5/31/25 – The 2025 Hurricane Season starts tomorrow, 6/1/25. But ironically, despite predictions of an above-average season, the federal agencies that help forecast hurricanes, issue warnings, and provide disaster relief are struggling with significant funding, staff and program cuts.

Poignant Letter in New York Times

Michael Lowry, who served as a senior scientist at the National Hurricane Center (NHC), a planning chief at FEMA, and a hurricane expert at the Weather Channel, wrote a poignant letter published in the New York Times today under the headline “A Hurricane Season Like No Other.”

The letter began with an anecdote about data collection from inside Hurricane Milton last year by a Hurricane Hunter crew. The data they collected about “vortex alignment” heralded rapid intensification of the storm. Within 24 hours, it had become the strongest hurricane in 20 years with 180 MPH winds.

But there was no surprise on the Florida coast. The forecasts gave “enough time for people in the highest-risk areas to safely evacuate and businesses to prepare for the worst.”

Lowry then segues to budget, staff and program cuts at FEMA, NOAA, NHC, the National Weather Service (NWS), Hurricane Hunters, and more. Some examples:

• NWS offices that have lost 60 percent of their staff members, including entire management teams.
• Nearly half of NWS local forecast offices are understaffed, with vacancy rates of 20 percent or higher.
• Weather balloon launches are down 15 to 20 percent nationwide. The balloons increase forecast confidence and let evacuation orders be made sooner. 
• New budget documents released Friday propose eliminating NOAA’s research wing, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which lends mission-critical support to the hurricane hunters.

Along the way, Lowry points out that “The National Weather Service costs the average American $4 per year in today’s inflated dollars — about the same as a gallon of milk — and offers an 8,000 percent annual return on investment, according to 2024 estimates.”

“Without the arsenal of tools from NOAA and its 6.3 billion observations sourced each day, the routinely detected hurricanes of today could become the deadly surprise hurricanes of tomorrow,” he says.

Bottom line: Lowry says we’re jeopardizing decades of progress that have increased forecast accuracy and warning times. And that will put more people at risk.

Dizzying Days for FEMA: Cuts and More Cuts

Andrew Rumbach, a Senior Fellow with the Urban Land Institute writes about policies for disaster risk reduction. He wrote a Substack post in early May called “100 Dizzying Days for FEMA.” It details the dismantling of disaster-relief and flood-mitigation capabilities including:

• Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stating that “we’re going to eliminate FEMA.”
• Disbanding key advisory councils that guide FEMA’s work, despite them being established in law. They include the National Advisory Council, the Technical Mapping Advisory Council, and the National Dam Safety Review Board.
• A large number of FEMA staff were fired, laid off, or opted for early retirement. 
• A memorandum to the Office of Management and Budget, describes significant changes to how FEMA would determine whether to issue a Presidential Disaster Declarations. It quadruples the key threshold for making public assistance dollars available. The changes would effectively reduce the number of disaster declarations by over 70%.
• The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program ended. It was the largest source of pre-disaster mitigation funding.
• A Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) program for 2025-2026, another major source of funding, was removed.
• The administration quietly stopped approving new allocations of funding from the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP).
• FEMA has withdrawn its participation in the International Code Council (ICC) update process. It provided resources and expertise to help develop building codes that would better protect against floods.
• An executive order titled “Achieving Efficiency Through State and Local Preparedness” describes a policy that “State and local governments and individuals play a more active and significant role in national resilience and preparedness.”

Could States Do What FEMA Does?

An article in the June 9 issue of Time Magazine addresses whether states could do what FEMA does. The consensus: it makes more sense to manage disaster response at the federal level. Why? It’s more efficient. If you spread disaster responsibilities among 50 states, you will have a lot of people sitting around a long time between disasters. FEMA can shift people from state to state, disaster to disaster, and keep them busier.

Experts cite the need for reform. But getting rid of the system without a meaningful replacement is likely to cause harm.

My takeaway from the article: Surgeons experience better outcomes with scalpels than cannons.

Erosion of Safety Margins

We live in a time of uncertainty. I’m not sure which is scarier: major hurricanes, a reduction in forecasting capabilities, or the loss of disaster-relief and flood-mitigation assistance.

These cuts will erode safety margins. Sixty million Americans reportedly live in areas regularly impacted by hurricanes.

If you haven’t already completed preparations for hurricane season, check out this NWS page on Hurricane Safety Tips and Preparations. Before someone takes it down to save a buck.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 5/31/25

2832 Days since Hurricane Harvey