Remember When Trump Sharpied the Hurricane Dorian Map? Turns Out People Got Mad

We got the emails.

Evan Vucci/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Before impeachment, there was another big scandal. No, not that. This one involved President Donald Trump not admitting he got something a little wrong and then throwing a government agency under the bus, taking a big black marker to forge a weather map, and also rage-tweeting that he was right about an upcoming natural disaster (instead of, you know, trying to help mitigate a natural disaster). 

Now, according to some emails released Thursday, we know that the whole chain of events made plenty of people mad and led to a pretty hellish few days for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To back up: This started when Trump tweeted back in September that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama; it turned out it would not. A local NOAA twitter account in Alabama noted the storm was not hitting their state. (The local NOAA social media post was, according to internal emails, a clarification after an inordinate number of concerned people reached out to see if Alabama would be harmed by the storm. “It was later learned that the uptick in calls/concern regarding Alabama may have been related to a White House tweet earlier in the day,” an Alabama based meteorologist explained.) Soon after, national NOAA caved, releasing a statement saying the Twitter account in Alabama got it wrong. And that’s when Trump or someone in the White House sharpied a new “cone of uncertainty” on the map to try to cover up the president’s mistake.

After all that, NOAA eventually changed its position and said it would defend science. The director of the National Weather Service Louis Uccellini led a standing ovation for weather forecasters in Birmingham shortly after sharpie-gate and the agency released a letter saying it had “inappropriately and incorrectly contradicted the NWS [the National Weather Service] forecaster.”

And sometime after that, we FOIA’d NOAA’s emails.

We found that there were some inklings of anger at the president inside NOAA. Someone wrote in to say that the “current White House Administration has placed undue burdens on those of us in positions of life-and-death responsibility” and demanded that “[r]egardless of pressure being so unfairly, perhaps criminally, exerted, NWS needs to re-issue a public restatement of the truth.” (The bolding and italics are straight from the source—we’re talking angry emails to government agencies.) Uccellini acknowledged that the email was a “powerful statement.”

The emails also show a little towing to political concerns. There was a discussion about replying to an AP reporter looking for clarification on the forecast after Trump’s initial tweet because, as a media relations officer at NOAA wrote, “I don’t want them calling around…”—presumably to other agencies or the White House. (They settled on the following perfunctory email: “The current forecast path of Dorian does not include Alabama.”) In another email, NOAA officials also flatly instructed staff to “NOT respond via social media, or other, to any questions which arise from a tweet recently posted by the White House containing an old NHC forecast for Dorian.”

From Patty:

“Who is the wimpy coward who won’t disclose his name on the Alabama debacle siding with Turmp? I’m assuming we will all find who it is. How pathetic this individual must be. They need to slither back into the swamp. They have Trump stink all over them. If they had any self respect they would resign rather than enable this evil narcissist. SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!!!!!!!!”

From William:

“I am greatly distressed by NOAA officials allowing the President to get away with tampering with an official NOAA map. I thought that was illegal. And to make it worse, you retracted your mild rebuke. You have lost all credibility. What happened to your professionalism? I never thought I would say this, but I am truly ashamed of you.”

From Greg:

“President Trump is using a recent unsigned NOAA statement to justify his claims that Alabama was at serious risk from Hurricane Dorian. The unsigned statement leads many to believe that this is simply President Trump manipulating another of the agencies under his command. If NOAA is to maintain it’s integrity they must put a face to this and have someone in a high leadership position come out and either defend the unsigned statement or denounce it. The citizens of the United States deserve this at the very least.”

From Deb:

“To stab in the back all of the dedicated scientists that work on behalf of the USA (and the world), to get your 30 pieces of silver from a lying, ignorant, Putin loving traitor is beyond the pale. That’s the nicest possible way I can put it. I hope you are forever shunned and never get an honest job again, with all that brown on your nose you will carry the stench of eau de trump always, and it really, really stinks.”

(Ed note: a quick pause to say “eau de trump” is hilarious and potentially a real product.)

From Beth:

“Do you have any idea the damage you have done to NOAA’s reputation and credibility? Do you care? NOAA is no place for a political hack. We taxpaying citizens need to know that our weather data and forecasts are accurate and honest. To help you understand, ask yourself what you would think if the NWS put out an inaccurate forecast for heavy snow during a Trump rally in New Hampshire. That you used official channels of communication to support Trump in his self-created problem is itself unethical, and maybe illegal. Aren’t you covered by the Hatch Act? You should resign immediately. You should make yourself legit by getting a job in Trump’s reelection campaign.”

Wait, Beth has more!

“Now, I wonder if I can trust NOAA and NHC. If you alter past forecasts to suit Trump, what’s to stop you from altering forecasts that Trump doesn’t like? What if Trump plans a rally in North Carolina and the forecast is heavy rain and flooding, but Trump wants his ‘huge audience with thousands of people outside?’ What if Trump has a meeting scheduled at one of his resorts, and he doesn’t want to reschedule it? Should I check with independent meteorologists to get their predictions? But aren’t those meteorologist dependent on NOAA observations and data? Who else has the capability to do that level of data gathering and analysis? Maybe I should look to Canada, Germany or the UK for their weather services’ predictions?”

From Kathryn:

“Why don’t you take your theology degree to a pulpit where you can hold forth on the scientifically unverifiable existence of a deity, instead of inflicting your boot-licking, pandering attitudes on the people who pay your salary? All scientists in this country see right through you. Grow a pair or get out. Stop taking tax money if you can’t do your job.”

(Ed note: This one solicited a “these are getting very personal” message from a NOAA official.)

And, finally, NWS’ director of public affairs spells out how bad it got:

“FYSA: I wanted to let you know that the NWS PA team is receiving a lot of angry/hate mail and phone calls on our cell phones about the statement NOAA released yesterday. I am starting to get forwards from WFOs who are receiving the same type of mail in their general email boxes. We are not responding, but I wanted leadership to have the best situational awareness of the fallout. People are finding us on LinkedIn and targeting us with hate mail from there as well.”

In the ensuing thread, it mentions that people in the agency “have had to turn off their cell phones due to the large volume of calls” and that this “has really gotten out of hand. One of my forecasters just messaged me and said CNN is contacting him on his personal twitter asking for comment.” The response: “Yes, I am being targeted as well. This is a difficult time.” (This email is thread is titled “Re: Angry Stakeholders”.)

Pizza

Update, Friday, Nov. 8, 2019: A previous version of this article misstated Uccelleni’s role. It has been updated to say he is director of the National Weather Service.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate