The New York Times reports:

In an effort to shrink the federal government, President Trump and congressional Republicans have taken steps that are diluting the country’s ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to catastrophic flooding and other extreme weather events, disaster experts say.

Staff reductions, budget cuts and other changes made by the administration since January have already created holes at the National Weather Service, which forecasts and warns of dangerous weather.

Mr. Trump’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year would close 10 laboratories run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that research the ways a warming planet is changing weather, among other things. That work is essential to more accurately predicting life-threatening hazards. Among the shuttered labs would be one in Miami that sends teams of “hurricane hunters” to fly into storms to collect critical data. The proposed budget would also make major cuts to a federal program that uses river gauges to predict floods.

The president is also envisioning a dramatically scaled-down Federal Emergency Management Agency that would shift the costs of disaster response and recovery from the federal government to the states. The administration has already revoked $3.6 billion in grants from FEMA to hundreds of communities around the country, which were to be used to help these areas protect against hurricanes, wildfires and other catastrophes. About 10 percent of the agency’s staff members have left since January, including senior leaders with decades of experience, and another 20 percent are expected to be gone by the end of this year.

The White House and agency leaders say they are making much-needed changes to bloated bureaucracies that no longer serve the American public well.

FEMA, for one, “has been slow to respond at the federal level. It’s even been slower to get the resources to Americans in crisis,” Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said last week at a meeting convened by the president to recommend changes to the agency. “That is why this entire agency needs to be eliminated as it exists today and remade into a responsive agency. We owe it to all the American people to deliver the most efficient and the most effective disaster response.”

National security and disaster management experts agreed that FEMA — or any federal agency — could be improved but they said the chaotic changes the Trump administration is making to FEMA, as well as other parts of the government, are harmful.

The federal government’s retrenchment arrives at a time when climate change is making extreme weather more frequent and severe. Last year, the United States experienced 27 disasters that cost more than $1 billion each.

“The Trump administration is leaving communities naked, without the necessary tools that could help them assess risks or reduce those risks,” said Alice C. Hill, who worked on climate resilience and security issues for the National Security Council during the Obama administration and who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“We know preparedness saves lives,” Ms. Hill said. “When you make cuts to the Weather Service, that is undermining forecasts. When you cut the collection of data, satellites, all of that will degrade the accuracy of forecasts. And even with a strong forecast, it’s meaningless unless the people who need to hear it, hear it.” [Continue reading…]