioned how the NWS could maintain full staffing levels while yet posting openings for mission-critical positions, The National Hurricane Center is fully staffed to fulfill demand this season, according to Commerce spokesman Kristen Eichamer, and any recruitment attempts are merely intended to expand our skill pool.
According to Eichamer, the secretary is dedicated to giving Americans the most accurate and current meteorological information by making sure the National meteorological Service has all the staff and equipment it requires. The NWS is prepared to provide Americans with vital meteorological information thanks to the first-ever integration of technology that is more precise and flexible than ever before.
In an open letter published in May, Uccellini and the four previous NWS directors who held positions under both Democratic and Republican presidents denounced the Trump cuts, claiming that the administration’s actions led to the departure of roughly 550 staff, a loss of more than 10 percent overall.
The NWS team wrote that maintaining the current level of services would be an impossible endeavor. Weather forecast agencies being so understaffed that unnecessary deaths occur is our greatest fear. We are aware that both those on the front lines of forecasting and those who rely on their work experience that horror.
Less than $1.4 billion of NOAA’s fiscal year 2024 budget, which was slightly under $6.4 billion, went to NWS.
Some former federal officials are concerned that the cuts could lead to a patchwork system where taxpayers fund the operation of satellites and the collection of atmospheric data but are left to pay private services that would issue forecasts and severe weather warnings, even though experts say it would be illegal for Trump to eliminate NOAA without Congressional approval. Critics claim that this system may cause delays or missed emergency alerts, which could ultimately lead to preventable fatalities.
During the Clinton administration, D. James Baker, the head of NOAA, questioned whether commercial forecasting firms would offer the public non-profit services.
For example, would they be willing to serve little towns like Maine? Baker enquired. Does a business model exist that provides data to all citizens who require it? Will businesses be held to the same standards as government agencies, take on legal risks, and share information with disaster management organizations? It is risky to simply terminate NOAA without specifying how the forecasts will be delivered going forward.
Some experts who rely on federal predictions and data were deeply concerned about the June start of the tropical weather season, even though the National Hurricane Center in Miami has been largely spared staff reductions similar to those at regional NWS offices.
Longtime South Florida TV meteorologist John Morales told his viewers in an uncommon show on June 3 that he might not be able to offer as precise storm forecasts as he had in previous years due to cuts made by the Trump administration. He asked his NBC 6 audience in greater Miami to contact their congressional representatives, pointing to personnel shortages of 20% to 40% at NWS offices from Tampa to Key West.
According to Morales, we are beginning to notice a decline in the forecasts’ quality. Furthermore, we might not be able to determine a hurricane’s exact strength until it approaches the coast.
