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Growing up in Southwest Louisiana, you couldn’t go long without hearing about Hurricane Audrey. It wasn’t just a story. It was a warning passed down from one generation to the next.
Audrey hit in 1957, before satellites, before radar, before emergency alerts on your phone. Over 400 people died, many in Cameron and Calcasieu. My grandfather was one of the folks who helped pull bodies from the waterways afterward. That storm left scars you can’t see, but we still feel them.
It was supposed to be the last time we’d ever be caught that off guard.
So we built systems. NOAA. The National Hurricane Center. The Weather Service. We trained scientists, invested in forecasts, and made sure people had time to prepare.
Now those systems are being torn down.
Donald Trump and the folks behind Project 2025 are gutting NOAA. Hundreds of workers have already been laid off, including hurricane experts, flood forecasters, and warning coordinators. One of NOAA’s top storm modelers, Andy Hazelton, a father of four, was just fired. In Texas, during the deadly floods this spring, their lead warning meteorologist had already been let go.
And Republican leaders have said nothing.
They claim it's about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. That phrase has been used to justify cutting everything from hospitals to schools to insurance oversight in Louisiana. But what’s being cut now is not waste. It’s protection.
NOAA does more than track storms. It warns people in flood zones. It monitors oil spills. It studies storm surge and marine life. It helps keep people safe when the water rises.
One Texas official said taxpayers wouldn’t want to pay for better forecasting. That hit a nerve. Because in Louisiana, we’ve heard that line too many times. That kind of thinking is how we ended up with closed hospitals, broken infrastructure, and skyrocketing insurance rates.
We already have the tools to protect people. We have the knowledge, the science, and the experience. If we let them dismantle it, we are choosing to be unprepared.
Hurricanes don’t care who you vote for. They don’t ask which party you belong to before they flood your neighborhood. And when they come, everyone wants the same thing. A warning. A plan. A fighting chance.
Teddy Roosevelt once said the government is us. If we keep selling it off to please the powerful, there won’t be anything left to protect us.
We can’t afford to let history repeat itself. Speak up before the next storm hits. Because next time, we may not get a heads up.
– Dustin
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