The leader of the union that represents federal weather workers said members are “shocked, stunned and irate” that the federal agency they work for defended President Trump after he argued he was not wrong about Hurricane Dorian’s path.
“Never ever before has their management thrown them under the bus like this,” Dan Sobien, president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, said of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“These are the people risking their lives flying into hurricanes and putting out forecasts that save lives. Never before has their management undercut their scientifically sound reasoning and forecasts,” Sobien told the Daily Beast.
Trump has spent the last week defending his outdated claim that Alabama could be hit by Dorian. Though earlier forecasts showed the hurricane could head in Alabama’s direction, the information was incorrect by the time Trump tweeted it Sunday.
After the tweet, the account for the National Weather Service’s Birmingham office posted a correction: “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.”
On Friday, NOAA issued a statement backing Trump’s claim over its own scientists.
“From Wednesday, August 28, through Monday, September 2, the information provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to President Trump and the wider public demonstrated that tropical-storm-force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama,” the statement from an unnamed NOAA representative said.
The NOAA also said the local weather service’s tweet “spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”
Sobien said he has “never been so embarrassed by NOAA,” calling its actions “disgusting.”
I have never been so embarrassed by NOAA. What they did is just disgusting.
— Dan Sobien (@pres_nwseo) September 6, 2019
