Texas floods highlight need for reversal of Trump cuts to weather offices, research: union

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Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, said the Texas flooding shows the critical importance of reversing U.S. President Donald Trump’s cuts to both staffing for weather offices and scientific research.

Since Mr. Trump came to office in January, his administration has cut 600 jobs from the National Weather Service through a combination of firings and buyouts, in addition to jobs that were already vacant before, Mr. Fahy said.

The President’s budget for next year includes a 27-per-cent cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the weather service’s parent organization, including shutting down its entire research arm, which has labs studying the effects of climate change.

The lack of staffing has caused some weather offices across the country to stop operating 24 hours a day.

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“If that storm took place today in a half-dozen regions across the United States, I would shudder to think what would happen,” Mr. Fahy, who works for the union that represents National Weather Service employees, said in an interview. “In the San Antonio and San Angelo offices, there are 23 meteorologists between those two offices. Some other offices have dire staffing levels of only five, seven, or eight. These offices are critically understaffed.”

Research labs, meanwhile, have given the organization more ways of predicting extreme weather. A hurricane research facility in Miami, for instance, has helped the NWS better understand how hurricanes rapidly intensify in order to understand ahead of time what a storm is likely to do.

The San Antonio and San Angelo offices between them have 10 vacant jobs, including for the person who would make sure weather alerts are disseminated and work with emergency management officials. Mr. Fahy said the offices still had people working in acting capacities for vacant managerial roles.