Latest news with #TomFahy
The Independent
17-07-2025
- Climate
- The Independent
Trump admin is dismantling ‘critical' parts of California's response to wildfires
Donald Trump has been dismantling 'critical' parts of California 's response to wildfires as the state braces for peak wildfire season, according to a new report. The Trump administration has cut thousands of employees from the federal workforce in the name of government efficiency. One government entity that has been a target of these cuts is the National Weather Service, which keeps Americans informed of weather forecasts in the hopes of preventing catastrophic outcomes from natural disasters. Tom Fahy, legislative director of the NWS Employees Organization, told the Los Angeles Times in a Wednesday article that the weather service's staff has decreased from 4,369 to 3,757 employees thanks to layoffs and buyouts. 'This draws attention that we have a lot of critical, critical staff shortages,' Fahy said. An official from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which houses the NWS, told The Independent it has implemented short-term assignments to fill key vacancies at the weather service. NOAA has also announced opportunities for its employees to apply and quickly be permanently reassigned to weather offices that need it the most, according to the official. The official says strategic hiring and reforming how the NWS delivers value to the American people will improve the service in the long term. Staffing shortages at NWS offices in California could lead to problems in the coming months, when the state experiences the worst of its wildfires. California is still recovering from devastating wildfires that raged through Los Angeles County in January. The Palisades and Eaton fires led to 30 deaths and saw thousands of structures destroyed. The Hanford office, which covers the San Joaquin Valley, including Fresno and Bakersfield, has five meteorologists and eight vacancies, the LA Times reported, citing data from the NWS Employees Organization. Fahy said the office's 62 percent vacancy rate is the worst in the country. The Sacramento office, which also covers Stockton, Modesto, Vallejo, Chico and Redding, follows the Hanford office with the second-worst vacancy rate in the country. That office has eight meteorologists and eight vacancies, according to Fahy. This week, calls made to the Handford office from around midnight to 6 a.m. local time were handled by the San Diego office thanks to the cuts. Alex Tardy, the former warning coordination meteorologist for the weather service's San Diego office, told the LA Times this was 'unheard of' and a 'big deal.' 'I worked for 32 years [with the National Weather Service], I worked a solo midnight shift a few times, and even that was frowned safety reasons,' he said. Staffing shortages could lead to issues this wildfire season, with the role the NWS plays when the state is dealing with this type of weather event. Each weather office is required to have an incident meteorologist available when there's a wildfire in California to head an incident command post, Tardy said. This means weather offices are down another forecaster while the incident meteorologist is busy with the wildfire, which could possibly be for weeks, according to Tardy. There could also be delays in key weather alerts if weather offices are understaffed.
Politico
08-07-2025
- Climate
- Politico
A month after getting permission, NWS still hasn't posted help wanted ads
Vacant posts at NWS local offices after the Trump administration's recent downsizing are now in the spotlight with the catastrophic July 4 floods in Texas that killed more than 100 people when the Guadalupe River rapidly rose in the early morning hours. While federal officials and independent experts said the NWS accurately forecast the flood and issued increasingly urgent warnings about the dangers, they've noted depleted staff across the country could be less able to coordinate with local officials ahead of weather emergencies. 'Considering that there are critical staff shortages at NWS weather forecast offices across the country and the president of the United States has given NWS leadership permission to hire 126 replacements, it begs the question why the Department of Commerce has not implemented a presidential directive,' said Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, the union that represents many NWS staffers. Two NWS forecast offices that serve the Texas Hill Country region that flooded, Austin/San Antonio and San Angelo, remain without critical staff, including a warning coordination meteorologist in San Antonio who is responsible for coordinating with state and local emergency management agencies during extreme events. But Fahy has noted that the Texas offices were adequately staffed during the flooding because NWS called 'all hands on deck.' As search-and-rescue efforts continued in Texas, the third tropical storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season that started June 1 made landfall on the South Carolina coast, causing extensive flooding and prompting water rescues in parts of North Carolina that received up to 10 inches of rain Sunday into Monday. North Carolina officials confirmed Tropical Storm Chantal, which was downgraded to a depression after landfall, had killed two people, knocked out power to more than 30,000 people and closed two major interstate highways. It remains unclear how many key NWS forecast office positions remain vacant across the country. A NOAA list of senior staff by region shows vacancies across the agency's 122 offices, including more than 20 vacancies in local offices under the joint category of warning coordination meteorologist and service coordination hydrologist. There are also 27 empty spots in the combined category 'meteorologist in charge' and 'hydrologist in charge' on the list, which was updated Monday. To date, nearly 600 employees have left NWS in recent months. Many took early retirement or buyout offers, while others were fired as probationary employees. The Commerce Department has since exempted NWS from a sweeping Trump administration hiring freeze for federal agencies, which would allow officials to fill some of those positions.
Politico
07-07-2025
- Climate
- Politico
Texas flood forecasts were accurate. It wasn't enough to save lives.
These roles often serve as liaisons between NWS meteorologists and local authorities or emergency managers. Warning coordination meteorologists, in particular, help translate forecasts into usable action plans that can aid the local authorities who make decisions and evacuate communities as severe weather systems approach. It's unclear whether those vacancies have affected coordination with local authorities. Top meteorologists at NWS San Angelo and NWS Austin/San Antonio did not immediately respond to questions about whether the openings posed any challenges during the floods. But Tom Fahy, legislative director at the union that represents NWS employees, said in an interview that vacancies at the Texas offices did not cause any problems during the floods. The offices called 'all hands on deck' to ensure that they were fully staffed during the emergency, he said, adding that 'they knew this was a critical life and death situation — bodies and lives were on the line in this one.' NOAA spokesperson Erica Grow Cei provided a timeline of NWS warnings between Thursday and Friday, confirming that the first flood watch went out at 1:18 p.m. local time Thursday and the first flash flood warning was issued at 11:41 p.m. for Bandera County. Another flash flood warning — tagged 'considerable' to indicate a threat of major damage — was issued at 1:14 a.m. for Bandera and Kerr counties, triggering wireless emergency alerts on enabled devices and warnings on NOAA Weather Radio. 'National Weather Service is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life in Kerr County,' Cei said in an emailed statement, adding that the agency 'remains committed to our mission to serve the American public through our forecasts and decision support services.' Still, cellphone and radio alerts aren't always enough to prevent loss of life during disasters. They can't help people who disable their alerts, don't have cellphone service or don't have radios. Late-night and early-morning warnings can be an even greater challenge to distribute, when much of the public is asleep. Friday's floods occurred in the early hours of the morning, with the most urgent warnings issued after 1 a.m. 'The crux of this disaster is a failure of the last mile of communication,' Fahy said. 'The forecasts went out, they communicated the forecasts, they disseminated the watches and warnings. And the dilemma we have is there was nobody listening at 4 o'clock in the morning for these watches and warnings.' Most people who died in Friday's floods were located in Kerr County, which does not have a warning system, according to Kelly, the Kerry County judge, at a Friday news conference. Other cities in central Texas, like San Marcos, deploy outdoor weather sirens to warn of extreme weather events like floods and tornadoes, as local news reports have pointed out. In an interview with The New York Times, Kelly suggested that warning systems are expensive and 'taxpayers won't pay for it.'
The Independent
07-07-2025
- Climate
- The Independent
Ex-forecasters at National Weather Service defend Texas meteorologists and say warnings were as timely as they should have been
Former National Weather Service officials and meteorologists are defending Texas forecasters in the wake of sudden flooding that resulted in the deaths of at least 82 people, including 27 girls and counsellors Christian girls' camp in Kerrville. Response to the extreme event has been met with major scrutiny after some state and local officials accused the NWS of not providing accurate forecasts. There have also been questions over whether the agency was sufficiently staffed after the Trump administration slashed critical positions around the U.S. But experts say that warnings issued were about as timely and accurate as could be expected with the data they had. 'The forecasting was good. The warnings were good. It's always about getting people to receive the message,' Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist based in Wisconsin, told NBC News. 'It appears that is one of the biggest contributors — that last mile.' 'The [weather forecasting offices] had adequate staffing and resources as they issued timely forecasts and warnings leading up to the storm,' Tom Fahy, legislative director for the NWS Employees Organization, a union that represents government employees, told the network. Still, Fahy noted that the office for San Antonio and Austin is down by six employees from its typical staffing level. The San Angelo office, Fahy added, is down by four people, including a hydrologist. It's a hydrologist's job to assess stream flow. 'In San Angelo, there is no hydrologist, and that's a problem,' Fahy said. 'Those are important positions that do need to be filled,' Vagasky said, but he pointed out that it 'probably wasn't a significant contributor to what happened.' 'Obviously, having both of these positions vacant for a prolonged time is not optimal, and certainly could have had negative impacts at some level,' Alan Gerard, the former director of the analysis and understanding branch at the National Severe Storms Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, wrote in a blog post. 'However, just looking at the actual warning services that NWS provided during the event, they were solid and provided the level of warning and alerts that the public should expect to receive for an event such as this.' Social media posts from the Austin and San Antonio office warned of a particularly dangerous situation and a flash flood emergency in Kerrville — the worst-hit area — early on Thursday, urging residents to move to higher ground along the Guadalupe River. 'Heavy rainfall is pivoting south into Kerr and Gillespie Counties. Another 2-4 inches of rain possible in these areas. Flash Flood EMERGENCIES are in effect for Kerr County. Avoid travel through this area. Elsewhere, light to moderate rainfall ongoing for portions I-35 corridor,' it said in a post on X. Flash flood warnings were also issued on Wednesday. Texas Hill Country, around San Antonio and central Texas, has long been known as 'flash flood alley,' Steven Lyons, who retired four years ago after a decade as the meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service's San Angelo office, told The Washington Post. Whether and how people in the area received and responded to these messages has been a point of debate. Water levels were getting alarmingly high in the early hours of Friday morning and survivors have said they received no emergency warnings. Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice has said that authorities are committed to a full review of the emergency response. Kerr County didn't have weather sirens, according to KXAN. The county, which instructed people to move to higher ground on Friday morning, had previously taken steps to install flood gauges and barriers, Tom Moser, a former Kerr County commissioner, told The Post. However, efforts to implement a larger flood warning system was met with resistance. 'Taxpayers won't pay for it,' Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, told The New York Times. The non-profit group Climate Central has tied this system to warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures, making for rainier and more intense storms. Heavy rain has continued to fall in the area since Thursday, producing two to three inches of rain an hour over portions of the Hill Country. The need for strengthened systems is only expected to increase due to human-caused climate change, which is making rain events more severe and frequent. 'If people had gotten the message before they had gone to sleep, would they have gotten out of there? Maybe,' Lyons said. 'The messaging is critical but so are the actions that people take based on the messaging. We can't tell you how many raindrops are going to fall out of a thunderstorm,' he said.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Key US weather monitoring offices understaffed as hurricane season starts
More than a dozen National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices along the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico coast are understaffed as the US plunges into an expected active season for ruinous storms, data seen by the Guardian shows. There is a lack of meteorologists in 15 of the regional weather service offices along the coastline from Texas to Florida, as well as in Puerto Rico – an area that takes the brunt of almost all hurricanes that hit the US. Several offices, including in Miami, Jacksonville, Puerto Rico and Houston, lack at least a third of all the meteorologists required to be fully staffed. Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the Miami-based nerve center for tracking hurricanes, is short five specialists, the Guardian has learned, despite assurances from the Trump administration that it is fully staffed ahead of what's anticipated to be a busy hurricane season that officially started on Sunday. Related: 'Chaos': Trump cuts to Noaa disrupt staffing and weather forecasts The center and local field offices work together to alert and prepare communities for incoming hurricanes, but they have been hit by job cuts and a hiring freeze imposed by the president, with more than 600 staff departing the NWS since Trump took power. 'The system is already overstretched and at some point it will snap,' said Tom Fahy, legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, an independent labor union and provider of the office staffing data. 'We are at the snapping point now.' An NHC spokesperson said the agency still has enough people to function properly. 'NHC has a sufficient number of forecasters to fill mission-critical operational shifts during the 2025 hurricane season,' she said. 'NHC remains dedicated to its mission, providing timely tropical weather forecasts and warnings pursuant to our public safety mission.' But experts warned the turmoil unleashed by Trump upon the NWS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the national disaster agency that has had multiple leadership changes and still does not have a completed plan for this year's hurricane season, will dangerously hamper the response to a summer that will likely bring storms, floods and wildfires across the US. 'Staff will put in an heroic effort but there is high probability of significant consequences because of the cuts,' said Rick Spinrad, who was administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) until January. 'If I were a citizen of Texas, Florida or Georgia, I wouldn't be sure how well warned I would be of a hurricane. And if a hurricane was heading for a major city, I'm not confident Fema would be able to respond to the forecasted warnings.' The NWS, which is part of Noaa, has been upended like other agencies by the efforts of Trump and the so-called 'department of government efficiency' (Doge) to slash the government workforce. The weather service has scrambled to fill gaps with temporary secondments from other offices, but many roles remain unfilled in outposts that usually have about 25 employees each. The agency is now asking for relocations to fill empty meteorologist-in-charge positions, the most senior role at a field office, in Houston, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana – both places that have experienced devastating hurricanes in recent years. Cover for dozens of other meteorologist roles across the US is also being sought, including in the hurricane-prone areas of Miami and Key West, both in Florida, and Mobile, Alabama, according to an internal NWS document. In some cases, the loss of weather service personnel – from the firing of probationary workers and early retirements offered to veteran staff – has forced offices to shut down overnight rather than operate 24 hours a day as normal. In seven of the 122 NWS stations across the US, including in Jackson, Kentucky, where a tornado killed 19 people this month, there will be no round-the-clock operation from 1 June. Of the 122 offices, 30 lack a meteorologist-in-charge. While the weather service, which has existed in some form since 1870, has always had to shift around resources to deal with extreme events, former staff said the scale of the cuts place an unprecedented strain upon its ability to provide detailed, localized forecasts. The release of weather balloons has been scaled back, technicians who maintain radar equipment have been fired and there are concerns that 'hurricane hunter' flights into storms will not be fully operational. Related: 'Flooding could end southern Appalachia': the scientists on an urgent mission to save lives 'I slept on the floor of the office during the hurricanes last year, but you can't do that every day because it leads to burnout. What the National Weather Service is doing now is a short-term fix of musical chairs, it's not sustainable,' said Brian LaMarre, a 30-year weather service veteran who took early retirement in April from his role as meteorologist-in-charge of the office in Tampa, Florida. 'What's needed is for the National Weather Service and Noaa to be funded properly.' While the tracking of hurricanes, which has improved markedly in recent years as technology and forecast models have advanced, will still be handled by the NHC, there are concerns that understaffed local offices won't be able to properly apply this information to affected areas. 'They can move the deckchairs on the Titanic but they just don't have enough bodies to do the job they are supposed to do,' said James Franklin, a retired NWS meteorologist who is a hurricane specialist. 'I'm worried the local offices won't be able to communicate with local emergency services and local officials about threats because they won't have the bodies to do it. The uncertainty level of the forecast will go up, too.' Franklin said the cuts to jobs and to longer-term Noaa research aimed at improving forecasts will have a lasting impact. 'It's not even shortsighted, it's no-sighted,' he said. 'Even if you don't see an impact this year, in five or 10 years you certainly will. They aren't even going to save any money doing this; it seems ideologically driven to me.' The tumult within the US's premier weather agency comes as its leadership acknowledges that warm temperatures in the Gulf, a symptom of the climate crisis, will probably spur an above-normal number of hurricanes this year. Six to 10 storms are expected to become hurricanes with winds of 74mph (119km/h) or higher, with as many as five reaching at least 111mph (179km/h). 'Everything is in place for an above-average season,' Ken Graham, director of the NWS, said last week. 'We've got to be prepared, right now. We've got to be ready.' Yet uncertainty is now commonplace throughout the US government's apparatus to predict and respond to disasters. The situation at a depleted Fema is particularly parlous, with the agency reducing training for state and local emergency managers and lagging months behind schedule in preparing for hurricane season. Trump and Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, have both openly mulled dismantling Fema and its new acting administrator has struck a belligerent tone. 'I, and I alone in Fema, speak for Fema. I'm here to carry out the president's intent for Fema,' David Richardson, a former marine with no emergency management experience, told staff in May. 'I will run right over you,' he warned staff. 'Don't get in my way … I know all the tricks.' 'It's a chaotic time at Fema, the constant departure of employees and the lack of leadership has distracted the agency from its mission,' said Michael Coen, who was chief of staff to the Fema administrator during the Biden administration. 'There's a lot of confusion among states over what level of support they will get from the federal government. My concern is that if Fema has to respond to concurrent events, two hurricanes or a flood and a storm, it won't have the capacity to provide the proper level of support.' Such warnings have rattled some lawmakers amid a federal budget negotiation process that will probably conclude at some point during hurricane season, which stretches until November. Under a budget proposal outlined by Trump's White House, Noaa's $6bn budget would be shrunk by around a quarter, effectively eliminating its climate and weather research. 'Republicans and Democrats are concerned about this because they know a tornado doesn't care if you live in a red state or a blue state,' said Fahy. 'Members of Congress are concerned, I've had several phone calls asking if we have enough people. The National Weather Service's budget is the cost of a cup of coffee for every person across the United States. I think people would say that's pretty good value.' A Fema spokesperson said that the Trump administration is 'committed to ensuring Americans affected by emergencies will get the help they need in a quick and efficient manner'. 'All operational and readiness requirements will continue to be managed without interruption in close coordination with local and state officials ahead of the 2025 hurricane season,' the spokesperson added.
