Cuts to weather staffing in a place
prone to sudden, violent weather:
A National Weather Service office in eastern Kentucky was scrambling to cover the overnight forecast on Friday as severe storms were moving through much of the eastern United States, according to the union that represents the department’s meteorologists.
Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the union that represents Weather Service employees, said the office in Jackson, Ky., was one of four that no longer had a permanent overnight forecaster after hundreds of people left the agency as a result of cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency, the initiative led by Elon Musk that is reshaping the federal bureaucracy.
Mr. Fahy said on Friday that because of the threat for flooding, hail and tornadoes facing eastern Kentucky, the Weather Service had to find forecasting help for the office.
And:
As Kentucky braces for another round of severe weather, the three National Weather Service offices in Kentucky have been hobbled by low staffing levels, according to media reports and union officials. The Jackson office in Breathitt County no longer has enough staff to cover overnight shifts, according to the Washington Post and people familiar with National Weather Service operations. The office is responsible for forecasts in Eastern Kentucky, which has been hit hard the past two years with severe flooding, including a devastating 2022 flood that killed 45 people and two rounds of flooding this year that left several people dead. There is no meteorologist supervisor at any of the three Kentucky offices — Jackson, Paducah and Louisville. Instead, there are acting meteorologists in charge who often have multiple job duties, said Tom Fahy, legislative director for the National Weather Service Employee Service Organization, the union that represents National Weather Service staff.
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