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“The death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas over the July Fourth weekend surpassed 100 on Monday as search-and-rescue teams continued to wade into swollen rivers and use heavy equipment to untangle trees as part of the massive search for missing people…
“Authorities overseeing the search for flood victims said they will wait to address questions about weather warnings and why some summer camps did not evacuate ahead of the flooding that killed at least 104. The officials spoke only hours after the operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old all-girls Christian summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, announced that they lost 27 campers and counselors to the floodwaters.” AP News
The left is critical of the Trump Administration’s cuts to disaster preparedness.
“The San Angelo office of the NWS was lacking a senior hydrologist, staff forecaster, and top meteorologist. The nearby San Antonio office also had vacancies for a warning coordination meteorologist and science officer, roles that are designed to work with local officials to plan for floods…
“Several meteorologists told Wired in a report published on Saturday that the meteorologists could not have predicted the severity of this storm… Still, the vacancies in the local Texas offices, coupled with the devastation of the floods, point to what experts have said is an urgent need for the Trump administration to bolster resources for emergency responses.”
Julianne McShane, Mother Jones
“On July 3, the National Weather Service issued a flood watch… But as the watches turned to warnings, they revealed gaps in the communication system. There are spots along the Guadalupe River that don’t have flood warning sirens, including Kerr County. Officials there contemplated installing a flood warning system, but it was rejected for being too expensive…
“Text message alerts did go out, but they were sent in the middle of the night after the July Fourth holiday, when many people were camping or traveling in unfamiliar places. Parts of the county also have spotty cell service. And residents who did get the alerts weren’t sure what to do about them, whether to stay or evacuate… Warnings are only effective if people have the knowledge and the tools to react to them.”
Umair Irfan, Vox
“We now live in an era of climate change with faster, stronger and less predictable storms. The [NOAA] now warns of ‘rapid intensification,’ when tropical systems quickly escalate from mild to major hurricanes in a matter of hours. That compresses the time emergency managers have to evacuate communities, marshal resources and respond…
“It leaves less room for error and demands more from the systems that protect us. And yet, the very system designed to meet this moment is being hollowed out… Since January, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which helps people before, during and after disasters, has lost more than 20 percent of its permanent staff — its most experienced, field-ready responders…
“Contracts for evacuation logistics, shelter operations and flood insurance agents have been allowed to expire. At the same time, the backbone of preparedness — training — was closed down for months. Over 7,000 emergency personnel were locked out of courses that teach them how to respond to [emergencies]… Rebuilding readiness requires urgent federal leadership.”
MaryAnn Tierney, New York Times
The right pushes back against the idea that the Trump administration’s cuts impacted the emergency response.
The right pushes back against the idea that the Trump administration’s cuts impacted the emergency response.
“Democrats and the national media have been pointing the finger at Trump and DOGE, but on Friday night, the NWS office in New Braunfels was actually overstaffed, as is often the case when bad weather is predicted. While the normal complement is two staffers, five were manning the station that night. Flash flood warnings went out when it became clear that a danger was brewing--but unless people had a weather radio or were checking their phones in the wee hours of the night, they never got the warning…
“The sad fact is that, as with tornadoes, until flash floods happen, you can only make moderately accurate predictions that they MIGHT happen. You can monitor conditions, make informed predictions, warn people about potential dangers, and then wait and see what happens. The weather is a chaotic system. As I understand it, the crisis stemmed from the storm stalling, moving more slowly than predicted. Our models are not accurate enough to provide us with precise predictions, even when Democrats are in charge.”
David Strom, Hot Air
“The discrepancy between the meteorological community’s circumspection and the political class’s eagerness to assign blame for a natural disaster to the executive branch is stark. We can understand why bitter tragedy inspires its helpless observers to grasp for agency. And yet, far too many visible public figures raced to establish a causal link between the storm’s deadly effects and the Trump administration’s efforts to scale back the executive branch’s footprint long before such a link could even be assumed, much less proven.”
The Editors, National Review
“This tragedy occurred in a location that has among the greatest risks of flash flooding in the nation, where kids in summer camps have previously been swept away to their deaths, and where warning systems are—apparently and incredibly—not in place. This tragedy never should have happened, and it should never happen again…
“The flood took place in a region of Texas that has long been called ‘Flash Flood Alley’… The flooding was certainly extreme, but it should not have been historically unexpected. Documented evidence of extreme flooding in Flash Flood Alley goes back several centuries, with paleoclimatology records extending thousands of years…
“The data show considerable variation across the U.S. but no indication of an increase in extreme rainfall for Flash Flood Alley over [one] 42-year analysis… Another report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded: There is limited evidence and low agreement on observed climate change influences for river floods in North America.”
Roger Pielke Jr., Free Press
“The fact that the Trump administration's cuts to NWS didn't affect this most recent disaster in Texas doesn't tell us much about the wisdom of those cuts. One could argue the agency is functioning well, despite having fewer staff, and that's proof that there was fat to cut at NWS…
“Meteorologists in the media have countered that the Texas disaster shows how important a fully staffed NWS is for providing advance warning of impending disasters. Cuts to the agency could leave it under-resourced for future disasters. It's a worthwhile policy discussion to have. It's not one we're having in the aftermath of the weekend's tragic floods.”
Christian Britschgi, Reason
