Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) is demanding that the Commerce Department’s inspector general investigate vacancies at National Weather Service offices and whether they increased the death toll in recent flash flooding in Texas.

Schumer wrote in a Monday letter to Roderick Anderson, the Commerce Department’s acting inspector general, urging him to immediately “open an investigation into the scope, breadth, and ramifications of whether staffing shortages at key local National Weather Service (NWS) stations contributed to the catastrophic loss of life and property during the deadly flooding.”

He noted that

© The Hill