Texas Democrat: Possible role of NWS staffing cuts in flooding deaths should be investigated

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said Sunday that the possible role of National Weather Service (NWS) staffing cuts in recent Texas flooding deaths should be investigated. 

“Two Texas National Weather Service offices involved in forecasting and warning about flooding on the Guadalupe River are missing some key staff members,” host Dana Bash said during Castro’s appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“A director of the NWS union told CNN that the Austin/San Antonio office is missing a warning coordination meteorologist due to the Trump administration’s buyouts,” she added. “Do you have any indication whether those or other cuts helped play a role in the fact that the people in the flood zone were not prepared and certainly not evacuated?”

Castro responded that he couldn’t speak “conclusively” about the cuts, adding later that he did not “think it’s helpful to have missing key personnel from the National Weather Service not in place to help prevent these tragedies.”

“On most days, obviously, you’re not going to have a tragedy like this, but when you have flash flooding, there’s a risk that you won’t have the personnel to make that — do that analysis, do the predictions in the best way,” he said.

“And it could lead to tragedy. So, I don’t want to sit here and say conclusively that that was the case, but I do think that it should be investigated,” he added.

The Trump administration fired hundreds of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff earlier this year, including some NWS staff. It later moved to reassign other employees to NWS offices that were “critically understaffed,” according to an internal document.

In the past few months, the Trump administration has taken aim at multiple parts of the federal government, slashing staff and switching up the structure of departments and agencies in a dramatic fashion that rattled Washington.

When reached for comment, the NWS said it “is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life” caused by the flooding.

“On July 3, the NWS office in Austin/San Antonio, TX conducted forecast briefings for emergency management in the morning and issued a Flood Watch in the early afternoon,” the NWS said in a statement. “Flash Flood Warnings were issued on the night of July 3 and in the early morning of July 4, giving preliminary lead times of more than three hours before warning criteria were met.”

Updated at 11:15 a.m. EDT