As floods hit, key roles were vacant at weather service offices in Texas

Boston Globe

a day ago

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The shortages are among the factors likely to be scrutinized as the death toll climbs from the floods. Separate questions have emerged about the preparedness of local communities, including Kerr County's apparent lack of a local flood warning system. The county, about 50 miles northwest of San Antonio, is where many of the deaths occurred.
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In an interview, Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, said the county did not have a warning system because such systems are expensive, and local residents are resistant to new spending.
'Taxpayers won't pay for it,' Kelly said. Asked if people might reconsider in light of the catastrophe, he said, 'I don't know.'
The weather service's San Angelo office, which is responsible for some of the areas hit hardest by Friday's flooding, was missing a senior hydrologist, staff forecaster, and meteorologist in charge, according to Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, the union that represents weather service workers.
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The weather service's nearby San Antonio office, which covers other areas hit by the floods, also had significant vacancies, including a warning coordination meteorologist and science officer, Fahy said. Staff members in those positions are meant to work with local emergency managers to plan for floods, including when and how to warn local residents and help them evacuate.
That office's warning coordination meteorologist left April 30, after taking the early retirement package the Trump administration used to reduce the number of federal employees, according to a person with knowledge of his departure.
Some of the openings may predate the current Trump administration. But at both offices, the vacancy rate is roughly double what it was when Trump returned to the White House in January, according to Fahy.
John Sokich, who until January was director of congressional affairs for the weather service, said those unfilled positions made it harder to coordinate with local officials because each weather service office works as a team. 'Reduced staffing puts that in jeopardy,' he said.
A spokesperson for the weather service, Erica Grow Cei, did not answer questions from The New York Times about the Texas vacancies, including how long those positions had been open and whether those vacancies had contributed to the damage caused by the flooding.
'The National Weather Service is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life,' she said in a statement, adding that the agency 'remains committed to our mission to serve the American public through our forecasts and decision support services.'
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A White House spokesperson directed a request for comment to the Commerce Department, which includes the weather service. A Commerce spokesperson said there have been no funding cuts to the weather service and added: 'The timely and accurate forecasts and alerts for Texas this weekend prove that the NWS remains fully capable of carrying out its critical mission.'
The tragedy began to unfold in the early hours of Friday, when more than 10 inches of rain fell in some areas northwest of San Antonio, including in Kerr County, where more than 850 people were evacuated by rescuers. Several campers and a counselor from Camp Mystic, a girls' summer camp in Kerr County, remained missing Sunday, according to Larry Leitha, the county sheriff.
On Saturday night, Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, appeared to fault the weather service, noting that forecasters Wednesday had predicted as much as 6 to 8 inches of rain in the region. 'The amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts,' he said at a news conference with Governor Greg Abbott.
But what makes flash floods so hazardous is their ability to strike quickly, with limited warning. Around midnight Thursday, the San Angelo and San Antonio weather offices put out their first flash flood warnings, urging people to 'move immediately to higher ground.' The office sent out additional flash flood warnings through the night, expanding the area of danger.
It is not clear what steps local officials took to act on those warnings. A spokesperson for the Kerr County emergency management department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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The amount of rain that fell Friday morning was hard for the weather service to anticipate, with reports in some areas of 15 inches over just a few hours, according to Louis W. Uccellini, who was director of the weather service from 2013 until 2022.
'It's pretty hard to forecast for these kinds of rainfall rates,' Uccellini said. He said that climate change was making extreme rainfall events more frequent and severe, and that more research was needed so that the weather service could better forecast those events.
An equally important question, he added, was how the weather service was coordinating with local emergency managers to act on those warnings as they came in.
'You have to have a response mechanism that involves local officials,' Uccellini said. 'It involves a relationship with the emergency management community, at every level.'
But that requires having staff members in those positions, he said.
Under the Trump administration, the weather service, like other federal agencies, has been pushed to reduce its number of employees. By this spring, through layoffs and retirements, the weather service had lost nearly 600 people from a workforce that until recently was as large as 4,000.
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