Q: Is it true that if President Donald Trump hadn’t defunded the National Weather Service, the death toll in the Texas flooding would have been far lower or nonexistent? A: The Trump administration did not defund the NWS but did reduce the staff by 600 people.

Warnings predicted both Texas floods and Hurricane Helene. But in both disasters, people were left in harm’s way.

People awoke from water rushing around them during the early morning hours of July 4, all along the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country. Residents were seemingly caught off guard, but warnings had been issued days and hours before floodwaters began carrying away homes,

Some have argued the Trump administration's NWS cuts led to a forecast that underestimated the amount of rain in Kerr County, Texas.

Key positions at National Weather Service offices across Texas are vacant, sowing doubt over the state’s ability to respond to natural disasters as rescuers comb through the flood-ravaged Hill Country.

For years, employees say, they've had to do more with less. But the ability to fill in the gaps became strained to the breaking point when the Trump administration began pushing new staffing cuts.

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