Lance Trover: The National Weather Service Said They Had Five Staffers Instead of the Normal Two

PHILLIP: “Yeah. I mean, to your point about the philosophy around spending money and when it‘s appropriate and when it‘s not, for the localities but also for the whole country, that‘s a big question right now. I mean, the DOGE of it all was essentially all the things that the federal government is spending money on, for the most part, is waste and fraud. But clearly, there are some things where spending money saves lives. And it may not save lives in the moment that you spend it, but at some point, somebody‘s life, somebody‘s child could have been saved.”
TROVER: “I think something that gets lost in this is that DOGE costs have actually not taken effect. They don‘t take effect until October 1st. And if you talk to the National Weather Service, they say, ‘We had five staffers instead of the normal two that were on hand. We were giving alerts on Thursday warning about this.’ You talk to the union head of the National Weather Service staffers and said, ‘Yeah, we did every single thing we could possibly do. And you‘re right, it did go back to the localities. But that‘s where the money goes, and it‘s up to a local municipality or town to say, ‘Hey, yeah, we can afford this or we can‘t afford this.’ They put in for a federal grant. They didn‘t get it. I mean, it‘s a terrible situation, but I do think the National Weather Service followed through on everything they were supposed to do, based off of all the current reporting.”