As Idalia Approached, NOAA's Hurricane Hunters Were Grounded

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This is simply unbelievable. 
This is the result of many years of neglect through both Democratic and Republican administrators. I give President Trump a great deal of credit for trying to put well-qualified people in those positions but was stymied by Congress. 

Since 1974, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has not had a single administrator with a background in weather science and it shows: 
  • Tornado warnings are becoming less accurate; 
  • The U.S.'s global forecast model, the GFS, is the worst of the worldwide models; 
  • Issues are starting to appear in our hurricane warning forecasts;
  • It can't even acquire enough helium to fill its weather balloons!
These are just some of the problems. Add those to the issues throughout the U.S. disaster forecasting and response community and there is absolutely no doubt of the need to create a National Disaster Review Board to evaluate these issues and give guidance to the pubic, the federal agencies, Congress, and future administrations. 

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