Emails show the fallout from Trump's claims about Dorian

A flurry of newly released emails from scientists and top officials at the federal agency responsible for weather forecasting clearly illustrates the consternation and outright alarm caused by President Donald Trump's false claim that Hurricane Dorian could hit Alabama.

A top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official even called the president's behaviour "crazy".

What the scientists and officials found even more troubling was a statement later issued by an unnamed NOAA spokesman that supported Trump's claim and repudiated the agency's own forecasters.

The emails, released late Friday in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from The Associated Press and others, give an inside picture of the scramble to respond to the president and the turmoil it caused inside the federal agency.

"What's next? Climate science is a hoax?" Craig McLean, NOAA's acting chief scientist, wrote in an email sent to the agency's top officials.

"Flabbergasted to leave our forecasters hanging in the political wind."
In a more formal letter, McLean wrote that what concerned him most was that the Trump administration "is eroding the public trust in NOAA for an apparent political recovery from an ill timed and imprecise comment from the President."
Gary Shigenaka, a NOAA scientist, wrote to the agency's acting administrator, Neil Jacobs, asking him to reassure those of us who serve the public...that we are not mere pawns in an absurd game."