National Weather Service Still Struggling With Staff Shortages

Despite promises of rehiring, the National Weather
Service remains dangerously low on staff.
Burnout looms large and that could
hurt public safety in the U.S. 

As tropical storms and hurricanes whirl, and wildfires threaten, and winter storms loom sooner than you think, the National Weather Service is still struggling with deep staff shortages, as the Washington Post reported this weekend. 

The stupid staff firings led by the odious Elon Musk last winter and spring, along with resignations and retirements means 600 workers, or about one in every seven, left the National Weather Service. 

Adequate staffing at the National Weather Service is at about 4,500 employees. Right now, they're well south of 4,000. 

According to the Washington Post: 

"Some National Weather Service staffers are working double shifts to keep forecasting offices open. Others are operating under a 'buddy system,' in which adjacent offices help monitor severe weather in understaffed regions. Still others are jettisoning services deemed not absolutely necessary, such as making presentations to schoolchildren."

Somehow, National Weather Service storm monitoring and weather forecasting have gone almost without any interruptions.  

However, just think if two big weather emergencies happened at once.  I don't know whether the NWS would have been able to handle it. Take this week for example,

Hurricane Humberto and soon to be hurricane Imelda have been very close together in the Atlantic Ocean, making forecasting difficult. .But neither storm is a direct threat to the United States, so forecasting for the two tropical systems is being managed OK.

But what if everything was further west. Imagine a scenario in which Hurricane Humberto was about to make landfall in the Carolinas while at the same time Imelda was threatening Houston or New Orleans.

Would the National Weather Service have the bandwidth to manage both crises? Once upon a time, they would. Right now, I'm not so sure. 

CURRENT NWS SITUATION

The Trump administration did a reversal earlier this year and granted the National Weather Service an exemption to a government-wide hiring freeze. But the fresh hiring largely hasn't happened yet. 

The incoming new NOAA director, Neil Jacobs, has pledged to address the staff shortages, but a U.S. Senate Committee just barely advanced his nomination on September 17. 

NOAA staffers, including most everyone at the National Weather Service are working overtime. Their work/life balance is shot to hell. WaPo says managers are picking up forecasting shifts. Some offices are sharing their employees remotely with locations that don't have enough staff. That requires overtime and working weekends. 

Even worse, if the government shuts down this week, NWS meteorologists considered essential employees. So they would be working without pay on top of everything else. At least until Congress and Donald Trump finally decide to get their act together. 

Good luck with that. 

There was a lot of concern this spring and summer that overstretched NWS meteorologists would miss things like rapidly developing tornadoes and flash floods. If that has happened, it's been rare. I haven't come across data showing whether or not forecasts for dangerous weather have degraded under the Trump regime. 

Stay tuned for eventual studies and research on that topic. 

Here's an example of the potential danger. The National Weather Service office in central Texas was able to issue timely flash flood warnings ahead of and during the epic and deadly July 4 weekend Texas Hill Country flash floods. Those floods still claimed more than 130 lives, despite the warnings.   

At the time of the flood, the Austin/San Antonio NWS office which covers the area hit by the flood, was  understaffed by six employees. One of the vacant positions at that NWS office was warning coordinator. 

The warning coordinator is the one who alerts local officials to danger. In the Texas flood, local officials appear not to have responded adequately to the warnings. Early indications are that was not primarily the fault of the National Weather Service. However,  communication between the NWS and local emergency officials is still under investigation, the Texas Standard reports. 

Three months after the flood, the Austin/San Antonio NWS office is now seven employees short of fully staffed. The warning coordinator position is still unfilled.

EXHAUSTED STAFF

Meanwhile, the longer the meteorologists are overworked, the more likely the will start to miss things. 

That could cost lives. 

"They're going to run out of gas," John Sokich, a retired National Weather Service employee told the Washington Post. "They're going to start missing things. You can't sustain that level of effort for much longer."

A NOAA spokesperson blandly said that the NWS "remains equipped to meet its mission of protecting American lives and property through timely forecasts and critical decision support services."

Yeah, only because NWS meteorologists are now practically killing themselves accomplishing that mission.  

Looming Government Shutdown Could Threaten Or Delay Vermont Disaster Relief,And Funds For Other States.

Furniture and other items ruined by flood waters sit on the
edge of a road in Cambridge, Vermont after being removed
from a damaged home. A possible government shutdown
could interfere with help from FEMA. 

UPDATE SEPT 27

The Washington Post today came out with some receipts telling us to what extent the expected government shutdown is already affecting FEMA 

payments to disaster areas.

This, even though the shutdown hasn't been started yet. 

According to WaPo, FEMA has already suspended $2.8 billion in grants for disaster recovery across the United States.

They're doing this so that there would still be money available for fresh disasters that could happen during the government shutdown.

The Senate Tuesday night came up with a bipartisan temporary resolution to keep the government running at least into November. But House Republicans want to die on the hill of a government shutdown for reasons.  Given Republican intransigence in the House, who knows how long the shutdown will last? 

It's still hurricane season, and FEMA is afraid another such storm will make a landfall somewhere run the United States over the next month or two.  Hurricanes are notoriously expensive disasters, and they need a pot of money to meet immediate needs after such a storm. That's why they're withholding the $2.8 billion for now that had been earmarked for longer term recovery projects. 

There's no sign any hurricane would hit the United States in the coming few days, but that could change later in October. There's also the chance of wildfires in California, as they often happen in the fall. And you could get a random tornado outbreak or flood in the Midwest or Northeast.

If a disaster were to hit during the government shutdown, a barebones, unpaid FEMA staff would have to deal with it. Such a shortcoming could create preventable deaths in a worst case scenario, but apparently some Congress creatures don't concern themselves with such trifles. 

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION, SEPT 24

Among the many, many problems a looming - and exceedingly stupid likely government shut down is an interruption to relief from funding for recent disasters. 

That includes recovery from the huge floods in Vermont this summer. 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has already paused spending on some programs, like many long term recovery projects. 

That's due not to the government shutdown but the fact they agency ran through its budget. 

The pause had already raised fears in Vermont that long term projects to recover from this summer's floods and gird against future ones would be delayed or even canceled. 

That existing shortfall is because the overwhelming pace of disasters this year drained the agency's funds. And fast. The United States has suffered through 23 weather disasters costing $1 billion or more so far this year, the most in any year. And we still have three months to go in 2023. 

Now we have the potential government shutdown to perhaps make everything worse. 

Says CBS News:  

"A FEMA budget that's already tight and impasse in Congress over a bill to keep the government open beyond September 30 - when funding for federal agencies runs out - are threatening to slow aid to communities recovering from natural disasters."

Those communities include Maui, devastated by wildfires in August; northern Florida, smacked by Hurricane Idalia; and of course Vermont, trashed by catastrophic floods in July and early August.

Vermont Sen. Peter Welch acknowledge that money will eventually be restored even if there is a government shutdown. After all, much of it has already been allocated,  FEMA money is desperately needed by disaster-plagued communities now if not sooner. 

"We can't mess around with this bottom line. And it's absolutely inexcusable for us to not help the folks in Maui, to help the folks in Florida and to help the folks in this case, in Vermont" Welch said, as reported by CBS.

A shutdown would delay when those funds would be disbursed. "The pipeline of getting that money out is going to slowed down, because the people who logistically do the work of making sure all the paperwork is done on the federal side, some of those people will not be at their desks," U.S. Rep Becca Balint, D-VT told mychamplainvalley.com

The deadline for Vermonters to apply for individual assistance via FEMA is October 12. It's unknown whether a government shutdown would affect that deadline. I'm also not sure if there will be anybody to take applications to FEMA if the government shuts down after September 1. 

Among the communities worst hit in Vermont was Barre. Nicolas Storellicastro, Barre's City Manager told CBS a shutdown and even a temporary end to FEMA funding weighs heavily on him. "For us as a government, it would be devastating in the sense that we cannon, we absolutely cannot front the money to get us back to normal."

I'm being Vermont-centric here. But the reality is people all over the nation need FEMA disaster assistance. See those 23 billion dollar weather disasters cited above.

But of course we can't depend on some people in Congress to think about all the people that actually do need government services. They'd rather think of their political posturing, because to them, that's all there is. 

Disgusting!