Emergency managers in southeast Georgia are facing this hurricane season with a pared-down staff at the Jacksonville National Weather Service office. Two leadership positions at that office, which serves 14 Georgia counties, including Camden and Glynn, remain unfilled six months after long-time employees retired.
Both Al Sandrik, the warning coordination meteorologist, and Peter Wolf, the science and operations officer, retired in December. They are two of the 36 vacancies in these positions across the agency’s 122 local offices nationwide, according to a NOAA list of regional and field leadership.
The loss of key employees like these came into sharp focus after the deadly flash floods in Texas earlier this month. The NWS office serving hard-hit Kerr County has the same two leadership vacancies as Jacksonville. As of Tuesday, the death toll in the July 4 Hill Country disaster had risen to 133, with 101 people still missing.
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