Storms ‘should be all hands on deck’

Agencies worry as cuts hit start of hurricane season

By Seth Borenstein and Gabriela Aoun Angueira Associated Press

WASHINGTON — With predictions for a busy hurricane season beginning Sunday, experts in storms and disasters are worried about something potentially as chaotic as the swirling winds: Massive cuts to the federal system that forecasts, tracks and responds to hurricanes.

Experts are alarmed over the large-scale staff reductions, travel and training restrictions, and grant cut- offs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which prepares for and responds to hurricanes, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which tracks and forecasts them.

“My nightmare is a major catastrophic storm hitting an area that is reeling from the impact of all of this nonsense from the Trump administration and people will die. And that could happen in Florida, that could happen in Texas, that could happen in South Carolina,” said Susan Cutter, the director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina.

Representatives of NOAA and FEMA say the agencies are prepared.

About 2,000 full-time staffers have left FEMA since President Donald Trump took office in January, a loss of one-third of the agency’s full-time workforce, amid Department of Government Efficiency- mandated cuts.

“There’s really been a brain drain within FEMA in addition to the loss of overall employees,” said Samantha Montano, who teaches emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. She noted that many who left were in critical management positions.

The agency is run by an acting chief, David Richardson, a former Marine Corps officer who served overseas and worked as the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for countering weapons of mass destruction. He does not appear to have any experience in managing disasters. Emergency management requires knowing where to get things, whom to call, how things work and how to get it done quickly — which comes from experience and establishing relationships with state officials, Montano and Cutter said.

What’s happening reminds former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate of 2005, the year Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana and exposed inexperienced and poorly prepared governments at all levels, especially the then-FEMA chief who came from a horse-rearing association. Fugate said he’s especially worried about top experienced disaster people leaving FEMA.

FEMA canceled various emergency management trainings this spring, moved others online and restricted travel to such events as the National Hurricane Conference. Some trainings have resumed.

“Given the reduction in staffing, being unable to do trainings, participate in conferences, there’s potential that the federal government’s ability is diminished,’’ said former Florida Emergency Management chief Bryan Koon, president of the disaster preparedness firm IEM.

FEMA has also cut disaster resilience programs. Making areas more survivable saves up to $13 for every dollar spent, said Lori Peek, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado.

The federal government promises to be ready for hurricane season, which runs through November.

“FEMA is shifting from bloated DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens,” Associate FEMA Administrator Geoff Harbaugh said in an email. “FEMA is fully activated in preparation for hurricane season.”

Richardson promised to push more responsibilities to the states. He warned that the agency will only do what the law requires and shift more costs to states.

But Koon noted that states haven’t budgeted for FEMA’s changes.

Some states — which coordinate disaster operations — are experienced in catastrophes, have well-trained staff and will do fine, such as Texas and Florida, Fugate said. But it’s the poorer states that worry the experts.

The feds often pick up the entire bill in big disasters and most of it in smaller ones. In the Trump administration, disaster declarations have been denied or delayed. When disaster declarations were issued for nine states last week, some had been pending for two months and others were only partially approved.

“We’ve just relied on FEMA for so much for so long and not knowing who’s going to fill the gap and how we’re going to fill it is really scary,” said University at Albany emergency management professor Jeannette Sutton.

NOAA, the parent agency of the National Weather Service, has undergone a series of dramatic job cuts, with some people then reinstated. As of late March, a sizable chunk of the service’s 121 local field offices had vacancy rates of more than 20%, which outsiders call a critical level of understaffing. Weather offices are crucial in helping people translate national warnings into what to do locally.

“It should be all hands on deck and we’re being hollowed out,” former NWS Director Louis Uccellini said.

But the National Hurricane Center, which tracks and warns of hurricanes in the Atlantic, Pacific and Caribbean, has been spared.

Beyond the hurricane center, weather balloon launches have been curtailed because of lack of staffing. Data from the balloons is crucial for understanding steering currents and needed for forecasts, Uccellini said.