Article snippet: WASHINGTON — The secretary of commerce threatened to fire top employees at NOAA on Friday after the agency’s Birmingham, Alabama, office contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian might hit Alabama, according to three people familiar with the discussion. That threat led to an unusual, unsigned statement later that Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration disavowing the office’s own position that Alabama was not at risk. The reversal caused widespread anger within the agency and drew criticism from the scientific community that NOAA, a division of the Commerce Department, had been bent to political purposes. Officials at the White House and the Commerce Department declined to comment. The actions by Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr. are the latest developments in a political imbroglio that began more than a week ago, when Dorian was bearing down on the Bahamas and Trump wrote on Twitter that Alabama would be hit “harder than anticipated.” A few minutes later, the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama, posted on Twitter that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.” Trump persisted in saying that Alabama was at risk, and a few days later, on Wednesday, he displayed a NOAA map that appeared to have been altered with a black sharpie to include Alabama in the area potentially affected by Dorian. Ross intervened two days later, early Friday... Link to the full article to read more