Officials in Texas are casting blame on the National Weather Service (NWS) for failing to forecast catastrophic flooding that has killed 24 people.
NWS was among the government agencies targeted by the Trump administration in its effort to gut the federal bureaucracy, losing approximately 600 staffers.
After the cuts, the agency—which was already understaffed—began to prepare to offer “degraded” forecasting services, facing “severe shortages” of meteorologists, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times in April.
Don’t fall for it. While the NWS is definitely being gutted, there was nothing wrong with their reporting. They issued proper preliminary reports and warnings leading up to the tragic event. This wasn’t an issue of not being forewarned, it was an issue of a river rising over twenty feet in a rapid timeframe. These officials are once again denigrating scientists, and not once did they mention increasing funding for these services.
For instance, directly under Vesper at the local NWS office is a key position – warning coordination meteorologist (WCM) – that has remained vacant since April. The role was most recently held by longtime employee Paul Yura, who took an early retirement package offered to agency workers as the administration worked to reduce the budget and personnel number at the NWS and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Yura, who KXAN recently reported spent more than half of his 32-year career at the local NWS office, gained tremendous experience understanding local weather patterns while ensuring timely warnings get disseminated to the public in a multitude of ways. The importance of his role as WCM cannot be understated.
That’s not a part of this article… this article starts with the first paragraph, followed in paragraph 3 and five, which all do more to disparage the forecast than mention an uthing about lack of dissemination (who the person you’re quite would be referring to. This is another hit piece disguised as something else.
Officials in Texas are casting blame on the National Weather Service (NWS) for failing to forecast catastrophic flooding that has killed 24 people…
“The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,” said Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd at a press conference Friday. “The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.”…
Dalton Rice, the city manager for Kerrville, Texas—who also spoke at the press conference—said that the catastrophic flash flooding happened because the skies “dumped more rain than what was forecasted” on two of the river’s forks….
Suspected as much. NOAA and the NWS aren’t falling off a cliff this fast. They’ll get there!
Wait until Hurricane Surprise Season starts full power!
I read in one of the recent articles that there was plans to put in a sirens for flooding because it was so common on that particular river but it was struck down because of cost.
That was faster than expected.
Unfortunately, being Texas I don’t know if they are suing to restore the NWS or use this as an excuse to get rid of it altogether since the article doesn’t clarify their desired outcome.
Knowing Texas, they’ll probably try to privatize it
Everything trump and republicans have been doing is with the goal to privatize as much of the government as possible, to funnel taxpayer money directly into private pockets. The oligarchs want that money! They hate seeing it spent on the poors.
They want to decimate agencies until they can’t function, then use their inability to provide adequate services as the excuse to privatize, then either pay twice as much taxpayer money for the same or worse service from for-profit companies, or in some cases get rid of the services and let people fend for themselves.
You know those morons are going to ask to abolish it altogether…
I’ve been following the NOAA situation and I don’t think this was fast in the slightest. Trump and DOGE went through there like a hurricane.
They’re using it as a way to divert blame
I think the “Trump lead NWS” was implied. They hate science and weather people. Probably were still working for Obama anyway.
The forecast was good. Don’t spread misinformation and let Texas officials off the hook for not evacuating the area.
deleted by creator
slam
and welcome to the jam
Texas Officials Reverse Piledriver Trump’s NWS
Texas Officials ‘Hurl’ NWS off Hell in a Cell, Trump Admin Plummets 15 Feet Through Announcer’s Table
But woke and DEI.
Who CARES if Trump just KILLED a bunch of Kids in Texas in an EXTREMELY PREDICTABLE way! These are REPUBLICANS! When have REPUBLICANS EVER done Anything to Help Children?
Hey, they totally protected kids when they banned all two trans kids from competing in sports! …
Proceeds to teach kids
wrestlingto stick their fingers up other kids buttholes.
Just because trump writes like a fool doesn’t mean you have to.
Thats the joke
You get what you voted for you bunch of assholes.
Honestly, one of the best independent news from Texas is the Texas Tribune, fully funded by it’s readers and not owned by a billionaire. Been following them for a few years (don’t even live in Texas, but it’s good to know what their GOP is doing because their policies could always spread), and have found their reporting to be excellent. Please give them a try. Also fuck Cruz and Abbot and the GOP in general…
I really wish this artist would sell pins and stickers.
I want a T-shirt, so when it makes people laugh I know who to make friends with.
Good news! That’s the only thing they sell. (I don’t have a link handy my wife did the research lol)
There it is!
Ooo that tricksy Biden and his DNC weather machine are at it again!
Wait, I thought whoever was in charge of the government had the weather machines. So who really killed those people?
Shadow government.
Jewish space lasers
Have the day you voted for, Texas.
Thoughts and prayers!
Certainly, that will fix everything! Thank goodness for the slamming!
Ohhhhh. Some harsh words Trump and his ilk don’t care about. These Texas Republicans will just fall in line as usual. Just like the Republican senators did. Fuck Republicans.
Best just completely eliminate the NWS then. As we all know, if you don’t forecast anything at all, then nothing bad is happening.
