In the wake of deadly flooding in Texas, my colleague Noel King, who cohosts the Today, Explained podcast spoke with CNN senior climate reporter Andrew Freedman about what we know about the impact of cuts to the National Weather Service and what those cuts could mean for future disasters.
This conversation originally appeared on the Today, Explained podcast and was featured in the Today, Explained newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
What do we know about [the two weather forecasting offices in Texas]? Were they fully staffed?
The term that I would use is they were “adequately staffed.” They were staffed to the extent that most offices would be staffed overnight during the night of the horrible, tragic flooding. They each are missing some employees.
In the case of the Austin/San Antonio office, they’re missing a warning coordination meteorologist and a science and operations officer. Both of those positions were opened up because people took early retirement under the Trump administration’s program to try to get people to reduce the size of the federal government.
And then the office in San Angelo, Texas, is missing a meteorologist in charge. So that’s like the top meteorologist for the office. These staff cuts in those two particular offices do not seem to have had a major impact or even a very clear impact on the way the weather service performed during this event.
What I think I’m hearing is that your reporting does not seem to suggest at this point that the disaster in Texas was caused by the Trump administration cuts. Am I hearing that right?
You are hearing that right. The missing warning coordination meteorologist in the Austin office…that’s the biggest question. Because that position is somebody who interacts with emergency managers who are then responsible for warning the community.
But when I’ve talked to sources, they basically are saying it probably did not affect the timeliness of the warnings, the tone of the warnings, which ratcheted up very quickly, as well as how early they caught on to this event possibly taking place.
Do we know why that top meteorologist position in San Angelo was unfilled?
I don’t know specifically offhand. However, there are offices around the country that are without their meteorologist-in-charge. The National Weather Service lost about 600 people. They did get hit hard by DOGE cuts.
What’s happened with these cuts is they’re losing the most experienced people. The people who are near retirement age are taking these packages and are leaving. And then you have to train up people who are coming in, and they don’t have the same level of experience.
But there is one point that’s really important here because the cuts have been so deep around the country: This is a question that’s going to come up at every single disaster that takes place. Because the meteorologists that I’ve been talking to in the broader community are basically telling me this doesn’t seem to be the event that vacancies caused a tragedy. But mark my words that that will happen at some point if this isn’t addressed.
What are your sources worried about?
They’re concerned about hurricane season. This event actually was the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry. And that rained out over inland Texas. We also just had Tropical Storm Chantal that made landfall in South Carolina and is causing flooding today and caused flooding over the weekend. So it’s just this sense in the community that they’re really stretched thin, that people are working longer shifts, people are working six-day weeks.
When a disaster hits, FEMA is often there to pick up the pieces, to help clear up the wreckage. The Trump administration has also made cuts to FEMA. Do we know how broad those are?
The cuts to FEMA are quite broad. They really are quite deep. The administration has talked about getting rid of FEMA after the hurricane season. However, they pretty much kind of stopped that process as hurricane season came upon us.
These cuts are being made to the National Weather Service, FEMA, in the name of cost savings. Does this actually save money?
That’s a very good question. I don’t know that I can answer that conclusively here. I can tell you, though, that there are enormous economic benefits to accurate weather forecasts. Studies have shown savings of billions of dollars with more accurate hurricane track forecasts, for example.
If you look at the proposals that the administration has put forward for the 2026 budget, they want to actually close every single weather and climate lab that we have in this country. So the people who are working on improving flash flood forecasts, the people who are working on improving hurricane forecasts, and doing the research that would then lead to the forecast capabilities of tomorrow would be out of a job if that budget were enacted as proposed.
