Meteorologists are strongly rejecting claims from Democrats and mainstream media outlets suggesting that recent National Weather Service cuts under the Trump administration are partly responsible for the deadly floods that have killed more than 80 people as of Monday morning.
Since the Guadalupe River surged over 30 feet in just hours, weather experts have pushed back on criticism that a limited number of layoffs by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency caused delayed warnings to a Christian girls’ camp near San Antonio—where dozens were killed and many more remain missing after taking the brunt of the storm.
One of the most prominent media voices to blame Trump was ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, who reported on Saturday that “there were significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Service’s offices in the region.”
But what the former Clinton official said was highly misleading. While staffing shortages at the National Weather Service have nearly doubled since before Trump took office, meteorologists in Texas confirmed they maintained consistent communication with the agency throughout the crisis. Also, the Associated Press reported that there were extra forecasters on duty ahead of the Texas flooding.
AP: Weather service had extra staffers on duty during Texas flooding emergency.https://t.co/DP0Hw2xh6R https://t.co/2Lz92UZzO9 pic.twitter.com/V4Keeoz1xZ
— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) July 6, 2025
“The NWS forecasting offices were operating normally at the time of the disaster,” said Greg Waller, service coordination hydrologist with the NWS West Gulf River Forecast Center in Fort Worth, Politico reported. “We had adequate staffing. We had adequate technology,” Waller added. “This was us doing our job to the best of our abilities.”
Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, told the Texas Tribune that the current staffing levels were “adequate to issue timely forecasts and warnings before and during the emergency.”
The AP also reported “a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger,” beginning Thursday afternoon. Those broadcasts “grew increasingly ominous in the early morning hours of Friday,” culminating in a 4:03 a.m. message warning of “the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life.”
Many of those communications were featured in a detailed series of social media posts by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which pushed back against claims that the National Weather Service was understaffed. Ryan Maue, a popular weatherman with a PhD in meteorology from Florida State University, called Stephanopoulos’s reporting “[g]rotesque misinformation.” He added: “NWS in Texas had extra staff on duty and did their jobs admirably, as always.”
