Lindsey Larvick was given one hour to pack up her belongings and say her goodbyes after receiving notice on Feb. 27 that she had been fired by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offices in Boulder.

She said she was one of 10 people in her lab who was fired that day. “I think it would be fair to assume it’s roughly similar amounts in each of the four main labs that are here,” Larvick said.

Larvick and her colleagues were some of the hundreds of NOAA employees who were fired from their jobs nationwide on Feb. 27 as part of federal workforce cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration.

Since being fired last month, Larvick said she has cut her spending, filed for unemployment and has lived off of her savings.

On Monday, she received a letter from the U.S. Department of Commerce informing her that she would be reinstated to her position at NOAA and placed on paid leave due to a temporary restraining order from the U.S. District Court of Maryland.

“Pursuant to the TRO, you will be reinstated to the federal service and your previous position of record, retroactive to the effective date of your termination, and placed in a paid, non-duty status until such time as this litigation is resolved or the Department of Commerce determines to take other administrative action with respect to your employment,” the letter read.

Despite receiving the letter, Larvick said she hasn’t been reinstated.

“Because none of us have received any paperwork, we still can’t access any of our systems … all we have heard is there’s no (timeline) for our reinstatement or for receiving back pay or for receiving health insurance or our 401k system,” Larvick said. “So, until I receive anything written or a notice or any indication that I actually am reinstated, I feel that I am effectively not reinstated.”

Spokespeople for NOAA in Boulder did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Larvick’s reinstatement letter or the number of employees who were fired.

“Per long-standing practice, we are not discussing internal personnel and management matters,” Theo Stein, a NOAA spokesperson, wrote in a previous statement on Feb. 27. “We continue to provide weather information, forecasts and warnings, pursuant to our public safety mission.”

‘That was pretty traumatizing’

Larvick was a student trainee in information technology in NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory, which conducts weather, climate and hydrologic research to advance the prediction of water availability and extremes. She was the main point of contact for any technology issues people had in the lab and was in charge of onboarding and offboarding all users.

Larvick was in the middle of a meeting with her team when she received a notice of termination via email at 1:43 p.m. Feb. 27. She said she had until 3 p.m. to turn in her keys and get out of the building.

Others weren’t as lucky. Some people were away from their desks when the email was sent out, Larvick said. By the time they returned, they were locked out of their accounts and couldn’t access the email notifying them that they had been fired. Other laid-off NOAA employees were fired while engaging in fieldwork, she said, and it was hours before they returned to the lab.

“That was pretty traumatizing for everyone involved, not just those of us who were let go but those who had to stay as well,” Larvick said.

Larvick said she has stayed in touch with people who are still employed in her lab.

“The environment in the office is unfortunately not what it was, from what I’ve heard, through no fault to the lab itself or the people in it,” she said. “Given how 10 people that they thought were essential and important and necessary were rather unceremoniously let go, they’re understandably feeling upset and vulnerable as well.”

The exact number of NOAA workers who have been laid off remains unclear, as spokespeople for the agency will not answer questions about it.

‘There’s not a strategic approach’

Three Boulder groups, including the Boulder Chamber, have partnered together to understand the impact that the federal funding disruptions, firings and policy changes are having on Boulder.

John Tayer, Boulder Chamber president and CEO, said the initiative does not have any significant direct data to report out regarding NOAA. He said he has heard about people being laid off from NOAA in Boulder who have concerns about the work they did coming to an end.

He said understanding the magnitude of the layoffs at NOAA has been difficult.

“There’s a sense that there’s not a strategic approach to these layoffs and to other decisions that are being made associated with the workforce,” Tayer said. “There are both the folks who have a great deal of experience and institutional knowledge that is critical to important government services and research, and at the same time, there are — as we’re understanding — layoffs to folks who are at the forefront of their careers and are the future generation of folks working in important fields of interest to our nation.”

Larvick was a probationary employee whose conversion to being a regular employee was prevented, due to a hiring freeze. She was hired through the Pathways Program, a federal government-run program that helps students and recent graduates transition into federal service. She worked at NOAA in Boulder for nearly two years.

Larvick noted that the email notice of her termination did not include her correct job title and listed a start date that was incorrect by eight months.

Despite a previous positive performance review, Larvick’s termination notice said “the agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and/or skills do not fit the agency’s current needs.”

Larvick said the cuts will “make everything delayed.” The cuts will affect weather forecasting, natural disaster predictions and warnings and fisheries, she said.

“My lab, it produces on average a little over 4 million data points every year that others in the country and in the world can leverage for their work,” Larvick said. “Our weather prediction models are incredibly valued as well.”