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A Summer of Hurricane Hell Is Upon Us, and We're Firing Storm Forecasters

We're in for an extra-nasty hurricane season, but Republican budget cuts are leaving some of our most crucial services in the dark.
Image: Wikimedia Commons

This summer is going to be a stormy hurricane-filled hell—climatologists are predicting more extreme activity this season than the last, and remember Frankenstorm Sandy? So you'd think we'd be gearing up to brace for impact: Hiring on extra storm forecasters, investing in better satellites and modeling computers, all around getting more hands on deck.

Instead—and stop me if you've heard this one before—we're doing the opposite. Fresh off the cusp of the biggest hurricane disaster to swamp the East Coast in decades, Congress is allowing budget cuts to hamper the nation's most important storm-monitoring services.

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Climate Progress reports that the "National Weather Service, already cash-strapped and under scrutiny for sub-par computer modeling, will be grappling with a hiring freeze and mandatory furloughs as it heads into a potentially daunting hurricane season. The NWS office in Tallahassee, which typically has 18 meteorologists on staff, is down to 14 due to the cuts."

So, to reiterate: A hurricane just killed nearly 150 people last year, in part because we were inadequately prepared. Now, we are getting clear warning that the upcoming hurricane season, which started last Saturday, may give rise to as many as 13-20 tropical storms, and 11 of those may turn into hurricanes. Three to six of those may be major, Sandy-sized monsters. And we just fired 23% of the staff of the public agency we're relying on to cope with it.

Yes, due to governmental incompetence, which, at the moment, is primarily being driven by intransigent, backwards-gazing conservatives who believe that climate change relates only to the A/C unit in Al Gore's ranch house, we are again turning a blind eye to the clearest of clear and present dangers. Due to Republican-forced budget cuts, the staff tasked with forecasting incoming life-threatening hurricanes will be coping with rotating furloughs throughout the storm season. That's right; we've decided it's not worth paying federal storm forecasters enough to track city-pummeling hurricanes full-time—they'll have to take forced unpaid leave periodically throughout the season.

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It gets worse. If storms do hit hard, the folks we'd usually rely on to fix things up—well, they'll be furloughed, too.

Here's CP again:

In addition, nearly 1,000 Florida national guardsmen and civilian technicians will be furloughed beginning in June and lasting to September, which Governor Rick Scott says will impact their readiness and ability to respond to a major storm.

With resources and personnel already stretched thin, the prospect of multiple major storms becomes even more daunting. “The biggest concern would be if we have a very active hurricane season and we have back-to-back storms or we have multiple storms hitting the state, they would simply not have the manpower necessary to ensure they have the appropriate coverage in all their field offices to provide us with the most accurate and timely forecast,” said Bryan Koon, director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.

It's all pretty ridiculous—even for those folks who believe the end times are coming. Of course, the budget cuts stem from a series of events in which Republican congresspeople—to make clear, most voters want to fund stuff like storm forecasting, its their representatives who refuse to do it—continually work to axe the budget for any and all non-military federal agencies, and quash any effort to raise revenues to pay for the ones still limping along.

Even something as all-important as storm forecasting is not out of their purview. And so, here we are, an epic hurricane season upon us, and our government is actively firing the people who could help guide us through it. Don't expect this trend to slow, either—climate change, which 97% of scientists agree is happening, will ensure that we get nastier and more powerful storms by the year. And Republicans show no sign of slowing their budget-killing, anti-government crusade. It forecasts a bleak, stormy future, friends.