With less than a month in his second term, the president signed an executive order to give non-governmental government efficiency departments broad powers to keep the federal workforce realistic in the name of cost-cutting.
DOGE—led by the multibilionaire “special government employee” Elon Musk—has proceeded with zeal, working to scrap foundation for vegetables' cancer treatments, reportedly cutting FDA employees directly working on Musk's company Neuralink, slashing (and then walking back) layouts in the National Nuclear Security Administration, cutting about 1,000 staff working for the National Park Service across the country, and This month, after a false start, beginning layoffs at NASA, National Space Administration.
In the last week of February, hundreds of federal workers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were fired, accounting for 10% of the agency's workforce. One of the affected employees was meteorologist Andrew Hazelton, who grew up in Florida until last month spent a day with the Hurricane Research Model Team, which helped NOAA understand these extreme storms and mitigate their worst impacts. Hazelton is now on administrative leave (he is not allowed to work), a temporary restoration position that can allow him (and many other NOAA staff) to work in the federal court system (and many other NOAA staff).
Gizmodo talked to Hazelton over the phone this week to discuss the positions he and hundreds of other federal employees of the NOAA are dealing with as Doge Cuts cuts to federal labor. Here is our conversation, edited slightly for clarity.
Isaac Schultz, Gizmodo: I know that things changed the last day and the memorandum temporarily restored employees who were “paid, unwilling” in their identities, which had the potential to add a new dimension to our conversation. From your work at NOAA to layoffs, it’s basically our roller coaster now, please take me through the schedule.
Andrew Hazelton: I have been in NOAA for more than 8 years. After earning my PhD in 2016, I worked at NOAA Lab (NOAA LAB), NOAA GFDL in Princeton for 2 years, and then I went to AOML, Hurricane Research Division in 2018, working at the University of Miami. Last October, I started a federal position working for NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center for Hurricane Modeling and Model Development.
As of yesterday, at least on paper, we have filed a lawsuit on paper at least due to the weekend's court decision. However, we still have many questions to get answers to what this looks like. It seems to be based on the wording they sent to us – they are waiting for another court to say they can pass betrayal. Now we are not allowed to work.
Even though I worked with NOAA for 8 years or more, I was a new federal employee and then on February 27 we all received a lot of emails, basically just informing us that we were fired. It's a little confusing because they have about an hour of notification. We have been in this state of dilemma. I know some people appealed to the Performance Committee. There is such a preliminary injunction that allows us to recover, but it seems to depend on an appeal to this. There is still some uncertainty as to whether there may be legal layoffs procedures thereafter.
Gizmodo: It seems that in many institutions, people are not only hit by these layoffs, but also in these situations, what is their status in these situations, and what will be the next step for the federal government.
Hazelton: Correct. It depends on the outcome of the court, and even across the department, some seem to respond to these rulings differently, and some are more enthusiastic than others. There are many unknowns.
Gizmodo: Frankly, we can talk about more unknowns. Your focus is on hurricanes. How many people who work specifically on hurricanes are affected at least for the time being, what could this mean for the public – Need information about the upcoming storm?
Hazelton: In my group, I was the main character of the Hurricane. There are other people doing other types of modeling: bad weather and ocean models, all kinds of things. There are others in NOAA who are part of Hurricane Hunter, those who fly to Hurricanes, and I make it part of my last character. Several groups of people were fired. As part of the judge's judgment, dozens of them may have been restored to their original state, but there is not much communication about which standards to use, but some have not fully recovered. They don't provide a lot of information about standards or plans, but the biggest thing is that it's hard if people don't recover adequately.
These are people working on certain computer models, which are our main tools for collecting data. I know people in the satellite sector are affected, and satellites are one of the important tools we can monitor all kinds of weather, not just hurricanes. For anyone who relies on weather data, the effect can be fully felt.
Gizmodo: Just because our readers are very familiar with hurricanes – many in the Southeastern United States – can you tell me a few storms you flew through?
Hazelton: Because I've been there last year, that's the first part of hurricane season. Last year, I was in Helene, and then I also flew around in the storm of Michael in 2018, Dorian in 2019, and most Gulf people remember, Idalia. I have been riding a lot of large and used aircraft data as well as modeling work.
Gizmodo: What is it like to fly over a hurricane, and what is the most disturbing storm?
Hazelton: Most flights are like bumpy commercial flights. This is a P-3 aircraft. This is a propeller plane, usually a rotator of bumpy, noisy planes, but very sturdy. But when you get into the eye wall (the most intense part of the hurricane), you can see some real bumps.
I think Michael is probably the bumpiest storm. I'm not in the famous Ian flight, they're really shaking, I'm the one before. So Michael and Helene were a very strong eye last year. We don't want to fly over because it's so dazzling to look at the radar.
Gizmodo: People related to this administration have talked a lot about the privatization of weather forecasts. What do you think about this? What does this prospect mean for federal workers and the way the public gets weather information, depending on what you imagine, should they continue to work hard?
Hazelton: The problem is that there is already a very strong private weather business. There are some private companies that do well. We work with them, many of which rely on NOAA data for applications or other tools. It's really a good public-private partnership, and I think it's a model for something like this. I don't think we want to get to the point like a subscription-based warning model or any life-saving data or information. Honestly, opening access to data at your tax cost is one of the things that really is NOAA model. If you look at these numbers, it only takes 6 cents a day to fund NOAA's current levels.
It's a small cost when you look like the dollar saved. Whenever there is a hurricane, better predictions can allow people to leave and vice versa, without having to close their schools or businesses if they are not affected. Better predictions can save lives and money. In many ways, NOAA does pay for itself.
Gizmodo: You mentioned that some people were recovered very early. It sounds like making these decisions is a bit of a black box. Is this a fair feature?
Hazelton: Yes, there is really no lot of standards or communication. I think there should be some veterans who prefer previous federal services, but it doesn't actually specify how these decisions were made.
Gizmodo: In this case, I still have to ask a stupid question: Is there any idea of how long will any ambiguity last?
Hazelton: No, not true. I think that will depend heavily on the court cases and how those cases work. That's higher than my salary level. I'm just ready to start over with what I love and what helps protect the American public.
Gizmodo: Given the suddenness of these layoffs and the work-related hands, it sounds like you're just sitting at your desk waiting to recover, which may not be the weather and weather, which may not be the best thing to do.
Hazelton: It's too hard. My colleagues, coworkers who are still there, they are great, they are working hard, but it's hard when you have an agency that is already understaffed and just a thinner one. It's hard to accomplish everything you want and need.
Gizmodo: Do you really want to know your personal experience now, or gain experience with federal workers more generally at this point?
Hazelton: Most of us just want to go back to the work we do to help the American public. NOAA's mission is to protect life and property. We have a record of doing this, and that's what we want to go back to doing.
