Did US government cuts contribute to the Texas tragedy?

After the deadly Texas floods, some Democrats have warned of the “results” of the Trump administration, which cuts the workforce of the federal government, including meteorologists, senator Chris Murphy said: “The precise weather forecast helps to avoid deadly disasters.”

The suggestion is that the cut may have disrupted the ability of the National Meteorological Service (NWS) – a government agency that provides weather forecast in the US – to make sufficient prediction of floods and increase alarm.

But the press secretary of the White House Karolin Levitt said on Monday: “This office [of the NWS] There were well employees … so any claim is completely false. ,

The BBC Verifify has investigated the impact of cuts under President Trump in the region and while the NWS has declined the workforce, the experts who said we said that we said that the staffing on hand is sufficient for the Texas flood.

Trump administration 25% deduction is proposed For the current annual budget of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for $ 6.1BN (£ 4.4BN). Noaa is an agency that oversees NWS.

this would Effective in 2026 financial year Which begins in October this year – so these special cuts would not have contributed to the Texas tragedy.

However, the efficiency drive of the Trump administration since January has already reduced the staffing level of NWS separately separately.

Government’s efficiency department (DOGE), earlier run by Elon Musk, offered voluntary excesses, known as bayouts, as well as early retirement for federal government employees. It also eliminated the contracts of most of them which were on probation.

As a result, about 200 people in NWS took voluntary excesses and 300 opted for initial retirement, according to NWS Union Director Tom Fahi. Another 100 people were eventually fired from service, he said.

Overall, NWS lost 600 of its 4,200 employees, Mr. Fhi says many offices across the country work without necessary staffing.

In April 2025, Associated Press News Agency It was said that it showed data compiled by NWS employees that half of its offices had a vacancy rate of 20% – doubled the rate a decade ago.

Despite this, climate experts verified the BBC that NWS’s forecast and flood warning in Texas last week was as expected.

Avantika Gori, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University in Texas, says, “The forecast and warning were all played in a normal way. The challenge with the incident was that this type of extreme, local rain is very difficult to forecast.”

And Andy Hazelton, a climatic scientist who prepared a model of storm paths for NOAA, until he was fired during the trimmed in February, says: “I don’t think the staff issues contributed directly to the incident. He received watches and warnings.”

However, some experts have suggested that staffing cuts may have disrupted the ability of local NWS offices in Texas to effectively coordinate with local emergency services.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at California Los Angeles, said, “There is a real question whether the weather information was communicated in a way which was sub-amat.”

“The effect may have been partially postponed if some of the weather service responsible for creating those communications were still employed – which they were not in some of these local offices,” they say.

San Angelo and San Antonio offices, which cover flood affected areas, were reportedly some existing vacancies.

For example, San Antonio’s office website lists several posts as emptyingWith two meteorologists.

The Director of the NSW Union verified the BBC that the San Angelo office was recalling a senior hygiene, a scientist who specializes in flood incidents.

The San Antonio office also lacked the “warning coordination meteorologist”, which coordinates communication between emergency management services in local forecast offices and communities, Mr. Fhi said.

However, he said that both offices had temporarily topped their employees in anticipation of a dangerous weather incident, which is specific under these circumstances.

NWS spokesperson Erica Grow CE said in a statement by BBC verification, “The NWS weather forecast office at Austin/San Antonio and San Angelo was additional forecasts on duty during the horrific flood incident near Texas near Texas,” NWS spokesperson Erica Gr Grow CE said in a statement. “All forecasts and warnings were issued on time,” he said.

NWS meteorologist Jason Runion, who covers the San Antonio region, also said in a statement where the office usually had two forecasts on duty during clear weather, he had “up to five”.

On Sunday, when asked whether the government cuts left the important vacancies at the NWS, President Trump told reporters: “No, he did not.”

In a video Shared thousands of times on social mediaAmerican meteorologist John Morales said: “Weather balloons release has decreased by 20%, launch … what we are starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is low.”

Some social media users are indicating the words of Mr. Morales as evidence of the fact that the budget cut has limited forecasts to estimate extreme weather events like floods in Ker County, Texas.

Weather balloons are an important tool used by meteorologists to collect from temperature, temperature, humidity, pressure or air speed – from the upper environment.

In America, NWS stations usually launch them twice a day.

In a series of public statements released from February, NWS confirmed that it was either suspended or reduced the weather balloons, launched at at least 11 places across the country, which was held responsible for the shortage of employees in local weather forecasting offices.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that any of them are directly launched in flood affected areas in the affected weather balloon Texas.

Publicly available data shows thatThe flood -led, launched weather balloons, as per plan in del Rio, collecting data closest to the flood sub -station, collecting data, which informed the weather forecasts, which experts say they were as enough as they could be.