Good evening. I'm John Yang. Today marks the official start of what NOAA forecasters predict

will be an above-normal-normal-season, as many as 19 named storms through November,

which is when the season ends, with up to 10 of them forecast to become hurricanes,

three to five of them, major hurricanes. But big staffing cuts at NOAA and FEMA are raising question about the federal government's ability

to forecast and track these storms as they head for landfall and to lead cleanup and recovery

efforts in their aftermath.

Leah Douglas is the Agriculture and Energy Policy Reporter at Rorters.

Leah, the folks you talk to as you report on these agencies, what are their concerns?

What do they say they're concerned about this hurricane season?

Well, typically in the spring leading up to hurricane season, FEMA is very involved in going

into the communities that are storm prone and potentially expecting hurricanes and training

the state and local emergency

managers to prepare and building relationships so that when a storm does come, everyone can work

together on the response. That type of activity has been really curtailed this year as FEMA staff

are under speaking and travel restrictions that have led to major pairbacks in those types of

workshops and trainings. And so even just that aspect, it does reduce the ability of the agency

to communicate with the folks on the ground and there's concern about how that will play out

in hurricane season. Now, Homeland Security Secretary Christine Nome has said that FEMA is being eliminated.

She said, you know, we're eliminating FEMA.

But NBC News reports that she decided to keep about 2,500 core workers who were set to leave.

She wants to keep them through the hurricane season.

How important are these folks to what they do during hurricane season?

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