As authorities continue to respond to catastrophic flash floods that have killed 90 people, including at least 27 children, hurricane specialist and weather expert John Morales is weighing in on whether staffing shortages at the National Weather Service contributed to the lethality of the event in Central Texas.
Was the forecast correct? Yes.
“It was a good forecast,” he said. “I’m on record as stating that I don’t think any of the cuts going on with NOAA and the National Weather Service had anything to do with the quality of the forecast [or] the advanced warning of the potential for flooding and damaging rains.”
Did cuts to NWS delay essential communication?
As for whether critical, potentially life-saving information got to local emergency managers in charge of evacuations and public alerts, Morales said the NWS has a long history of collaborating closely with media and emergency managers.
“It’s a three-legged stool, where if one of the legs is broken then the stool falls over,” Morales said.
When asked if cuts hampered communication about the oncoming deadly flooding, Morales said he doesn’t think so.
“Did it play a role here? I kind of doubt it,” he said. “I’m on the record as stating that I think this degradation in particular in regard to the coordination is going to be a slow degradation.”
New York Times reports vacancies in key NWS positions
According to the New York Times, the NWS offices closest to the flooding have vacancies in key managerial positions in charge of maintaining coordination and communication among the “three-legged stool” Morales previously mentioned.
Water, food and other essentials are being sent on behalf of the Global Empowerment Mission to central Texas to help aid those affected by flooding. NBC6’s Julia Bagg reports.
NWS responds: Texas flood staffing was ‘adequate’ despite vacancies
In response to the article, the NWS on Sunday published its timeline of alerts to possible flooding.
The NWS said the city of Kerrville in Kerr County, where the vast majority of the deaths, 75, happened, was included in messages early Thursday.
A flash flood warning with tags of “considerable” or “catastrophic” came on Friday, at 1:14 a.m. local time. The NWS said those tags automatically trigger alerts on cell phones.
The first reports from Kerr County Sheriffs Office of flooding at low water crossings came more than three hours later.
Tom Fahy, the legislative director of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, also discussed the staffing at NWS offices in Texas.
“We had adequate amount of staff to get out the alerts and warnings to the public,” Fahy said. “The flood warning was issued 12 hours in advance of the event… They recognized that there was so much water vapor in the atmosphere, that there was potential for a high impact weather event.”
NWS: Other offices, however, ‘critically understaffed’
Fahy did say cuts have made it challenging to staff other offices in the country.
“Roughly speaking, we have 600 individuals that left between the beginning of this administration and April 30. That has a dramatic impact to staffing requirements across the country, which has left many forecast offices critically understaffed,” Fahy said. “If we had one of these very severe flooding impacts in several other cities, it’d be really dire consequences.”
Morales: Central Texas flooding exemplifies those possible risks
Morales said the flooding in Central Texas exemplifies those possible risks.
“I think what happened is a good example of what we could see happen more frequently in the future if the National Weather Service and NOAA continue to be cut the way they’re being cut,” Morales said. “Staffing cuts could lead to worse coordination, worse warning communication and therefore lives being unnecessarily lost.”
Meanwhile, officials continue to try and determine if more could have been done to warn people about the incoming high water.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
