With less than a month until hurricane season, three House Democrats have expressed concerns over staffing shortages, including vacancies in all management positions, at the National Weather Service’s Houston-Galveston forecast office in a letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting head.
The letter follows CNN’s reporting that revealed there are no managers in place at that hurricane-prone forecast office, with the most experienced meteorologists missing after rounds of layoffs, buyouts and early retirements.
Sent Monday by Houston-area Democratic Reps. Lizzie Fletcher, Al Green and Sylvia R. Garcia, the letter warns, “Adequate staffing for the NWS, especially as we go into hurricane season, is a critical matter that could cost lives if left unaddressed.”
It also requests details for a timeline for “permanently filling” the management positions, which includes the meteorologist-in-charge of the office.
The office serves more than 7 million people in the Houston metro area alone, providing weather forecasts, warnings and guidance to state and local emergency management officials.
Under the Trump administration, an already understaffed NWS has been hit hard by cuts nationwide.
This has forced the agency to reduce some services, like weather balloon launches that provide key data to computer models. Several forecast offices are at risk of no longer operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week if action is not taken this month.
Houston is one of 30 NWS forecast offices lacking their most experienced meteorologists but is unique in that it also lacks experts occupying all other senior managerial positions, such as its warning coordination and science officer roles.
“Losing all three of these essential employees will increase the risk of errors or missed extreme weather warnings and exacerbate an already overworked staff,” the lawmakers wrote.
The letter requests information from acting NOAA administrator Laura Grimm by May 30, including whether NOAA leadership planned for adequate NWS staffing when it laid off probationary employees in February.
Grimm is performing the duties of the NOAA administrator while also serving as NOAA’s chief of staff.