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.
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.
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.
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…
You get what you voted for you bunch of assholes.
The forecast was good. Don’t spread misinformation and let Texas officials off the hook for not evacuating the area.
I took meteorology in college, the thing is I’m trained to read weather data that has been gathered from all the stations and radars and satellites. Without all that I can look out the window and tell you if its raining.
Well is it?
No.
Have the day you voted for, Texas.
Thoughts and prayers!
But woke and DEI.
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.
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?
Certainly, that will fix everything! Thank goodness for the slamming!
Ooo that tricksy Biden and his DNC weather machine are at it again!
Removed by mod
Who? The people who have consistently denied climate change and weather forecasting leading to a completely avoidable tragedy?
Removed by mod
Would you feel the same way if the kids were “illegals”?
Removed by mod
Ah so when reality pokes holes in your flawed world view you just reject reality. Got it 👍
Removed by mod
What the holy fucking shit is wrong with you? Did you seriously pop in here trying to pretend for a second to be some kind of holy pious victim and then immediately claim the only way a state murders is with gas chambers? How do you live with yourself? You are exactly the evil monster you claim to reject. What a disaster of a person.
Are domestic concentration camps bad?
