The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Tuesday, June 3, 2025

The Palm Coast City Council meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall. For agendas, minutes, and audio access to the meetings, go here. For meeting agendas, audio and video, go here.

Readings: Last month Jonathan Lord, the director of emergency management in Flagler County, warned county commissioners not to expect too much from FEMA, the federal emergency management administration the current regime is wanting to gut. He did not speak about the undermining of the country’s weather and hurricane forecasting capabilities, what Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist and storm surge expert at an ABC affiliate in Miami called “A Hurricane Season Like No Other” in a piece for the Times last week: “But as we head into what NOAA forecasts will be another active Atlantic hurricane season, the Trump administration and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are downsizing the agency, which houses the National Weather Service, the hurricane hunters and many other programs crucial to hurricane forecasters. Without the arsenal of tools from NOAA and its 6.3 billion observations sourced each day, the routinely detected hurricanes of today could become the deadly surprise hurricanes of tomorrow. […] With dozens of local forecast offices struggling to maintain 24/7 operations, NOAA put out a mayday on May 13 asking remaining staff members to temporarily vacate their posts to salvage what was left of the nation’s critical warning network. Nearly half of local forecast offices are critically understaffed, with a vacancy rate of 20 percent or higher, and several are going dark for part of the day, increasing the risk of weather going undetected and people going unprotected and unwarned. The staff reshuffling is just the latest move from an agency fighting for survival. […] Thirty years ago, forecasters couldn’t detect a hurricane until it formed, and once it formed, we were lucky to give two or three days’ notice that it might strike land. Today, our forecast models — developed, maintained and improved by NOAA scientists and their supercomputers — routinely and reliably predict hurricanes sometimes a week or more before the first puff of clouds. At two or three days out, we’re able to whittle hurricane forecasts to within a county or two. […] The irreparable harm the Trump administration is doing will imperil the nation’s longstanding weather warning network for hundreds of millions of Americans in the decades ahead. It’s only a matter of time before the next Milton is at our doorstep — but with our weather intelligence severely compromised, will we know it?”

—P.T.