As climate change increases the frequency of environmental disasters, experts say federal cuts could leave California and other states vulnerable in the years ahead.
The tragic Fourth of July flash flood in Texas that has killed at least 78 people is shining a spotlight on the nation’s growing vulnerability to climate disaster.
As rescue crews continue their frantic search for missing children along the Guadalupe River, experts warn that similar incidents could continue to happen as the federal government slashes funding for weather forecasting, shutters climate websites and databases, lays off scientists and researchers and weakens disaster response capabilities at a moment when climate change is increasing the frequency of such events.
That includes California, where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its subsidiary, the National Weather Service, are reeling from cutbacks ordered by the Trump administration. In May, at least two California offices of the NWS said they no longer have enough staff to operate overnight: Hanford and Sacramento, which together cover nearly all of the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains, some of the state’s most fire-and-flood-prone areas.
Nationally, more than 600 scientists and meteorologists have already been laid off or taken a buyout from NOAA this year. The Trump administration is planning to cut thousands more employees next year — approximately 17% of its workforce — and slash the agency’s budget by more than $1.5 billion, according to the fiscal 2026 budget request. The president has said the changes will help reduce federal waste and save taxpayers money.
Yet these and other changes come as human-caused climate change contributes to larger and more frequent floods, wildfires and hurricanes, among other worsening disasters. The Texas flood, in particular, was marked by the type of extremely intense, highly localized downpour that is becoming much more common due to global warming. Portions of the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in less than an hour, state officials said.
“This is one of the hardest things to predict that’s becoming worse faster than almost anything else in a warming climate, and it’s at a moment where we’re defunding the ability of meteorologists and emergency managers to coordinate,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. “That trifecta seems like a recipe for disaster.”
Indeed, just how frequently such events occur will soon become harder to tell, as the Trump administration has already eliminated NOAA’s database for tracking billion-dollar disasters. Its last update before the shutdown confirmed that there were 27 weather and climate disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion each in the United States in 2024.
