During an interview with CBS News on Monday, Tom Fahy, the Legislative Director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization stated that while there were vacant management positions at some offices in Texas, “we had an all-hands-on-deck situation where we had a full compliment, full staff of meteorologists working in those shifts.” And they did get warnings out.
Fahy stated, “[I]t really comes down to, at this particular time, in the San Angelo and San Antonio offices, yes, there were three management vacancies, but we had an all-hands-on-deck situation where we had a full compliment, full staff of meteorologists working in those shifts. Now, what was going on with those forecasters, is that they were doing — they were working on overdrive. They were doing their maximum effort to keep people safe, to inform people. And that message was disseminated and it was sent out. The question was, did it — why did it not get there?”
Earlier, Fahy said that he “saw one timeline from one of the forecast stations at 3:38. I realize that’s only a 22 — a 20-minute difference from 4:00, but, in this case, minutes count. The forecasters immediately saw what they had to do and issued a catastrophic alert, which triggered, of course, the flood emergency warning.”
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