Is Anyone Surprised?
This one will be real short (busy day, busy life).
Saw an interesting article from the N. Y. Times this morning titled “States and Cities Fear a Disaster Season Full of Unknowns Amid Federal Cuts.” The gist of the article — which should come as no surprise to anyone who has been interested in how our federal government responds to natural disasters — is that the recent, and escalating, cuts to federal agencies is in all likelihood going to affect how state and local governments — not to mention individual residents and small business owners — rebuild after they are decimated by a flood, tornado, hurricane, wildfire, or even the Big One that is sure to hit sooner or later.
I leave it to you to read the article for the particulars, but the short version is clear (and pretty much follows the outline proposed in Project 2025): the current administration is cutting funding and support (and any veneer of respect) for three of the federal agencies that are involved with monitoring, predicting, and then responding to natural disasters.
These include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Weather Service (NWS), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). All three of these are pieces that are critical to any ability we may have as a people and nation to prepare for, and then respond to, a disaster.
With that said, a few paragraphs from the article may help to illustrate:
States and cities along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are heading into hurricane season with an extraordinary level of uncertainty, unable to gauge how significant cuts at vital federal agencies will affect weather forecasts, emergency response and long-term recovery.
“There’s no plan in writing for how FEMA intends to respond during this disaster season,” said Trina Sheets, the executive director of the National Emergency Management Association, which represents state emergency managers. “Things seem to be changing on a daily basis. But there’s no road map for states to follow or to be able to plan for.”
FEMA has lost about a quarter of its full-time staff, including one-fifth of the coordinating officers who manage responses to large-scale disasters. NOAA has lost about one-fifth of its staff, including hundreds of people from the National Weather Service.
There is really no way to accurately gauge what may (or may not) come, since no other administration has made such deep cuts to FEMA or other disaster-response agencies.
In the recent past, the nightmare scenario came in 2017, when FEMA struggled to respond to three devastating hurricanes in quick succession — Harvey, Irma and Maria — as well as widespread wildfires in California. The agency came close to running out of staff to deploy. At the start of that year’s hurricane season, FEMA had 6,588 trained staff members available to deploy to disasters, according to agency records. As of Wednesday, it had 1,952.
But possibly not all is bleak:
When Arkansas was struck by tornadoes in March, FEMA surprised the state by initially denying its request to help victims cover housing, rental and other expenses. The federal government approved the request this month after Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican who served as press secretary during Mr. Trump’s first term, sent a personal appeal to the president.
Seems to me that this type of personal response and support bodes well if/when the next hurricane strikes southeast Florida…
Anyway, I’ve spoken about much of this in previous posts and am confident that my personal opinions are clear, so I won’t go into them again today (busy day, busy life). Nor will I restate my thoughts regarding the impact of a changing climate on the frequency and intensity of weather-related events — again, my thoughts have been expressed in the past (and likely will be again in the future).
I know it’s early, but now is the time to begin paying attention to the path our nation is following, and deciding if this is the direction you want it to be going. And then vote your values and conscious.
(One more thing: Be sure to review as many sources of information as possible — don’t just take my word for anything (I am, after all, just another Bozo with a webpage and a big, red nose). For myself, I try to view all possible sides to the issues confronting us (CNN, Fox, as well as others), and while it can sometimes be painful, the exposure helps me better understand what we are facing.)
UPDATE 22 May 2025
About the time I was posting this, NOAA issued their 2025 Hurricane forecast for the Atlantic basin. Click here to jump to the entire forecast, but the salient paragraphs are as follows (bolding is mine):
NOAA’s outlook for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which goes from June 1 to November 30, predicts a 30% chance of a near-normal season, a 60% chance of an above-normal season, and a 10% chance of a below-normal season.
The agency is forecasting a range of 13 to 19 total named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher). Of those, 6-10 are forecast to become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 3-5 major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5; with winds of 111 mph or higher). NOAA has a 70% confidence in these ranges.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, and what, if any, will be the federal response.
