ORLANDO, Fla. – There is growing concern that staff cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, could impact Floridians this hurricane season.
CBS News reports more than 800 employees, including some from the National Weather Service, were let go late last month.
News 6 Meteorologist Jonathan Kegges investigated the potential impact this could have as we near the start of hurricane season.
“It’s a real question whether or not the NOAA P3s are going to be able to meet all of the tasking that NHC may ask them to do this season,” said James Franklin, retired Chief of Forecast Operations at the National Hurricane Center.
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Franklin is concerned that the cuts that have come to NOAA will impact operations this hurricane season.
“If the P3 can’t fly, can’t respond to a tasking when a storm is about to undergo rapid intensification, we could miss it,” Franklin said.
The NOAA P3s are the planes the Hurricane Hunters fly into storms to collect critical data of an approaching storm.
“So the hurricane forecasters, they use that data, but it also goes into the models.” said Franklin
Will there be issues for the normal day-to-day operations from the National Hurricane Center?
“Yes, there can be issues with the updates that we get, upwards of ten days out on understanding the path of a hurricane. Not just that, It’s collecting this data that’s important, but what’s even more important is the analysis of this data and figuring out what this means for us. So that’s when we’re talking about evacuation orders, when we talk about what the storm will look like what it will mean so people can prepare.” said Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Orlando.
Rep. Frost sits on the House Science Committee which is responsible for funding government agencies like NOAA and NASA. He sits alongside Reps. Dan Webster and Mike Haridopolos on the committee.
I requested interviews or a statement from all three of them.
Webster’s office sent News 6 a statement saying in part,
“America’s small business owners do not have unlimited financial resources, and neither does Washington. I am monitoring the federal science agencies and in touch with the Trump Administration to ensure NOAA continues to provide essential weather services to Americans across the country.”
Haridopolos also sent News 6 a statement saying in part,
“With these headcount reductions, staffing levels are largely returning to around where they were just a few years ago. I have full confidence in NOAA’s ability to continue delivering on its mission for Floridians, whether through hurricane forecasting, fisheries management, or coastal research.”
“It’s certainly one thing to take a look at an organization and see where you can make it more efficient and run at less cost, but that’s not what’s been going on here,” Franklin said. “Some of these people who were cut were technically probationary so that they could be more easily cut, but these were people who have physics packages named after them, they were so accomplished.”
Franklin says if everything goes perfectly this season, flight operations should be OK, but there is no margin for error.