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Did the DOGE layoffs at the National Weather Service just kill a bunch of people?
Augusta Free Press ^ | July 5, 2025 | Chris Graham

Posted on 07/05/2025 5:11:08 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege

A slow-moving storm that dumped more than a foot of rain in the Texas Hill Country has killed 27 people, with dozens more missing, and officials are saying they weren’t prepared because the National Weather Service got the forecast wrong.

Wonder if Donald Trump and Elon Musk laying off 600 National Weather Service staffers earlier this year could have had anything to do with that?

…Deadly flash floods are, unfortunately, not uncommon – 10 teens at a summer camp died during a flash-flood event from a storm that dumped 11 inches of rain in Kerrville in 1987, and 13 people died in flooding from a six-inch rainstorm in San Antonio just three weeks ago.

Which is to say, there’s a reason Texas Hill Country is also known as Flash Flood Alley.

…On the meteorologists, the National Weather Service isn’t talking, but you do have to wonder how much the mass layoffs ordered by DOGE, in line with the Project 2025 plan to dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has eroded the ability of the NWS to keep on top of things.

The bulk of the staffers let go were specialized climate scientists and weather forecasters, and an internal document obtained by The New York Times warned that the agency was on the verge of offering “degraded” forecasting services because it was facing “severe shortages” of meteorologists.

In May, five past directors of the National Weather Service issued a letter warning that Trump’s cuts “leave the nation’s official weather forecasting entity at a significant deficit, just as we head into the busiest time for severe storm predictions like tornadoes and hurricanes.”

“Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life,” the directors wrote in that letter.

(Excerpt) Read more at augustafreepress.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Weather
KEYWORDS: abbott; augustademocratpress; blametexas; blametrump; bs; chrisgraham; climate; democratshopeso; didithelpthough; didnthelp; doge; enemieslist; enemyjournalist; flashflood; flood; idiocy; journalisticsedition; nationalweathersvs; nevertrumpfault; nlz; shifttheblame; tds; tesafault; texas; weather
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To: All

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201 posted on 07/06/2025 3:50:57 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$
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To: dandiegirl

It was still storming. Thunder, lightning no electricity, pitch black except for the lightning. Hell on earth for these people. Happened in an instant.

><

Exactly.

Sensors, interpretation, pre-planning and training would have had to have been done for an event that happens only once in 40 years. Not very likely.


202 posted on 07/06/2025 4:37:46 AM PDT by The_Media_never_lie
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To: thinden

where did reagan go to fill those slots on such a short notice?

Marine Corps was one group, I was an Air Traffic Controller, some of the more experienced got some good duty stations.


203 posted on 07/06/2025 4:55:45 AM PDT by Jolla
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To: The_Media_never_lie

I was looking at the hydrological data for the South Fork of the Guadalupe River where the camp is. There is none listed on the NOAA website. A sensor was just added to the North Fork in 2018. There is a sensor at Hunt, Texas where the 2 forks converge. So we don’t really know the water level at the camp. There maybe historical measurements taken by eyeball, but the data isn’t on the NOAA website for the South Fork. The South Fork is only about 10 miles in length until it converges with the North Fork at Hunt. That is a lot water draining off those hillsides.


204 posted on 07/06/2025 5:00:25 AM PDT by EVO X ( )
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To: Jolla; Paladin2

heads up Paladin2:

“where did reagan go to fill those slots on such a short notice”

And the answer is?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

from Jolla:

where did reagan go to fill those slots on such a short notice?

Marine Corps was one group, I was an Air Traffic Controller, some of the more experienced got some good duty stations.

*************

thanx for adding the color Jolla.


205 posted on 07/06/2025 5:11:38 AM PDT by thinden (Buckle Up!)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

How can anyone predict almost a foot of rain falling in such a short tim This is not on the weather service. Maybe on Texas warning systems and communications, but not DOGE.


206 posted on 07/06/2025 5:31:36 AM PDT by madison10
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To: SpinyNorman

I heard there are few towers near there and a lack of towers in Texas, generally speaking. Reception very poor. Local officials should have been on the ball.


207 posted on 07/06/2025 5:35:57 AM PDT by madison10
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To: Jonty30

I’ve yet to see anything made better by an excess of government employees.


208 posted on 07/06/2025 5:45:34 AM PDT by allwrong57
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

NO!


209 posted on 07/06/2025 5:54:34 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus…)
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To: metmom

What kind of idiocy and disturbed thinking came up with this premise? The supporters of former government employee parasites has taken a new low.


210 posted on 07/06/2025 5:57:18 AM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege
Texas for all its accolades seems to be notorious for this things like big freezes, power grids going awry etc…

Which has NOTHING to do with the state itself.

The geography of the US is what allows for those kinds of events to happen in that area.

And what happened was weather, not climate.

211 posted on 07/06/2025 5:57:26 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus…)
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To: metmom

Governors from fire and quake prone states like CA and other severe weather pattern states can take a page out of DeSantis’ book. The latter (no, was not my choice for President) but has done an exemplary job hurricane after hurricane…and even his handling of Covid* should he noted as well.

He knows how to prepare budgets, mobilize his state and resources at every level and every stage (including navigating around the deadweight federal hindrances like FEMA) and the recovery is so streamlined due to thorough planning that he ends up having “leftover” contingencies and forces that get sent out to other states to aid in THEIR recovery.

* Power outages are a personal expertise of DeSantis due to his having worked as an electrician’s assistant when young.

Meanwhile Newsom is sitting pretty as CA year after year, fire after fire, as forests are overgrown, hazardous electrical infrastructure languishes and ages, water reserves are drained, fire hydrants are empty, you get the drift…

And you see some of these patterns at work in Texas as well. For starters, apparently on the local level: people thought it’d be too expensive to install a Siren flood warning system among the river…and to just rely on text message instead even though cell phone service is spotty in parts of hill country.


212 posted on 07/06/2025 6:39:09 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

We have very poor cell coverage here in NH and VT, and no doubt most of ME.

Geography is a large part of it, along with population density.


213 posted on 07/06/2025 6:41:13 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus…)
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To: metmom

WOW I envy you! You live in the Vermont/New Hampshire/Maine area?!

(but yes the lack of density can also be a risk.)


214 posted on 07/06/2025 6:43:24 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: metmom

This is relevant to note as a case study:
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-winter-storm-2021/


215 posted on 07/06/2025 6:46:43 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

NH.


216 posted on 07/06/2025 6:49:46 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus…)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege; Texan5

This area is NOT the flooded swamps and flat mud near the Bayous of east Texas and the Big Thicket. The Texas Hill Country has 2 inches of clay (caliche) over bare rock, with elevation changing every three feet into another gully or ravine.

You can only grow scattered cedar trees and low brush, barely enough water most years to even grow a few Johnson grass (weeds) between the brush and catii.


217 posted on 07/06/2025 7:37:47 AM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (Method, motive, and opportunity: No morals, shear madness and hatred by those who cheat.)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

No, if anyone is responsible it’s the citizens of that community that balked at the cost of a early warning system with sirens like they have for tornadoes.


218 posted on 07/06/2025 7:46:01 AM PDT by Mastador1
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To: mbrfl

Agreed. It’s a fair question. But the answer is already known: NO

The NWS issued a flash flood WARNING, not ‘watch’, two hours before. That’s their job and they did it.

The people let go were primarily tasked with faking data to further the climate alarmist scam.


219 posted on 07/06/2025 8:28:59 AM PDT by SomeCallMeTim
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To: Theoria

That’s a very good point. The out-of-towners have no idea what the local conditions can be or what precautions might be in order. I’m just heartbroken about those girls. Damn.


220 posted on 07/06/2025 10:00:01 AM PDT by HKMk23 (https://youtu.be/LTseTg48568)
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