Jennifer Berry Hawes

🧵 As hurricane season approaches, I want to tell you why I spent the past 4 months reporting this new story about Hurricane Helene. In 1999, I spent 13 hours in a car on a gridlocked interstate with my 3-week-old baby during the disastrous mass evacuation from Hurricane Floyd.

Texas lawmakers’ inaction on flood prevention often hits rural and economically disadvantaged communities the hardest, experts said. With @propublica: bit.ly/40s2yw6

Today we published our 2nd story investigating the backgrounds of 230+ Venezuelan men Trump deported to Salvadoran. We did a first ever case-by-case analysis and found half were in the middle of their immigration cases, including dozens seeking asylum propublica.org/article/venezu…

The announcement came two days after Colbert spoke out against CBS Global settling with President Donald Trump over a “60 Minutes” story. apnews.com/article/stephe…

Sen Murkowski notes that public radio stations took lead in warning public of tsunami threat after a big quake just as Senators were debating killing federal funds for public broadcasting (fwiw initially RT'd by accident when trying to QT...)

The TX weather service warned of potential for flash flooding the day before. Also the state emergency management regional director contacted judges, mayors and others “in that area and notified them all of potential flooding.” / by ⁦@JenBerryHawes⁩ propublica.org/article/texas-…

We asked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for his and his staff’s emails with Elon Musk and Musk’s companies. The governor’s office won’t turn them over, saying some contain “intimate and embarrassing” info that is “not of legitimate concern to the public.” 🤔 @lmcgaughy @KUT

Trump’s budget would close 10 laboratories run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that help predict life-threatening weather, including one in Miami that sends teams of “hurricane hunters” to fly into storms to collect critical data. Right now, 30 of the 122…

Blackouts and power outages could be 100 times more common in the U.S. by 2030, in part because of rising demand and an aging power generation infrastructure, according to a Department of Energy report released this week. Yet U.S. policy just took a big turn away from the…

A Texas official said “there wasn’t a lot of time” to alert camps of the flood risk. But AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist said warnings gave “plenty of time to evacuate people to higher ground.” “The question is, Why did that not happen?” he said. propublica.org/article/texas-…

New: Weather warnings predicted devastation from both the Texas floods and Hurricane Helene. But in both disasters, people were left in harm's way. propub.li/4kva0gT

NEW: Weather warnings predicted devastation from both the Texas floods and Hurricane Helene. But in both disasters, people were left in harm’s way. Such an important story from @JenBerryHawes on the similarities between these two tragedies. propublica.org/article/texas-…

Climate change is making disasters more common, more deadly and far more costly, even as the federal government is running away from the policies that might begin to protect the nation. Texas Flash Flood Is a Preview of Climate Chaos to Come propublica.org/article/texas-… @AbrahmL

While reporting this story about Hurricane Helene in NC, I was struck by how many people were asleep near creeks and rivers largely unaware of the coming danger. They were left to swim from homes. Or worse. 100+ died Texas sounds so tragically similar. propublica.org/article/hurric…

“I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now,” the freshman GOP lawmaker said. texastribune.org/2025/07/06/tex…

New: Hill Country flooding death toll rises to 59 as search continues for missing girls, other survivors bit.ly/40yUJV5

We don’t talk enough about the nexus between weather forecasts and evacuation orders. @JenBerryHawes did so recently with this stunning story about Hurricane Helene’s unheard warnings in Yancey County, North Carolina propublica.org/article/hurric…

Why the Texas floods were so severe washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/0…

“We didn’t know this flood was coming,” the county's chief elected official said, even as local reporters pointed to the warnings and pushed him for answers about why more precautions weren’t taken.

The total loss of NOAA’s office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research —a nerve center of global climate science, data collection and modeling — represents a setback for climate preparedness that experts warn the nation may never recover from. propublica.org/article/trump-…

I took a different approach to telling the forecast in today's newsletter. I may not have the opportunity in every 2-minute TV update, but it's a small thing to add to my articles. I hope others will consider similar strategies to underscore what's at stake.