DOGE Cripples National Weather Service Ahead Of Hurricane Season
Aftermath of Hurricane Ida in Louisiana, August 2021
Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has left National Weather Service teams desperately scrambling to staff depleted operations ahead of the hurricane season.
According to the National Weather Service Employees Organization, there are at least 155 vacancies that need to be filled, including forecasters essential for the around-the-clock coverage needed during hurricane season.
“For most of the last half century, NWS has been a 24/7 operation. Not anymore, thanks to Elon Musk,” Tom Fahy, legislative director of the union, wrote in an email to the Washington Post.
Now, the Trump administration is looking into reassigning some of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s remaining staff to the “critically understaffed” weather service offices.
At the start of 2025, NOAA had more than 600 vacancies, but instead of trying to fill these important roles, President Donald Trump—with the help of Musk’s DOGE goons—illegally fired and pushed out about ten percent of the remaining workforce.
And the effects of these cuts were felt immediately. In March, the NWS announced that it would suspend weather balloon observations in several locations and greatly reduce data collection efforts in others due to staffing issues.
The economic value of NOAA’s weather and climate data has been estimated at more than $100 billion, but that was before Trump and Musk got their hands on it.
The Trump administration’s efforts to destroy NOAA are part of its broader strategy of undermining climate science. By gutting weather and climate research, it obscures the real costs of climate change and extreme weather events, leaving Americans in the dark.
At the same time, the GOP is working to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency, an agency that supports disaster relief—particularly in Republican-leaning states.
When Hurricane Helene ravaged North Carolina in September 2024, MAGA minions like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia attacked FEMA and the federal government.
“Yes, they can control the weather,” she wrote on X.
If that’s true, now sure would be a good time for Trump and Musk to turn on those space lasers.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
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