William Lindsey :toad:
"Only hours after NWS issued its storm and flood warning did safety officials pass that warning on to the general public, Molly Taft reported in Wired. …
Trump denies any responsibility, acknowledging only that 'it’s just so horrible to watch' the tragedy in Texas."
William Lindsey :toad:
Ed Pilkington asks why Texans, who live in the most disaster-prone state in the US, are so resistant to governmental action to help people prepare for and deal with disaster.
His answer: what counts above all in Texas is the belief that "real" Texans are rugged individualists and its equally passionate disdain for government action — since "real" rugged individualists do it on their own, by golly.
#Trump #Republicans #Texas #NHS #NOAA #FEMA
/7
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/13/texas-disaster-weather-preparations-us
William Lindsey :toad:
"But Project 2025, the blueprint for cutting government spending prepared by top Trump advisers and reflected in the tax and spending bill he signed into law on the very day of the Texas flooding, explicitly urged massive cuts at NOAA, including elimination of the National Weather Service. Project 2025’s rationale? NOAA was 'one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future US prosperity.'”
Scary Austin
Everybody's been saying that the only warning system left for #Texas is Ted Cruz fleeing the state, so there needs to be a new system based on that.
Here it is!
Jennifer
How would this even work? People would have to pay a monthly membership for weather radios and weather/radar apps? These people are so greedy and gross.
"Deadly weekend flooding in central Texas has drawn a spotlight to budget cuts and staff reductions at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, two agencies housed within the Commerce Department that provide the public with free climate and weather data that can be crucial during natural disasters. What’s drawn less attention is how the downsizing appears to be part of an effort to privatize the work of such agencies. In several instances, the companies poised to step into the void have deep ties to people tapped by Trump to run weather-related agencies."
#Weather #NOAA #NWS #Forecast
https://apnews.com/article/trump-lutnick-weather-service-privatization-conflicts-9892de853c283468e6fb970cfd898d96
Nonilex
#Trump appointees have ties to companies that stand to benefit from #privatizing #weather forecasts
As #commerce secy, #HowardLutnick oversees the US govt’s vast efforts to monitor & predict the weather.
#law #broligarchy #profiteering #BudgetCuts #MassLayoffs #NWS #NOAA #climate #NaturalDisasters #ClimateChange #ExtremeWeather #flooding #Texas
https://apnews.com/article/trump-lutnick-weather-service-privatization-conflicts-9892de853c283468e6fb970cfd898d96
Trina Corey
"Climate scientists in the United States are to be cut off from satellite data measuring the amount of sea ice — a sensitive barometer of climate change — as the U.S. Department of Defense announces plans to cancel processing of the data for scientific research."
"The changes are the latest attacks by the U.S. government on science and the funding of scientific research in an effort to slash the budget to enable tax cuts elsewhere. Already, these attacks have seen the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Science Foundation evicted from their offices, references to climate science removed from websites, funding of data for hurricane forecasts cancelled, and dozens of NASA missions under threat and their project teams asked to produce close-down plans as the space agency's budget is slashed."
https://www.standupforscience.net/
#science #Standupforscience
#climate #Trump #Project2025 #Musk #research #NSF #NOAA #NWS #NASA
William Lindsey :toad:
"In April, veteran meteorologists at the NWS were forced into early retirement. Forecasters warned at the time that their absence would 'cost lives.' They were right. With no one to read the models, sound the alarms, or coordinate warnings at the necessary scale, the people of Texas were left vulnerable. Nature played its part, yes—but policy turned a crisis into a mass casualty event."
~ Danielle Moodie
https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/trump-prefers-saving-pedophiles-over
br00t4c
Kristi Noem Accidentally Low-Key Suggested That Trump Might Be to Blame for Deadly Texas Flooding
#Trump #NOAA #BlameGame #AdministrationResponsibility #TexasFlooding
br00t4c
Ted Cruz blasted for defending Trump and dodging questions on flood warning system failures
#NWS #TrumpDefense #NOAA #PartisanGames #SafetyWarningSystems
William Lindsey :toad:
This past May, Juliette Kayyem issued the following warning:
"Preparing for emergencies is always difficult; extreme climate events can overwhelm even the best-laid plans. But this challenge has been exacerbated by major staffing cuts imposed by Elon Musk’s and President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency."
William Lindsey :toad:
"While Texas drowned, he danced.
With people still missing, he golfed.
He gutted the weather service. Slashed NOAA’s budget. As a result, the alerts came too late. 78 people died, including 28 children, with 41 more missing."
~ From Letters from God at Substack, in an email to subscribers
Either drastic cuts to NWS and NOAA budgets play a role — for weal or woe — in how those services function, or they don't. We can't have it both ways.
William Lindsey :toad:
"Today, about 40 percent of the 122 local forecasting offices of the NWS have significant staffing gaps. More than 10 percent of its 4,800 employees have left in recent months—either dismissed, retired, or bought out. Some of the usual predictive measures, such as the deployment of weather balloons and Doppler radar, many of whose experts and technicians have been fired or laid off, are now not available."
William Lindsey :toad:
"Staffing data provided by the NWS’s labor union showed the San Angelo forecasting office currently has four vacancies out of 23 positions and San Antonio has six vacancies out of 26."
~ Paul Cobler
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/05/texas-hill-country-floods-warning-forecast-nws/
William Lindsey :toad:
"There’s a similar story at the NWS. Former NWS meteorologist Brian Lamarre explained to NPR in May that the NWS had 5,000-6,000 employees 30 years ago. That has gradually whittled down to 4,500 — and then another 550 were cut by DOGE or quit without being replaced. As a result, “for the first time in the history of the National Weather Service, the agency is below 4,000 people.”
William Lindsey :toad:
"Trump’s attack on forecasting capability is unprecedented and inexcusable. He fired 24,000 employees at NOAA (they were reinstated — then re-fired). The budget for 2026 cuts more than a quarter of the agency’s funding, including all of it for the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which conducts weather and climate research."
~ Noah Berlatsky
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/guadalupe-river-texas-flooding-trump-cuts
William Lindsey :toad:
"All five living former directors of the NWS warned in May that the 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…. Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life.'"
~ Heather Cox Richardson
William Lindsey :toad:
(continued from /8):
"'form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity,' by which it meant the fossil fuel industry."
William Lindsey :toad:
"Officials will continue to examine the crisis in Texas but, coming as it did after so many deep cuts to government, it has opened up questions about the public cost of those cuts. Project 2025 called for breaking up and downsizing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, claiming its six main offices—including the National Weather Service—"
William Lindsey :toad:
"CNN’s Andrew Freedman, Emma Tucker, and Mary Gilbert note that several NWS offices across the country are so understaffed they can no longer operate around the clock, and many are no longer able to launch the weather balloons that provide critical data."
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