CNN: What’s Unclear Is Whether Cuts to National Weather Service Impacted How Warnings Were Disseminated

WHITFIELD: “CNN senior Reporter Betsy Klein is now with us. So, Betsy, you‘re traveling with the president, who‘s been spending the weekend in New Jersey. What else are you hearing?”
KLEIN: “Well, Fredricka, the scope and scale of the devastation that we are seeing from our teams on the ground make clear that this is going to be a very challenging response and recovery process that‘s going to require state, local and federal governments to work very closely together. So, we are starting to get a sense of what that federal response is going to look like. President Trump saying that he has signed that major disaster declaration. He said in a post to social media, ‘I just signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County, Texas, to ensure that our brave first responders immediately have the resources they need. These families are enduring an unimaginable tragedy, with many lives lost and many still missing. The Trump Administration continues to work closely with state and local leaders.’ Now, according to the Department of Homeland Security, this means that FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been activated. They are going to help with the recovery efforts as they try to rebuild in this community. FEMA is going to pay about 75% of the cost of those recovery efforts, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard, which has been on scene for search and rescue efforts over the last several days. There are two U.S. Coast Guard helicopters, along with three fixed-wing aircraft with infrared imaging. That, of course, is such important technology as they look to track any kind of movement among all of this debris. But state and local leaders in central Texas have said that so far they are getting what they need from the Trump Administration. Of course, we continue to track that. But as we track the federal response to this flooding and its third day of recovery efforts, there are a couple of important questions to follow here. Number one is the National Weather Service. This is the agency that is responsible for the country‘s weather forecasting. They issued a series of alerts on Friday, in those very early hours, saying there is going to be life-threatening flooding. Now. It‘s unclear how many people they were able to reach with those warnings. We heard in that news conference that there are some people that didn‘t even have cell service where they were, who were impacted. It‘s also the middle of the night. What‘s also unclear is whether cuts to this agency impacted how those warnings were disseminated. But President Trump here in New Jersey, he‘s expected to leave in the coming moments, we‘ll be tracking whether he weighs in any further, Fredricka.”