As hurricane season begins, federal agencies overseeing storms face barrage of challenges

John Yang:

Good evening. I'm John Yang. Today marks the official start of what NOAA forecasters predict will be an above normal Atlantic hurricane season. As many as 19 named storms through November, which is when the season ends, with up to 10 of them forecast to become hurricanes, three to five of them major hurricanes.

But big staffing cuts at NOAA and female are raising question about the federal government's ability to forecast and track these storms as they head for landfall and to lead cleanup and recovery efforts in their aftermath.

Leah Douglas is the agriculture and energy policy reporter at Reuters. Leah, the folks you talk to as you report on these agencies, what are their concerns? What do they say they're concerned about this hurricane season?

Leah Douglas, Reporter, Reuters:

Well, typically in the spring leading up to hurricane season, FEMA is very involved in going into the communities that are storm prone and potentially expecting hurricanes and training the state and local emergency managers to prepare and building relationships so that when a storm does come, everyone can work together on the response.

That type of activity has been really curtailed this year as FEMA staff are under speaking and travel restrictions that have led to major parebacks in those types of workshops and trainings. And so, even just that aspect does reduce the ability of the agency to communicate with the folks on the ground. And there's concern about how that will play out in hurricane season.

John Yang:

Now Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said that FEMA is being eliminated. She said, you know, we're eliminating FEMA. But NBC News reports that she decided to keep about 2,500 core workers who are set to leave. She wants to keep them through the hurricane season. How important are these folks to what they do during hurricane season?

Leah Douglas:

Well, the vast majority of FEMA staff are these type of reservists who respond in case of an emergency. So FEMA has lost about 2,000, a third of their full time staff and will be relying on those types of reservists to respond in case of an emergency.

There's been a lot of turmoil at the agency as President Donald Trump's administration has said that his intention is to shrink or eliminate FEMA and to move some more of the agency's role to the states. And state officials are concerned about their capacity to take on that role as well.

John Yang:

You talk about the turmoil there was in May. There was a flurry of departures at the executive level. Why sort of this mass departure and what's that done to their operations?

Leah Douglas:

Staff at FEMA are definitely concerned, according to our reporting, about this type of leadership upheaval. We saw a presentation that was given to acting head David Richardson that did say that there's morale issues.

We've heard from staff that there is confusion. What will their role be? Will they keep their current job? And so those types of leadership departures are causing a lot of uncertainty, particularly going into this acute disaster season.

John Yang:

Now, there have also been staff cuts at the national weather service under NOAA. What are the implications there for hurricane season?

Leah Douglas:

NOAA. Yeah, NOAA has lost about 900 employees, which is 7 percent of its staff, doing all types of different activities, one of which is through the National Weather Service. And there are experts have told us that there are concerns about both the agency's ability to predict and respond to weather activity, but also to coordinate across agencies with FEMA.

For instance, at this week's hurricane press conference about the hurricane outlook, there was not a FEMA official present. And a prior FEMA administrator told a colleague of mine at Reuters that's very uncommon. Typically, the agency would want to show close collaboration and that everyone's working together to get ready

John Yang:

That collaboration is that to — so you plan where it's going to hit and they can help plan recovery efforts?

Leah Douglas:

Sure. And to make sure that the agencies understand what the capacity is and just to show that, you know, the different parts of the government are operating and working together. FEMA has told us that they are prepared for this year's hurricane season and that they have adequate staff resources to respond.

John Yang:

Leah Douglas of Reuters, thank you very much.

Leah Douglas:

Thanks for having me.