Ex-NOAA leader questions NWS cuts in flood response

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The former Administrator of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, Dr. Richard Spinrad, said he is “more and more convinced” budget cuts at the National Weather Service, initiated by the Department of Government Efficiency, played a role in the July 4 flood disaster.

“We’re going to have to look carefully at, specifically, the impacts of the vacancy of the warning coordinator meteorologist,” Spinrad said.

A KXAN investigation previously found six vacancies at the NWS Austin/San Antonio office, including a warning coordination meteorologist who had 32 years experience and took an early retirement in April as part of budget cuts.

Spinrad, an Obama appointee who was sworn in 2021 and retired in January, said that position is the gateway between warning alerts that went out and using established connections to ensure local officials on the ground act on those alerts.

“I think there would have been at least notification of someone in the vicinity to make sure that people who were in the flood zone were notified in ample time,” Spinrad told KXAN. “That, I think, is the piece that we’re going to find in an assessment was missing.”

Officials with the Trump administration, and the National Weather Service, have disputed that the cuts had an impact locally. The NWS said it had extra staff on hand leading up to and during the flooding at the Austin/San Antonio and San Angelo offices.

“All forecasts and warnings were issued in a timely manner,” said NOAA spokesperson and meteorologist Erica Cei. “Additionally, these offices were able to provide decision support services to local partners, including those in the emergency management community. The NWS remains dedicated to our mission to serve the American public through our forecasts and decision support services.”

Spinrad said it was “gut wrenching” to see images of the Kerr County flooding, which killed at least 135 people.

No evacuation ordered

Texas Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett is demanding answers to more than a dozen questions related to the NWS cuts, citing a KXAN report in one letter to NOAA. On July 11, Doggett followed up with another letter.

Dogett described a phone call with NWS Director Ken Graham as “helpful” but said he wanted to see all chat, call and shift logs for the Austin/San Antonio office from July 2-5 along with radar archives.

“Given that the long-time Austin/San Antonio Warning Coordination Meteorologist, Paul Yura, yielded in April to the Administration call for NWS employees to accept retirement, my understand is that NWS contacts about about the flooding were limited to the State of Texas and to county emergency managers, and that no contacts were made directly to Camp Mystic or other private entities,” Doggett wrote. “Please advice whether my understanding is correct. Please advise if the level of contact between NWS Austin/San Antonio and local media officials was consistent with previous weather-related disasters, such as the 2015 Wimberly Memorial Day Flood.”

Yura would not comment and previously directed us back to the federal agency. Including his unfilled “critical” role, there are 126 “permanent, mission-critical field positions” currently vacant, Doggett said he was told. Those are expected to be filled in the “coming weeks.”

In a statement to KXAN, Doggett called the flooding a “preventable catastrophe” that stemmed from “failures at every governmental level.” He said his meetings with the NWS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency led him to believe budget cuts and hiring freezes left them “understaffed to perform their critical duties.”

During Wednesday’s joint hearing with the Texas House and Senate Committees on Disaster Preparedness, Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd was asked when an evacuation for Kerr County was ordered by local officials.

“I do not believe there was ever one ordered, sir,” said Kidd.

“There was never one ordered?,” asked Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown.

“To my knowledge,” said Kidd, “I’m not aware of one.”

Spinrad recently met with Doggett. He also wants to know why an evacuation wasn’t ordered and “why there were breakdowns … in that last mile of communication.”