White House defends national forecasting agency amid questions about warnings, response to Texas floods
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday the National Weather Service offices were adequately staffed and "executed timely and precise forecasts and warnings."
"To any person who has deliberately lied about these facts surrounding this catastrophic event, you should be deeply ashamed at this time," Leavitt said, blasting media members and Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer who have criticized Trump after the floods. "The administration's focus will be on giving the victims in their communities the support they deserve during these recovery efforts in this tragic time."
Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, sent a letter to the Commerce Department's acting Inspector General calling for an investigation into whether staffing shortages at NWS contributed to the scope of the devastation.
Schumer specifically asked if the NWS' San Antonio office is adequately equipped to handle future extreme weather events after recent nationwide staffing cuts. He also asked if restored staffing could improve the agency's forecasting and coordination abilities.
Emergency officials on Monday continued searching for people who remain missing. Trump is expected to visit the region later in the week, Leavitt said.
In the aftermath of the floods, local and state officials were quick to point to weather forecasts that did not accurately predict the intensity of the rainfall. Meanwhile, some forecasters suggested that local officials and camp leadership should have activated more given the threats that were apparent.
The National Weather Service issued a flood watch Thursday afternoon, predicting up to seven inches of isolated rainfall early Friday morning. At 1:14 a.m. Friday, the NWS issued the first flash flood warning. At 4:03 a.m., the NWS issued a flash flood emergency, warning of an 'extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation.'
The flooding came amid concerns about staffing levels at the NWS, after the Trump administration fired hundreds of meteorologists this year as part of Elon Musk's DOGE cuts. The NWS Austin/San Antonio office's warning coordination meteorologist announced in April that he was retiring early due to the funding cuts, leading to speculation that vacancies could have impacted forecasters' response.
The NWS forecasting offices were operating normally at the time of the disaster, Greg Waller, service coordination hydrologist with the NWS West Gulf River Forecast Center in Fort Worth, said this weekend.
'We had adequate staffing. We had adequate technology,' Waller said. 'This was us doing our job to the best of our abilities.'
During a press conference Monday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said, "There will naturally be a period of retrospection" after the search and rescue process.
'It should not happen in a bitter and partisan sense. It should happen in a reasonable sense to say, what can we learn?' he said.
Kayla Guo contributed to this story.
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