As Hurricane Helene prepared to make landfall this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cautioned those in its path to prepare for a “life-threatening” storm and “catastrophic” flooding. 

But amid those warnings, media figures, climate scientists, and other experts moved to publicly defend the agency from proposals by Project 2025 — the conservative movement’s comprehensive transition plan to guide the next Republican administration — which calls to break up NOAA and reduce the amount of disaster aid for families and businesses impacted by extreme weather.

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is the federal agency that predicts changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coastlines, providing data that informs hurricane tracking and other lifesaving forecasts. The agency’s website states that “NOAA’s products and services support economic vitality and affect more than one-third of America’s gross domestic product. NOAA’s dedicated scientists use cutting-edge research and high-tech instrumentation to provide citizens, planners, emergency managers and other decision makers with reliable information they need, when they need it.” [NOAA.gov, accessed 9/26/24]
   
• On September 25, NOAA posted an alert explaining the major risks associated with Hurricane Helene and advised residents about how to adequately prepare for “catastrophic” and “life-threatening” expected flooding. The alert emphasized that in addition to Florida, other regions including the Atlanta metro area and western North Carolina could also see dangerous flooding, and urged residents to “heed evacuation orders if they are issued by local emergency managers.” The National Hurricane Center, which is part of NOAA, has continued to provide public advisories about which warnings are in effect and update its hurricane map. [NOAA.gov, 9/25/24; National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center, accessed 9/26/24]
   
• ABC News reports Helene was “the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Big Bend on record when it struck Florida on September 26” as a Category 4. The storm has reportedly killed at least 25 people across the Southeast, and as of September 27, nearly 4 million people in Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia are without power. [ABC News, 9/27/24; NBC News, 9/27/24]
   
• The Miami Herald published a September 26 editorial titled “Florida’s bracing for a major hurricane. This is why we need NOAA, not Project 2025.” “In Florida, we live and die — sometimes literally — by what the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service, which are parts of NOAA, tell us,” the paper’s editorial board wrote. “And yet, according to Project 2025 — a document hundreds of pages long that lays out a policy agenda and 180-day playbook if the GOP wins the White House — NOAA needs to go.” [Miami Herald, 9/26/24]
   

• In its policy book, Project 2025 says that NOAA “should be broken up and downsized.” Former Trump official Thomas Gilman wrote that research from the National Hurricane Center and the National Environmental Satellite Service, which are both divisions of NOAA, “should be presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.” He also claimed that the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research is “the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism” and “the preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]
   
• Project 2025 would end the National Weather Service’s ability to provide data and educational resources that are free to the public. Project 2025 calls for the National Weather Service to “fully commercialize its forecasting operations,” turning it into “a literal private-sector data farm,” according to The American Prospect. “Don’t have the money for a souped-up hurricane-tornado-blizzard app? Or a subscription-only site—like weather.gov—that NOAA once produced for free? Tough.” [Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023; The American Prospect, 9/26/24]
   
• Experts say Project 2025 attacks NOAA because the agency has emphasized the threat of climate change. E&E News notes: “The National Hurricane Center’s mission is centered on informing and warning the public about potentially deadly storms, and as part of that work, it has connected the effects of climate change to hurricane intensity. The brushback it gets in the Project 2025 playbook speaks to past insinuations from Republicans that government agencies are manipulating data to make climate change appear worse.” Speaking to The Guardian, former NOAA official Andrew Rosenberg said the agency “basically reports the science as the scientific evidence accumulates and has been quite cautious about reporting climate effects,” adding, “It’s not pushing some agenda.” And meteorologist Chris Gloninger said Project 2025’s recommendations are “a sign that the far right has ‘no interest in climate truth.’” [E&E News, 4/10/24; The Guardian, 4/26/24]
   
• Project 2025 would also limit key disaster aid for families and businesses. The proposal suggests ending a low-interest loan program from the Small Business Association that provides victims of extreme weather with low-interest loans to rebuild. According to the Center for American Progress, this is “the federal government’s largest source of disaster recovery funds for survivors.” Project 2025 could also make it harder for states to qualify for federal disaster aid by increasing “the threshold for disaster declarations,” which means that a storm needs to be even more damaging for the president to decide that federal aid is necessary. [FEMA.gov, accessed 9/26/24; Center for American Progress, 8/8/24; Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership, 2023]

• MSNBC contributor Tristan Snell wrote, “Imagine having to survive a Category 4 hurricane - with no federally backed flood insurance - with no NOAA or National Weather Service - with no federal funds to help your state and local govts.That's all in Trump's Project 2025.” [Twitter/X, 9/27/24]
   
• Snell also wrote, “Hurricane Helene is going to devastate Florida and the Southeast, as a Category 3+ storm. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's Project 2025 would:- cut FEMA - kill the National Weather Service - kill federal-backed flood insurance - kill emergency disaster funding for state/local govts.” [Twitter/X, 9/24/25]
   
• In a segment covering Hurricane Helene, MSNBC host Joy Reid said that during a second term, “Donald Trump and his friends and his allies” will seek to “implement the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 initiatives” that “plan on dismantling the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.” Reid sarcastically added, “Apparently, Republicans don't like it when experts who warn you about weather events like tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, flash floods, winter storms, high winds, and hurricanes force their ideology down your throats.” [MSNBC, The Reidout, 9/26/25]
   
• Former Labor secretary and public policy professor Robert Reich wrote, “Your reminder that Project 2025 would break up the agency that runs the National Hurricane Center. See p. 674.” [Twitter/X, 9/26/24]
   
• Activist, author, and organizer Amy Siskind wrote, “As Hurricane Helene approaches, it's a good time to remember that Trump and his Project 2025 plan calls for the demolition of NOAA and National Weather Service.” [Twitter/X, 9/26/24]
   
• Journalist Andrew Revkin wrote, “Remember @POTUS45's hurricane chart Sharpiegate meddling? That's minor compared to what is possible in a new Trump / Vance White House guided by @heritage's #project2025 recommendations on @NOAA @NWS.” [Twitter, 9/26/24]
   
• Center for American Progress Action Senior Vice President Alex Wall highlighted that “Hurricane Helene is a dangerous and deadly threat. So is Trump's Project 2025—which would ELIMINATE aid for families and businesses to rebuild from severe storms.” [Twitter/X, 9/26/24]
   
• Ahead of Hurricane Helene’s expected landfall, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann told HuffPost reporter Chris D’Angelo that the National Hurricane Center is “critical to coordinating evacuations and emergency response” and warned that eliminating it would be “just one example of how dangerous, deadly, and disastrous Project 2025 would be if implemented.” [HuffPost, 9/26/24]
   
• Sharing a post about Helene from the National Hurricane Center, journalist Jennifer Schulze wrote, “Your periodic reminder that life saving information like this from @NHC_Atlantic would be corrupted if Trump wins. Project 2025 calls for dismantling @NOAA -the govt agency that overseas extreme weather AND privatizing free (& vital!) weather reporting agencies like @NWS.” [Twitter/X, 9/26/24]
   
• Former Wall Street Journal editor and Columbia Journalism School professor Bill Grueskin wrote, “As a devastating Cat 4 hurricane heads toward Florida, remember that the Trump team's Project 2025 recommends that the NOAA - which runs the National Weather Service -- ‘should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated [or] privatized.’” [Twitter/X, 9/25/24]
   
• Sharing a map of the projected path of Hurricane Helene, DemCast executive director and HuffPost contributor Nick Knudsen wrote, “Seems like a poignant moment to mention that Trump’s Project 2025 specifically aims to ELIMINATE the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).” [Twitter/X, 9/25/24]