Scientists with the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center began sounding the alarm as early as Sept. 23. In a YouTube video posted that morning, the National Hurricane Center’s deputy director, Jamie Rhome, described a tropical cyclone that would “briskly develop” into a hurricane. Monday night, the National Weather Service posted on X that heavy rain and powerful wind gusts would hit the Southeast later in the week. “It is not common for the National Weather Service to use words like ‘catastrophic’ to describe forecasts,” Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder said at a news conference Thursday morning. That has made even apolitical groups like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service a target of some Republicans.

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