Meteorologists have argued that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Weather Service (NWS) did their jobs well during the devastating Texas flash floods — and even had “extra” staff on hand for the storm — despite Democrats’ claims that the Trump administration’s cuts to the agencies contributed to the loss of life over the holiday weekend.
Even establishment media outlets like the Associated Press (AP) have reported on the weather community’s pushback on that narrative, while the Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent out memos arguing that the Trump administration “refused to backfill key roles … likely contributing to preventable deaths and worsened devastation.”
The AP cited NWS meteorologist Jason Runyen, who said the agency’s office in New Braunfels, serving Austin, San Antonio, and the surrounding areas, had more people on duty than normal just before the flash floods occurred before sunrise on Friday.
“There were extra people in here that night, and that’s typical in every weather service office — you staff up for an event and bring people in on overtime and hold people over,” Runyen said, explaining that the office had up to five people on staff, when they would typically have two.
Not only did the NWS issue “a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger,” according to the AP’s Sean Murphy and Jim Vertuno, but they also put out the initial flood watch at 1:18 p.m. the day before.
The notices “grew increasingly ominous in the early morning hours of Friday,” culminating in a 4:03 a.m. warning for “the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life,” the AP added.
Hellbound and Down 