The National Weather Service, and the cuts made by President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, have been under scrutiny since the catastrophic floods in Central Texas that have left more than 100 people dead and almost 200 more missing — a higher death toll than typically die from hurricanes in an entire year in the United States. However, the NWS has defended its actions, insisting that the agency put out proper forecasts and warnings.
But that may not be the entire story, according to The New York Times on Wednesday, because DOGE did push out one "vital employee" with a role in natural disaster preparedness.
According to a report by Zeynep Tufekci, "the Weather Service employee whose job it was to make sure those warnings got traction — Paul Yura, the long-serving meteorologist in charge of 'warning coordination' — had recently taken an unplanned early retirement amid cuts pushed by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. He was not replaced.”
The area of the Texas Hill Country where the disaster took place, including the Camp Mystic recreational facility where many children were killed, is in the area known as "Flash Flood Alley," where flood risk has been known for decades. A similar incident in 1987 killed 10 campers.
The issues are not limited to the federal government, with Joe Herring, the mayor of the hard-hit city of Kerrville, saying that the area had been asking for state grants to install a flash flood siren system along the Guadalupe River since at least 2017, and that they had been denied.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been defiant in the wake of questions about where the blame should lie for the deaths, calling reporters "losers" during a press conference on Tuesday.
