EXCLUSIVE: Texas Officials Slam Trump’s National Weather Service for Botched Forecast Leading To Deadly Floods – The Daily Beast
Officials in Texas are casting blame on the National Weather Service (NWS) for failing to forecast catastrophic flooding that has killed at least 27 people.
NWS was among the government agencies targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency in its effort to gut the federal bureaucracy, losing approximately 600 staffers, The Daily Beast reported.
In May, all five living directors of the NWS issued a letter warning that Trump’s cuts “leave the nation’s official weather forecasting entity at a significant deficit… just as we head into the busiest time for severe storm predictions like tornadoes and hurricanes,” the directors wrote. “Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life.”
The Times reported in June that, just months after the Trump administration had forced out hundreds of staffers, the National Weather Service was granted a waiver to the administration’s government-wide hiring freeze.
The flooding has killed at least 43 people so far, including 15 children. More than 25 young girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp that sits near the river, are still missing.