By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A Florida-based federal emergency response team that reopens U.S. ports after storms and accidents is unstaffed this hurricane season largely due to widespread federal workforce reductions driven by the Trump administration, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The closure of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Navigation Response Team in Fernandina, Florida – one of the network’s six national locations – could mean slower response times and longer port closures if hurricanes slam into the U.S. Southeast this summer, the sources said.
The teams are charged with deploying survey vessels to ports to locate underwater hazards that must be cleared to reopen shipping, and have been crucial in the aftermath of major storms like those that struck the Gulf Coast in recent years, as well as disasters like the 2024 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
“I know that the Florida navigation response team is completely out of commission for this hurricane season, in large part due to staffing cuts,” said former NOAA Administrator Richard Spinrad, who has been in contact with the agency.
Retired rear admiral Tim Gaulladet, who served as deputy NOAA administrator during the first Trump presidency, also said he is aware that the Florida location is no longer staffed, and that other offices have less capacity.
NOAA did not respond to a specific question about the status of the Florida NRT and reduced NRT staffing but said the agency would be prepared this hurricane season.
“In the event that ports are impacted by a hurricane or maritime disaster, NOAA will mobilize one or more Navigation Response Teams to be on scene after receiving an official request from the U.S. Coast Guard or Army Corps of Engineers,” NOAA spokesperson Jasmine Blackwell said.Other NRT locations include Connecticut, Maryland, Mississippi, Washington state, and Galveston, Texas – a major U.S. oil-industry port. The NRT’s home website was changed in March to remove both the Florida and Galveston, Texas locations, according to archived images of the site.
NOAA did not respond to queries about the status of other locations and employees.
The American Pilots Association did not directly comment on the cuts but said they will ensure that their members, consisting of harbor pilots who guide commercial ships in and out of U.S. ports, will continue to carry out this function and that its members who are ship captains and harbor pilots have the resources they need to protect maritime commerce.
ABOVE-AVERAGE SEASON
NOAA’s National Weather Service in May forecast an above-average June 1-Nov. 30 hurricane season with six to 10 hurricanes. Its director, Ken Graham, said at the time he did not expect job cuts at NOAA to affect hurricane response.
But sources said staff cuts which have amounted to around 1,000 people or 10% of its workforce so far have stretched the agency thin.
Around 600 of the cuts are within NOAA’s National Weather Service, said Tom Fahy, legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization.
He said the cuts mean the loss for the first time of around-the-clock staffing at several U.S. weather offices, and staffing shortages of 40% in some key places like Miami-Dade and Key West in Florida.
At least six NWS offices have also stopped the routine twice-a-day weather balloon launches that collect data for weather models, he said.
“The employees’ resilience has been stretched to the breaking point,” he said.
While NOAA attempts to reshuffle staff to keep services going, a period of overlapping weather events – like tornadoes, wildfires and hurricanes all at once – could push the already stretched staff to its limits and make things impossible, said Spinrad.
“This is like playing Whac-a-Mole with forecasters,” he said. “We’re going to be hard pressed to provide the standard of service that the public is used to.”
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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