Michigan Senators Elissa Slotkin and Gary Peters have questions about staffing, equipment and decisions at the National Weather Service. That’s after four people died in tornadoes that ripped across southern Michigan earlier this month.
The weather service did not alert residents to the first tornado until after it had likely been on the ground for several minutes. By that time it had already killed a 12-year-old boy in Edwardsburg, according to a report from MLive.
In their letter, Senators Slotkin and Peters, both Democrats, asked why the NWS did not issue an alert sooner. They also pressed for information on staffing at the weather service. The Trump administration cut NWS staff last year.
"Was a lack of staff and/or resources a contributing factor to NWS’s inability to issue a tornado watch alert ahead of the March 6 tornadoes?" the senators asked.
"What, if anything, would have allowed the responsible NWS offices to identify the supercell that produced these tornadoes more quickly and, in turn, issue a tornado watch alert ahead of the first touchdown?"
Meteorologist Chris Hammer with the agency’s Northern Indiana office told MLive it was fully staffed on March 6th. Hammer suggested the storm developed quickly and was unusually difficult to predict.
