The National Weather Service office for Austin and San Antonio is not fully staffed. In fact, more than 25 percent of its positions are vacant.
This isn’t due to brand-new turnover, either. Some of these jobs were unfilled even before the July 4 floods, which killed more than 130 people in Central Texas.
KXAN investigative reporter Matt Grant and chief meteorologist Nick Bannin spoke to Texas Standard about their recent investigation on these vacancies and their impact. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
The transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Matt, how have the staff vacancies at the Austin/San Antonio National Weather Service office grown over the course of this year?
Matt Grant: Well, we first started digging into this, of course, after the devastating July 4th flooding. And at the time, we found that there were six vacancies at the Austin/San Antonio office.
Today, there are seven. And one of the key positions that has been vacant since the end of April, the warning coordination meteorologist, that position [is] still not filled today.
Nick, one of these jobs is warning coordination meteorologist. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that person does, why it’s so relevant, especially when you think about the July 4th floods?
Nick Bannin: Sure. So a warning coordination meteorologist leads the charge there. And they also are exceptional at public outreach and outreach for emergency managers, getting out the word, organizing what message they’re going to be sending across to their various partners so that they’re all on board, everyone’s ready, everyone knows what general expectations there are before a big weather event to get everybody on board.
I want to understand something, though – was that spot filled at the time of the July 4th floods or no?
Nick Bannin: No, that spot has been vacant since the end of April, and the position itself has not even yet been filled.
But it sounds like this position in particular… We’ve been talking a lot about, certainly in the aftermath of the flooding, the lack of communication coordination, and it sounds like at that time there wasn’t someone in that seat serving as that key coordinator. Am I wrong?
Nick Bannin: There was not an official warning coordination meteorologist in place.
The National Weather Service, NOAA, and the White House have told Matt when he reached out that they have built up their staff during that particular event. So there were other people putting out the warnings, putting out watches, which did come out before the flooding happened. So there were people filling that role in some way or another during that time.
Matt Grant: Well, a number of the Kerr County officials did not get communication, it seems, from the National Weather Service.
For example, the Kerr County Emergency Management Coordinator, W.B. Thomas, told lawmakers in Kerrville that he was sick and asleep at the time. Sheriff Larry Leitha said that he didn’t wake up until people were already trapped on their roofs. The mayor said that he was not aware of a July 3rd situational awareness call for severe weather with the Texas Division of Emergency Management and the National Weather Service.
So there are a lot of questions about what communication there was between the National Weather Service and local officials on the ground. And that’s something that Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Austin is trying to get to the bottom of.
For months, he’s been requesting staffing call logs, shift records, radar analysis records. He wants to know what communication there was, and how staffing may or may have not played a role in the response to the flooding.
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Did you reach out to the Trump administration or the National Weather Service to talk about these vacancies? What did they say?
Matt Grant: Both, yes, and Congressman Doggett says that he’s being stonewalled [from] receiving the records that he has requested from the National Weather Service, so he’s trying to get those records and has so far been unsuccessful.
A White House administration official kind of echoed what the National Weather Service told us, which is that it’s carefully evaluating the need for additional personnel and posting jobs to fill positions deemed necessary for operational continuity, reading the statement that they sent us. They also added that these jobs are being offered as needed to ensure both the safety of Americans and the responsible use of tax dollars.
Nick, how concerned are you about the staffing issue? As a meteorologist, do you feel that we are vulnerable right now because of these vacancies?
Nick Bannin: It’s a position that should be filled incredibly quickly, and what’s been frustrating from a meteorological perspective — before the July floods, it should have been filled.
Paul Yura, the previous warning coordination meteorologist, left on April 30, and Matt reached out to [the] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Sept. 2 saying, “hey, why isn’t that position filled yet?” And then only eight days later, they posted the job opening on USAjobs.gov, eight days after we asked why the position still had not been filled.
