New hiring efforts at the National Weather Service won’t be enough to overcome staffing shortages and potential risks to human lives this summer, meteorologists warned Wednesday at a panel hosted by Democratic Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell.
NOAA will hire around 125 new employees at the NWS, the agency said in an announcement first reported Monday by CNN. But nearly 600 employees have departed the NWS over the last few months, after the Trump administration fired probationary federal employees and offered buyouts and early retirements.
That means the new hires will account for less than 25 percent of the total losses.
“A quarter of the staff are not going to do the job when, let’s just say, both hurricane and fire risks are increasing,” Cantwell said during Wednesday’s panel. “[The Trump administration’s] approach in response to this has been a flimsy Band-Aid over a very massive cut.”
