As Americans bear witness to a deadly tragedy caused by catastrophic flooding that has killed at least 120 people in the hill country of Texas, Floridians are getting a preview of how much worse a severe hurricane season will be now that agencies involved in preparedness and response have been gutted of vital funding.
It obviously makes no practical sense to weaken federal disaster response resources as the frequency of catastrophic weather events continues to increase at an alarming rate. However, if you consider that the goal might be to dismantle the administrative state while also serving benefactors in the fossil fuel industry, it makes ideological sense.
Project 2025 not only advocates for the dismantling of the administrative state, it names NOAA as a primary element “of the climate change alarm industry,” suggesting that the agency “should be broken up and downsized.” The Trump administration has effectively zeroed out all funding for NOAA research in the 2026 budget. The document is similarly critical of the National Weather Service, a division of NOAA, advising that it “focus on its data-gathering services” rather than weather and climate models that might prove inconvenient to the fossil fuel industry.
The NWS lost 560 employees to DOGE cuts earlier this year. That’s an enormous hit to an agency that only had around 4,000 employees. Just a couple of weeks before the floods in Texas, NOAA announced it would be ending the importing, processing, and distribution of data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder, used by meteorologists for forecasting, in what the agency described as a “permanent” service change.
President Trump is apparently walking back his plan to shutter the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the aftermath of the flood, but FEMA funding has also faced uncertainty. In April, the agency rescinded grant programs, clawing back hundreds of millions of dollars of pledged funding, including almost $300 million that had already been awarded to Florida. The agency also quietly withdrew a notice for states to apply for $600 million in flood mitigation grants and has missed a mid-May statutory deadline to open applications for several grants that are essential to many states' emergency management operations.
While some local officials in Texas blamed poor forecasting for playing a role in the response, most meteorologists actually say that the NWS did a good job with its forecasts related to the Texas floods and that its work should serve as a testament to the value of adequately funding its operations, particularly in launching weather balloons.
However, The New York Times reported that a number of key roles in NWS local offices remained unfilled as the heavy rainfalls hit. The San Angelo office was missing a senior hydrologist, a staff forecaster, and a meteorologist in charge. The office in hard-hit Kerr County was missing a warning coordination meteorologist. That’s the person who works with local emergency management officials to warn residents of potential flooding and issue instructions on how and when to evacuate. The meteorologist who had been in the role left on April 30, after taking the early retirement option from DOGE offered in Elon Musk's infamous "fork in the road" email to federal employees.
It’s also noteworthy that deep red Kerr County had not updated its flood warning systems with the technology used in surrounding communities, mostly because conservative residents railed against the cost. When an opportunity to make such upgrades with federal money presented itself via the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, many residents loudly demanded that the county not accept “Biden’s money.” On Friday, The Washington Post reported that Kerr County officials did not even use the most far-reaching alert system at their disposal until more than two days after the floodwaters reached their peak.
While NOAA and NWS fall under the Department of Commerce, FEMA is a jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security, led by Kristi Noem. Noem is best known for her cosplaying ride-alongs with ICE agents, which will become one of our most heavily funded agencies in the 2026 budget. The immigrant detention facility in Florida, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” is being primarily funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Shelter and Services Program, according to Noem.
A rule change also required that Noem personally approve any FEMA expenditure of $100,000 or more, which, in a state of emergency, is pretty much all of them. CNN reported on Thursday that FEMA’s response was slowed as the agency awaited Noem’s approval. According to the reporting, Noem’s approval did not come until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began. In the interim, Noem took to Instagram to ask her followers to vote on which portrait of her would be best for the South Dakota governor’s mansion, where she was serving a second term before being tapped by Trump to head Homeland Security.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has stated that he plans to erect a second ICE detention facility in Jacksonville, followed by a third somewhere in the Florida panhandle. As many have pointed out, erecting the hastily constructed temporary facilities in remote areas prone to hurricanes and tropical storms is itself a deadly event waiting to happen.
In many ways, this whole sordid tragedy serves as a metaphor for the priorities of this administration and the architects of Project 2025. Claim that ideologically driven cuts are essential, even as you explode the deficit by cutting taxes for the ultra-rich and lavishly funding a police state and forever wars. Expendable Americans will be injured or killed while the elites prosper. Executive power will continue to be consolidated, and eventually it will become too dangerous to disagree with an authoritarian regime for most people to bother trying.
Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch is also the author of three novels and a short story collection available here. He can be reached at editor@thebradentontimes.com.
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sandy
FEMA created in 1978 by Carter, became a stand alone cabinet member 1993 under Clinton. Bush put them under the newly created Dept. of Homeland Security created in 2003. FEMA ran better without that extra layer of bureaucracy of being under DHS for a response to a natural disaster.
Saturday, July 12, 2025 Report this
lib224
When will the people realize that Republicans just don't govern that well?
Sunday, July 13, 2025 Report this
Ritalg
I believe the Florida governor is using these unsafe detention centers for publicity because he’s a suck up to the president. Thinking somehow that he will receive special treatment from him. They don’t and won’t care that the detention centers get washed away and people die when the hurricanes hit. That’s less people they need to deport. That’s the plan.
Sunday, July 13, 2025 Report this
Cat L
We have repeatedly seen how carelessly Doge cuts were made in what they had to immediately put back, and then are slowly finding other areas that should not have been cut. There was a dodge whistleblower who said they had found that the margin of waste was impressively small. I didn't dig into him very much, but I've known a lot of people who worked for government in various offices, and it seems like the vast majority take it quite seriously. Unfortunately we have now developed a tendency toward performative, idiotic and self-serving politicians…..
It took a lot of years to develop the emergency response systems that we had. Clearly the people developing them thought there were reasons to structure them in that way…. Hopefully the remaining gaps can be discovered before nature makes us find them the hard way.
I saw quite a few times when Florida counties, or the state itself, said “no” to money from the feds for environmental upgrades. Foolish.
Saying no to necessary expenditures, that just results in problems later that cost more. My Republican grandfather taught me that at an early age.
This is insane.
It's insane that people are allowing marketing to cause them such deep hate of their own neighbors that they are willing to vote against their well-being, also.
It's insane that we have a detention Center in the Everglades. Alligator Auschwitz is what we call have been calling it.
We have seen this before. We know where this goes. Why is it still happening?
As far as I'm concerned, those who put him there, and this administration, bear some of the responsibility for getting them out.
Get loud with your representatives people, this is not America. We are better than this.
Sunday, July 13, 2025 Report this
RRICH69176
We are on a very slippery slope--unless voters get out and look closely at candidates. Let us NOT roll over those in office who are self serving. Look at Vern's polls.......does he heed the will of the respondents? or even address what the polls reveal?? Tax cuts for the wealthy, such as Vern, enable another yacht in the marina.
Yes, there are short term tax benefits for some--is it always all about the wallet?? What are setting up for our grandchildren?
Sunday, July 13, 2025 Report this
klmsinc
This is not meant as an admonishment, but an encouragement meant to direct you to read the Word of God i.e.. the Bible!
Luke Chapter 21 speaks to a multitude of these very issues.
When you make the words of a scientist, a political party and politicians, your own self greater and more believable than the Word of God, then you are going to accomplish even greater confusion and fears for yourself.
Empirical, rational, and faith all ways to learn. You have volitional choices. Is your way working for you?
If you need a Book of the Bible to start reading, try Proverbs. The Book Of Wisdom
Sunday, July 13, 2025 Report this
mklimek
"Owning the Libs" was a stupid and tragic mistake.
Monday, July 14, 2025 Report this