Questions about the local response to the sudden floods – in particular the tardiness of the weather alert and evacuation order – are understandably mounting, as are warnings that the death toll from extreme weather events will almost certainly rise due to the cuts and chaos caused by President Trump (and his billionaire donor Elon Musk) to the National Weather Service (NWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), among others. “This is what happens when you let climate change run unabated and break apart the emergency management system without investing in that system at the local and state level,” Samantha Montano, a professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, told me this week. “It takes money, expertise and time to eliminate risk and make sure that agencies are prepared to respond when a flood situation like in Texas happens. And if you eliminate those preparedness efforts, if you fire the people who do that work, then the response will not be effective.” Amid the relentless chaos, it’s imperative that we keep the receipts, so that one day elected officials and their backers can be held accountable. Reports suggest that, so far, more than a third of Fema’s permanent full-time workforce has been fired or accepted buyouts, including some of its most experienced and knowledgable leaders. Trump has vowed to dismantle the agency at the end of this hurricane season. Emergency management and the weather service work hand in hand, and the NWS has already lost more than 600 people, meaning offices across storm and flood-prone areas of the US are short of meteorologists and round-the-clock staffing cover. Two senior meteorologists at the NWS’s San Antonio office, responsible for forecasting in the Texas flood region, were among the casualties of a so-called efficiency drive by Doge (“department of government efficiency”) – including the one responsible for liaising with local emergency managers to help translate forecasts into likely impacts that inform local actions, such as mobile alerts and evacuation orders. The “big beautiful bill” signed by Trump last week cut $150m in funding to Noaa set to help improve weather forecasts and warnings for events similar to the Texas floods. It also shrinks funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the premier federal agency supporting basic science and engineering research, by 56%. I recently spoke with multiple current and newly ousted NSF programme officers who warned that a generation of scientific talent is at the brink of being lost to overseas competitors such as the EU, China and Australia. Many others won’t be able to relocate, and may simply end up leaving science entirely. Trump and his administration are meddling in the agency’s gold standard review process and forcing NSF experts to cancel active grants – and reject new applications considered to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or/and environmental justice. “NSF is being asked to make science racist again, which contradicts evidence that shows that diversity of ideas is good for science and good for innovation,” said one current NSF scientist. NSF-funded research has played a pivotal role in developing early-warning systems for all sorts of hazards, but more work is urgently needed to improve local accuracy and community acceptability amid the growing threats resulting from global heating. There is no other funding source capable of filling this gap. Meanwhile, the hurricane and extreme heat season is just getting started in the US. What a total mess. Read more: |