While some planned offices stop night staff, the National Weather Service rushes to reallocate employees internally and occupy more than 150 positions to cover critical job holes.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration opened on Tuesday a “reallocation period”, requesting 76 meteorologists and a total of 155 staff members to consider the transfer to fulfill critical empty roles after the Trump administration dismissed probationary employees and prompted the first pensions to the long -standing federal employees of the National Weather Service (NWS).
The service was looking for staff members to fill five leading roles for meteorologists in charge in five field offices, including Lake Charles, Louisiana; Houston; And Wilmington, Ohio.
Meanwhile, at least eight of the country's 122 weather forecast offices – including Sacramento, California; Goodland, Kansas; And Jackson, Kentucky – are no longer able to operate during the night or plan night operations in the coming months and a half, according to Tom Fahy, Legislative Director of the Organization of National Weather Service employees, which follows the figures for the provision of the service.
Critics of the cuts say that the thrust to reallocate meteorologists and other staff members shows that the service has been too deep and that the main public security services are injured.
“It has never happened before. We have always been an agency that has provided 24/7 service to the American public,” said Fahy. “The risk is extremely high – if cuts like this continue at the National Weather Service, people will die.”
The National Weather Service acknowledged that it temporarily made the changes to the level of service it provided and to the staffing, but said that it continued to respect its mission and that NWS forecasts continued to be exact.
“The NOA and NWS have undertaken to mitigate the impacts of recent endowment changes to ensure that basic mission functions are continuing,” the service said in a statement. “These efforts include temporary adjustments to service levels and, for offices, most needed, the temporary transfer of meteorologists and advertising permanent internal reallows.”
FAHY said that the country's 122 offices of the country's weather forecasts have public vaclossement rates over 20%.
A list of the Directorate of the Service Office, which was updated for the last time on Wednesday, showed that the agency is riddled with vacant posts and that 35 meteorological roles in charge in the expected offices have remained vacant.
Since the new administration has taken care of, the National Weather Service reduced more than 500 employees by offering early retirement programs to senior managers and dismissing probation employees, according to a letter from the former administrators, who have warned that cuts could lead to unnecessary deaths for serious times such as tornadoes, forest fires and hurricanes.
“Our worst nightmare is that the offices of weather forecasts will be so under-employed that there will be unnecessary loss of life,” the directors wrote earlier this month.
NWS retired employees recently said they feared that the levels of staff fell below critical levels at a time when the service was under a job frost, and when many workers at the start of their careers were rejected.
Alan Gerard, who accepted an early retirement in March as director of the Branch of Analysis and Understanding of the National Laboratory of the NOAA Storms, compared the NWS reallocation notice to “reorganize the bridge chairs”, noting that it did not respond to the main concerns.
“They really move people from one office to another office, and even if it will potentially help some of the short -term crisis situations they have, it is not a kind of long -term solution,” said Gerard. “It's not an influx of people.”
Brian Lamarre, who was recently a meteorologist responsible for the Tampa Bay weather forecast office in Florida and accepted an early retirement from NWS on April 30, said it included the impetus to modernize and rationalize the service.
In fact, Lamarre had participated in an effort preceding the Trump administration to reorganize certain parts of the service.
The service planned to modernize certain parts of its endowment structure by implementing a “mutual aid” system, in which the local offices of the forecasts could request and receive assistance with daily tasks during serious weather conditions or when they are in sub-employment.
“Many of these plans are accelerated by emergency,” said Lamarre, after which he described as “random” cuts. “Whenever you want to reorganize the furniture in the living room, you don't burn your home, and that's what we see.”
Lamarre said the NWS should be hired soon because many forecasters in their fifties and 60 experience. At the same time, the service reduced the employees of the probations, many of whom were in their first or second years of service.
“The probationary employee cuts really limits the agency's future capacity,” said Lamarre. “It is your brilliant mind, your new innovative minds that come out of universities in new positions. This is why it is so important to open hiring.”
