We Saw It Coming — But No One Listened”

 “We Saw It Coming — But No One Listened”

By Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita

I remember when this poster first started circulating — URGENT: NOAA RESEARCH WEBSITES GOING DARK. I posted it, shared it, talked about it. We even worked together to create awareness. But it didn’t go viral. It didn’t spark mass concern. And now? We are witnessing exactly what we feared.

This isn’t a surprise. This is a consequence.

Earlier this year, over 1,000 NOAA jobs were slashed, including roles at the National Hurricane Center (NHC). One meteorologist even admitted he didn’t know how he could do his job anymore — the data just wasn’t there. We watched the tools of life-saving science get stripped away, piece by piece.

And now? Children are dead in Texas from sudden, extreme flooding. Little girls. Entire families wiped out. The storm hit hard and fast — and few saw it coming. Why? Because there was no way to track it properly. No planes flying into it. No models. No warnings.

Let me be brutally honest: this is the result of policy.
This is what happens when government slashes budgets and silences science.
When FEMA is treated like a burden instead of a backbone.
When climate data is deemed disposable.

We’ve been here before. Remember Katrina? Remember the outrage, the hand-wringing, the excuses? And yet here we are again. Only this time, we knew what was at stake — and we let it happen anyway.

We’ve been warning people about the data gaps.
About how hurricanes lose their names when they become "tropical storms" over Mexico — even if they keep churning through the Gulf and into the U.S. and Canada.
The storm changes name. The urgency fades. But the danger does not.

While politicians argue over "whose fault," more tragedies are forming over the horizon. And we have no way of seeing them coming, no matter how high the floodwaters rise.

The truth is this: they were warned.
We were all warned.
And we didn't act.

What other disasters are on their way now — silent, invisible — because the research was deleted, the servers unplugged, the experts laid off?

It’s time to say it out loud:
This is not just a climate issue.
This is justice.
This is life and death.
And this is on us.

📌 Let’s make sure the next time we see it coming, we act — before it’s too late.

#SaveTheData #NOAASOS #ClimateJustice #FEMA #TexasFloods #WeatherWarning #HurricaneTracking #WeTriedToWarnYou #DataMatters