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FAFO
Author: BobR    Date: 07/07/2025 13:10:57

By now we've all seen the photos and videos of the Biblical flash flooding in Texas on July 4th. It swept away trailer parks and camp sites near the river, including a kid's camp full of young girls. Here's where it sits now:
As the deadly floodwaters in Texas receded, the scale of the destruction became more evident.

At Camp Mystic, where 10 girls remain missing, tears erupted for one young woman while inspecting the sleeping quarters. Debris and damaged building dotted the campgrounds.

The number of statewide deaths fatalities blamed on July Fourth flooding has risen to at least 81 tonight.

[...]

In Kerr County, 40 adults and 28 children are confirmed dead, in Travis County the number is six, for Burnet County it's three, and for Tom Green and Williamson counties the figure is one each.

There are still multiple people missing in Kerr County, and it's still possible the number of deaths could continue to rise rise tomorrow.

Officials in Texas questioned the warnings they received:

Texas officials are questioning the actions of the National Weather Service leading up to Friday’s deadly floods, as fellow meteorologists defend the agency.

Some state and local officials say the NWS didn’t provide accurate forecasts ahead of Friday’s destructive flooding, months after President Donald Trump’s administration gutted the agency and experts warned forecasts could suffer.

[...]

Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd told reporters at a press conference Friday that the NWS did not accurately predict the amount of rain Texas saw.

[...]

The NWS issued a “life-threatening flash flooding” warning in Kerrville at 1:14 a.m. on Friday. The alert triggered the Emergency Alert System, meaning it would have sounded the alarm on cell phones throughout the area. Cell phone users who didn’t have service or who turned off emergency alerts would not have heard the alarm.

That alert was issued more than three hours before the first reports of flooding came in, an agency spokesperson told The Independent.


One does have to wonder how the NWS even managed as well as they did, considering that - post DOGE - there were numerous vacancies at Weather Service offices:
Crucial positions at the local offices of the National Weather Service were unfilled as severe rainfall inundated parts of Central Texas on Friday morning, prompting some experts to question whether staffing shortages made it harder for the forecasting agency to coordinate with local emergency managers as floodwaters rose.

[...]

The shortages are among the factors likely to be scrutinized as the death toll climbs from the floods. Separate questions have emerged about the preparedness of local communities, including Kerr County’s apparent lack of a local flood warning system. The county, roughly 50 miles northwest of San Antonio, is where many of the deaths occurred.

In an interview, Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, said the county did not have a warning system because such systems are expensive, and local residents are resistant to new spending.

Naturally, the Republicans don't want to take responsibility, either at the local or the national level. Their responses range from the absurd to the insane...

Chip Row (R-TX), US House rep from Texas says this proves we need LESS government, saying "when you have 19 federal bureaucrats that you have to talk to as the state of Texas to figure out the weather, maybe you need fewer bureaucrats". MTG (R-GA) is always good for a conspiracy theory, and took the "opportunity" to introduce a bill in Congress to outlaw "weather modification". Finally, yet another (potential) House rep in Kandiss Taylor who is running for a seat in Congress, tweeted "Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake." and then "FAKE WEATHER. REAL DAMAGE. Hurricane Helene left me powerless for 16 days & caused $57K in damage. This isn’t just “climate change.” It’s cloud seeding, geoengineering, & manipulation. If fake weather causes real tragedy, that’s murder. Pray. Prepare. Question the narrative. #FakeWeather #GeoEngineering #PrayForTexas #AmericaFirst"

I feel bad for the actual victims of the flooding (especially the kids), but these Republican politicians refuse to accept any culpability after cheering for the decimation of the departments that would have helped make this a less fatal event.

FAFO

Day 168... 1293 to go
 

2 comments (Latest Comment: 07/07/2025 15:09:02 by BobR)
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