The war not on weather but against warning about it

Project 2025 Takedown - On a day that was supposed to mark our nation’s independence, Central Texas was met with unbearable tragedy. I grew up about three hours away from Kerrville, one of the hardest hit areas. My family has floated the Guadalupe River on vacation….

No words are sufficient for the devastation this flood has caused. Daughters stolen from a place of happiness and safety. Families suddenly homeless. Floodlights panning floodwaters, searching for bodies…

Tragedies like this are wholly predictable thanks to Trump’s efforts to gut the NWS, a critical arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Those of us who read Project 2025 and have been paying attention to the drastic and dangerous reduction of staff do not have the luxury of surprise.

Project 2025 called for the NWS to be “broken up and downsized,” with many functions transferred, privatized, or shifted to states/other agencies.

After Trump’s election, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency wasted no time carrying out this mission, first offering early retirement to anyone who would take it and then telling NOAA administrators to eliminate 10 percent of the department's workforce as it made moves to eliminate the agency. NOAA has lost nearly 600 experts dedicated to tracking, notifying, and preparing for weather disasters like the Texas flood. After another round of layoffs in May, about one-in-four jobs have been lost since Trump took office in January.

Like other government departments, this was part of Donald Trump’s aggressive crusade to hollow out the federal government. But the attacks on the NOAA and the scientific community weren’t just about trimming bureaucratic fat….

Scaling back weather research and mechanisms to warn the public about impending disasters puts all of us in danger. Whether we live in the pathway of hurricanes, or flash floods, or wildfires, or earthquakes, or tornadoes, or volcanoes, these decisions are a direct assault on our ability to prepare for increasingly deadly weather disasters.