The devastating Texas floods have turned parts of the Lone Star State into a tragic scene, with authorities confirming at least 59 people dead as of Sunday morning. As rescue teams continue to search for an unclear number of missing individuals, including a group of around 27 young campers, questions are swirling about preparedness and whether enough was done to brace the area for such catastrophic flash flooding.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott reports that more than 850 people have been plucked to safety across Kerr County amid the Texas floods, which bore the brunt of the disaster, thanks to the tireless efforts of the Coast Guard and over 1,000 first responders from Texas state agencies. The search for the missing campers from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp, continues along the banks of the Guadalupe River, which experienced “catastrophic level floods,” according to an email the camp sent to parents, cited by The New York Times. The Guadalupe has a notorious past with floods, including a prominent incident in 1987 that claimed 10 lives.
However, attention has turned to the National Weather Service’s role in the preparation for this storm. According to Forbes, Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, when pressed on why camps along the Guadalupe weren’t evacuated, told reporters Friday, “I can’t answer that, I don’t know,” before stating the county had “no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here.” Yet, W. Nim Kidd, director of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, openly “faulted the National Weather Service for not predicting the amount of rain we saw.”
Texas Floods: Was the National Weather Service Properly Staffed and Equipped?
While the NWS did issue a flash flood watch Thursday afternoon that specifically noted Kerr County as a “particularly vulnerable area,” along with more urgent flash flood emergency alerts in the overnight hours as the disaster hit, questions persist about their capacity. A representative for the union for NWS employees told CNN that the offices in Austin and San Antonio had “adequate staffing and resources,” but notably added that the San Antonio office was missing a “coordination meteorologist to work directly with emergency managers.”
The agency was one of several federal bodies targeted by the controversial cost-cutting efforts of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. The NWS recently laid off nearly 600 employees — reportedly “around the same amount of staffers it lost in the 15 previous years,” the Texas Tribune reported. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, when asked if the government’s preparedness was a “failure,” said the Trump administration was trying to “upgrade” the NWS technology, calling their existing setup an “ancient system has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years.”
Noem added, “For decades, for years, everybody knows that the weather is extremely difficult to predict, but also that the National Weather Service has done well… And at times we have all wanted more time, and more warning, and more alerts, and more notification.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump himself commented on the Texas floods, stating Friday that the deaths were “shocking” and confirming the government would work with Governor Abbott to provide federal aid. He reiterated in a Truth Social statement Saturday morning that his administration is assisting state and local officials. However, Trump has also previously insisted states should play a larger role in handling their own weather disasters, saying last month his administration intends to “wean” states off help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA itself has lost hundreds of employees since Trump took office and ended its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which awarded around $4.6 billion to communities to prepare for future disasters.
As Central Texas remains under another flood watch through Sunday evening, with flash flood warnings for parts of Bosque, Hill, Johnson, and Somervell Counties. With an above-average Atlantic hurricane season predicted, the region’s challenges may unfortunately continue.
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