‘The perfect storm’: Trump has left the US less prepared for natural disasters, experts say

Donald Trump has presided over a dangerous erosion in US capacity to prepare for and respond to natural disasters, according to emergency management experts. 

The first year of his second term was marked by crackdowns on climate science that produced world-class weather forecasts and the gutting of frontline federal agencies - policies that have left the country, already struggling to keep pace with severe storms, even more at risk...

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/04/donald-trump-disaster-response-preparedness

 

As Trump slashed weather agency, his appointees have ties to companies that stand to benefit from privatizing forecasts | PBS News

As commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick oversees the U.S. government's vast efforts to monitor and predict the weather. 

The billionaire also ran a financial firm, which he recently left in the control of his adult sons, that stands to benefit if President Donald Trump's administration follows through on a decade-long Republican effort to privatize government weather forecasting…

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/as-trump-slashed-weather-agency-his-appointees-have-ties-to-companies-that-stand-to-benefit-from-privatizing-forecasts

Ted Cruz ensured Trump spending bill slashed weather forecasting funding | Texas floods 2025 | The Guardian

"Ted Cruz has spent years doing big oil's bidding, gutting climate research, defunding Noaa, and weakening the very systems meant to warn and protect the public,' said Cassidy DiPaola, communications director of Fossil Free Media. 

"That's made disasters like this weekend's flood in Texas even more deadly. Now he's doubling down, pushing through even more cuts in the so-called big beautiful bill. Texans are dead and grieving, and Cruz is protecting big oil instead of the people he's supposed to represent. It's disgraceful." 

 Cruz, who has previously cast doubt over the scientific reality of the climate crisis, said that complaints about cuts to the National Weather Service are "partisan finger pointing", although he conceded that people should've been evacuated earlier...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/07/ted-cruz-trump-weather-forecasting-cuts 

 

The Pentagon will stop sharing data that helps hurricane forecasters

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7aJZl-8UaXU