Laura Cassels/Florida Center for Government Accountability

A cadre of engineers and planners who design America’s roads, bridges, hospitals and other critical infrastructure fear that an emerging tool that would replace the nation’s out-of-date rainfall and flood data is on the Trump Administration chopping block.The new tool, Atlas 15, uses modernized rainfall data to allow engineers to design and build infrastructure to withstand flooding for decades to come as extreme rainfall predictably worsens.Without it, the engineers and planners say, they would be forced to rely on old data that understate flood risks and put infrastructure in harm’s way.

The Trump Administration is cutting personnel and funding for federal agencies such as the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as hurricane season 2025 begins. But wait! Artificial intelligence is rolling out lightning-fast data-crunching powers that can fill in for some of the missing meteorologists and emergency managers. But wait! Those AI platforms rely on precise data to perform their miracles. And those data largely come from scientists at the National Weather Service and its parent, NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose data collection capabilities are being curtailed. So where does that leave the American people, particularly Floridians, when it comes to forecasting and recovering from severe weather? That is decidedly unclear.