I was eight years old when it happened.
I missed school because I was sick and spent the day at my grandparents' house. Mom came over around 4:00 with my five-year-old brother to take me home.
It started to storm, so she decided we should stay for dinner. I was happy because I could continue watching one of my favorite television shows.
I was sitting in the recliner watching TV, and my five-year-old brother was peeping over the window sill to watch the storm. Grandma walked past me to pull him back from the window, Mom turned off the TV, and Grandpa walked in to talk to me.
That is when it hit without warning. There had been no tornado siren.
The tornado was a violent and frightening sound.
When it passed, I sat up confused.
I did not understand why I was getting rained on.
I saw Grandpa, but I didn't see anyone else.
The eerie silence was broken by Mom screaming for my brother and me.
She unburied herself from the rubble and stood up a bloody mess. We found my brother and our grandma and began to move to the center of the house. We lived, but the injuries my mother sustained would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Since then, there have been advancements in meteorology and our tornado warning systems.
Sources told Axios that the Trump administration has informed NOAA that two pivotal centers for weather forecasting will soon have their leases canceled.
One of the buildings is the nerve center for generating national weather forecasts.
It was designed to integrate multiple forecasting centers in one building to improve operating efficiency. It houses telecommunications equipment to send weather data and forecasts across the U.S. and abroad.
The modeling center runs the computer models used in daily weather forecasting and ensures that weather data is entered correctly and that they operate correctly.
An NOAA employee told Axios the cancellations — along with recent layoffs, early retirements, and travel and hiring limitations — point to an effort to dismantle the agency.
Andrew Rosenberg, a former NOAA official on the agency's fisheries side, has seen the cancellation list. He likened the College Park situation to cutting the government via a "chainsaw" approach.
Is this really what the American people want: a dismantling of our most basic weather services?
I've seen firsthand the consequences of the weather services of old. It's painful, traumatic, and deadly.
I do what I can to share ideas to manage money and the home as a team. Still, I never imagined our country would dismantle the most basic protections for our families: our consumer protection agency, weather service, and private data.
How do I help people defend against that?
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