Democrats Raise Alarms As National Weather Service Races To Fill Jobs Ahead Of Hurricane Season

Vacancies at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are raising fears among current and former agency officials and Democrats that cuts to the federal workforce have left the country with too few experts to help prepare for weather disasters ahead of the looming Atlantic hurricane season.

POLITICO first reported on Wednesday that NOAA posted 155 job openings at the National Weather Service, the public safety agency whose regional offices make up the nation’s first line of defense for imminent storms and disasters. House Democrats on the Science, Space and Technology Committee said NOAA managers are pleading with employees in emails to pursue reassignments to fill those jobs, which in many cases would amount to demotions.

“They are frantically trying to fill the gaps,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the committee’s top Democrat, said at an event at the Capitol. “There appears to be a panic level on the part of the department to try and undo the damage they've done to the weather service.”

Internal documents reviewed by POLITICO revealed a range of open positions, from a lead meteorologist role in Fairbanks, Alaska, to meteorologist-in-charge at the NWS office in Lake Charles, Louisiana — an area that is frequently at risk for tropical storms and hurricanes.

The vacancies are mostly for meteorologists who embed in local offices scattered throughout the country and coordinate with local officials like mayors and emergency managers to provide timely information for storm preparation, helping reduce loss of life and property.

NWS is also backfilling crucial roles like hydrologists and information technology specialists who help fine tune radar systems, said Tom DiLiberto, a former NOAA official who spoke at the Wednesday event. Those functions are essential for events like the hurricane season that officially begins June 1, DiLiberto said.

“We're not prepared. We’re heading into hurricane season as unprepared as anytime as I can imagine,” he said.

NOAA will issue its Atlantic hurricane season outlook May 22. It will come as NWS struggles to maintain 24-hour monitoring capabilities at all its offices amid staffing shortages, driven by a combination of retirements and the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program and firings.

Five former NWS chiefs said in an open letter earlier this month that the Trump administration’s cuts could lead to “a needless loss of life.” They said offices are so thinly staffed that some roles will have to be filled on a part-time basis. The former NWS directors said 250 employees were fired or took buyouts in February, and another 300 have since departed.

Lofgren said the committee’s Democrats have requested information about NWS and NOAA operations through six letters sent to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who oversees the departments — but they so far have not received any response. In the meantime, she has pressed Republicans to raise alarms about NWS staffing, since GOP-leaning districts and states in places like the Gulf Coast have often faced the biggest disasters.

“I will say this without violating any private conversations I've had with members across the aisle: there is concern,” she said in an interview. “I haven't yet seen Republicans speak out publicly. That's something they got to figure out. Because when disaster hits, the tornado doesn't ask whether it's a red or blue area.”

When asked about the significance of the vacancies, NWS spokesperson Kim Doster said the agency "continues to meet its core mission."

Doster said NWS has "updated the service level standards for its weather forecast offices to manage impacts due to shifting personnel resources," but did not explain those modifications in detail.

"These revised standards reflect the transformation and prioritization of mission-essential operations, while supporting the balance of the operational workload for its workforce," Doster said in a statement.

Spokespeople for the Commerce Department and NOAA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Democrats said they are worried the Trump administration’s retirement offers and anticipated staff reductions will weaken the nation’s efforts to defend communities against climate-driven disasters. Staffing at NOAA, which houses NWS, is expected to fall 20 percent due to those factors and a forthcoming reduction-in-force. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has also endured layoffs and curtailed or cut disaster response programs.

“This is not fear mongering. These are challenges by design, by the actions of the Trump administration,” Rep. Gabe Amo (D-R.I.) said. “We know that there's a likelihood of a very intense [hurricane] season. So why would we put ourselves in a position to not be the most prepared possible?”

DiLiberto said Trump’s actions will also further obscure climate-driven dangers. NOAA recently shuttered its database of disasters that cause at least $1 billion of damage, taking a key public resource offline. DiLiberto said datasets tracking polar sea ice in the Arctic and greenhouse gases at NOAA are also under threat.

“The Trump administration takes an axe to NOAA, whose mission is to protect the American people and their livelihoods,” he said. “NOAA is in trouble.”