UPDATE: The headline at the link now reads "Death toll nears 80 as local officials promise ‘full review’ of what went wrong."
६ जुलै, २०२५
"At least 59 people have been confirmed dead by the floods... as a frantic search-and-rescue operation continues for countless more who remain missing..."
"... including 11 girls from a beloved summer camp on the Guadalupe River.... Extraordinary atmospheric conditions released 1.8 trillion gallons of rain in and around Texas Hill Country on Friday. In one area, the Guadalupe River rose from 7 feet to 29 feet in just a few hours.... The National Weather Service said its reports gave localities hours of lead time, but the speed and severity of the flooding still appeared to catch many off guard. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said that the agency used an 'ancient system' for alerts and that the White House has been working to upgrade the technology...."
पोस्ट्स
१५५ टिप्पण्या:
Political blame being put on Biden. Billions spent on non-existent CAGW, but not enough on protecting Americans now.
Same thing happened at the FAA under Pete.
It's planet earth. Trying to blame a politician for the weather, is just lame.
This is a very tragic situation... flash floods occur.
Lessons will be learned.
Tragic. Sad. : (
Already being heard somewhere? "How could the nation have voted in this horrible man who does not take climate change seriously? I am disgusted by this country and its cowboy voters. None of this horror would have happened if .... if .... if ... well, it's obvious. Those lives are on your head. And you call yourselves Christians. Sick! Biden, I mean Harris, or anybody sane, would have never let this happen. We need to bring back compassion and sense."
For those who haven't seen it, this is video of the Llano River. 30 second timelapse of 20 minutes.
The NY Times is running a story/floating a meme, that it's the fault of Trump and his budget cuts for leaving key positions empty at the National Weather Service.
What ancient system could that be? Marathon runners? Smoke Signals. If it's anything similar the Amber Alert system, it's not only ancient, it's totally worthless.
How many times has your phone beeped obnoxiously only to display a nearly information-free alert that mentions a motor vehicle last seen near a town you've never visited in a county 80 miles away? And how many times have the follow-on messages compelled you to turn off your phone because reading the previous and equally useless Amber Alert message nearly caused you to sideswipe that red Elantra with a trail bike strapped to the roof rack? And how many times have wondered what sort of bribery and political skullduggery was applied by the People Against Sex Offenders pressure group to fund such a poorly designed system that costs millions yet results in thousands of dead-end 911 calls leading to few arrests and even fewer convictions?
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.
If MAGAts cope with this tragedy like they rationalize the fascist ICE kidnappings: Many of those killed by the storm may have criminal records or were here illegally. You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
“Stay tuned for more footage of Alligators eating migrants, next on Newsmax!”
@Leland this looks like it could be Ranch Rd 3404, or Slab Rd, in Kingsland, upstream of where the Llano joins the Colorado River.
These low water crossings are really common in south and west Texas for county and secondary roads, much less expensive to construct than a bridge - and a surprising number of people ignore the yellow flood gauges on these, and get swept off every year. But this flood came like a freight train, you can see when that first wave comes, a car going over the crossing would not have had time to get completely across before being hit. It was moving fast.
Horrible, horrible, horrible, story. The fact that some are trying to turn this into a political weapon against Trump turns my stomach.
Here they go.
Yeah, Hag, Trump and Musk are at fault for epic floods. Do you ever tire of being an ass clown? Ever?
If you live or camp in the Hill Country you should know floods are always a possibility. Same thing with hurricanes on the Gulf of America. This was a terrible tragedy that was not Trump’s fault, Biden’s fault, or Global warming’s fault. Sadly these floods happen every 20-40 years. Always have and always will until we can control the weather. The threat of floods are a fact of life for people who choose to inhabit this area.
158 were killed in Hurricane Helene in North and South Carolina and FEMA still hasn't even managed to build the roads back to get aid in.
It's worse in China.
Trolls are displaying fake outrage over the deaths of people they otherwise wouldn't piss on if they were on fire:Texans, Christians, cis-gender little girls. It is with glee they exploit this tragedy to attack Orange Man.
I see that Trump has signed an order authorizing disaster relief for Kerr County, Texas. Unlike the Biden administration’s relief efforts for Hurricane Helene I think we can be assured that everyone who needs help will get it — no checking yard signs or political registration.
All of these "alert" systems, whether it's Amber alerts or NOAA Extreme Weather alerts or several dozen other "alert" services (Silver alerts about wandering oldsters, Feather alerts about missing redskins, Ebony alerts about missing black kids, et cetera, ad nauseam) are mostly political action theater -- public money thrown down the toilet so that power-hungry politicians can grandstand as instrumental in solving a grave crisis without actually accomplishing anything worth the expenditure.
Why did this particular disaster happen? May I suggest the drunken barn dance syndrome?
The National Weather Service issued several alerts ahead of the flood:
Flood Watch: July 3 afternoon. Included Kerr County.
Flash Flood Warning (meaning it is occurring): midnight for Bandera County and 1am for Kerr County.
Flash Flood Emergency: 4am Kerr and 5:30 for Kerrville
The flood hit in the dead of night, which is why most people were caught unaware. Our emergency alert systems aren't really designed to wake people up.
"The NY Times is running a story/floating a meme, that it's the fault of Trump and his budget cuts for leaving key positions empty at the National Weather Service. "
wow - we are so shocked!
All of the normal flash flooding alerts went out in time to save just about everyone's life but the problem is that you can't make people pay attention to them even when you can get the information to them. Complacency is a simple fact of human nature. And it is called flash flooding for a reason- it happens inside of an hour. I have literally witnessed it several times in my life- the creek in your back yard becomes a river through your house in 30 minutes.
D-bag hag shows up with the Soviet talking points.
Yancey said:
"All of the normal flash flooding alerts went out in time to save just about everyone's life but the problem is that you can't make people pay attention to them even when you can get the information to them."
Doesn't fit the Soviet-D narrative.
Imagine being the husband and wife that happily let 2 grandparents take the 2 grandkids camping. All 4 dead. How does that person/couple move forward?
Can we all just maybe admit, that the DOGE approach to blindly dismantling the federal workforce for news cycle talking points, headed by MAGAt zombie and barely post pubescent “big balls”, DID NOT HELP prepare the US for major disasters?
Can you do that for me, my very dim, cruel pals?
TBF - Under your logic, government would never shrink.
Indulging in finger pointing during the recovery phase is unseemly. However, if you live, work or recreation in a flash flood flood zone, it makes sense to be cautious and curious when it rains hard within the catchment you are in
When one lives in a zone that is prone to weather emergencies, the traditional approach is to get a weather radio. These are on standby and come on with a loud alert tone when a Weather Emergency has been declared, one that has an immediate life-saving application - Flash Floods, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, so on. Pretty sure this system of emergency weather bulletins is still in place. I'm sure we'll hear over the coming weeks how far upstream these floods originated, but my guess is the disaster site is close to a confluence of tributaries, just upstream in Hunt, that channeled the rain-dump all at once.
As for those seizing the opportunity for political advantage, that's also a valuable public service - reminding us of our alternatives. Very helpful, thanks ! Keep up the good work.
Hag, me patting my head and rubbing my belly didn't help the US prepare for disasters either. Indeed much of what is done everywhere doesn't help. There you go you little sniveling piece of dogshit.
"The threat of floods are a fact of life for people who choose to inhabit this area."
Bingo. As a rule, living in flood-prone areas, such as river valleys, are, in the long run, far more beneficial and conducive to happiness than living where floods never happen. For convincing evidence, consult the histories of Mesopotamia, the Lower Nile, the Indus Valley, the Yangtze valley, the Hudson River valley, the Netherlands, etc.
Unfortunately for the missing 59, the rain came on the 4th of July, a day when adults are often enjoying alcohol-enhanced
outdoor activities, especially activities near or in rivers, such as boating, skiing, and swimming. It's always hot in Texas in July, and the temptation to cool off is hard to resist given the UN-likelihood of a flash flood occuring on any particular holiday weekend.
Hag is just another loathsome dildo who uses a tragedy to blame Trump. Like most disgusting creatures of leftist fantasies, any death can be exploited to serve their mental illness of hating Trump.
The weather service was fully staffed, and they had extra people on duty . But facts don't matter to people intent on spreading lies, and hate.
Hag is a creature who would cheer, and probably did, when Trump was shot. Hag would cheer when non vax people were put into camps, which was the plan.
So tell us sweetie, what positions were empty that could have prevented this tragedy ??
I love the use of 1.8 trillion gallons of water as if any of the civilians reading that actually has a concept of what that means. 5.5 million acre-ft , roughly one foot of water over 9,000 square miles
Italics off.
begone
Finally...
I seriously doubt any of the critics, or most people for that matter, have any idea what a flash flood is, and what takes place.
As usual, people who yesterday were experts on Iran, are today experts on flooding, rain, and NWS.
Trying to discus what happened is meaningless and a waste of time when people are only interested in posting about things they have NO clue about. and doing so to disparage or put blame on someone they actively hate.
The responsible NWS office for this sector was staffed up overnight from 2-5. There was no failure on the part of the Fed or the State issuing warnings. Officials from County and State agencies were also out monitoring flood prone areas (although have heard no mention out toward the headwaters near Camp Mystic). This just came on faster than people could react.
I just found out a high school classmate of mine was at Mystic. She managed to evacuate some girls before her cabin began to float and eventually break apart. Best I can tell she clung to a tree for several hours, somehow fell into the water but managed to make it ashore and get to a hill where others had evacuated to. She was later airlifted to a Kerrville hospital and is recovering from minor injuries.
The callousness of the comments are beyond the pale here. The community I grew up in still has at least 6 little girls missing and several parents have been told that theirs didn’t survive. There are parents around the state anguishing over the fates of their kids not to mention the non Mystic missing people who were down on the river just to enjoy the 4th of July holiday. If you can’t be human enough show empathy, at least refrain from commenting.
I’ve fished that river. It’s normally a puny river. This seems unbelievable! Hopefully people will remember that when the blame game starts.
After 4 years of the democrats spending all of our taxes and national treasure on housing and freebies for Illegals - and free housing for the drug transients (Denver I am looking at you)
-- I'd say the democrats are to blame.
This is a very tragic situation. (Said again)
I hope more survivors are found.
Noem said that the agency used an 'ancient system' for alerts and that the White House has been working to upgrade the technology
What a crock of shit. The National Weather Service, and indeed all of NOAA, has been gutted by Doge as part of Trump's master plan to defund all spending on science (except the trip to Mars, which will not happen in the next twenty years, no matter how much Musk wants it) and "prove" that climate change is a hoax.
Given that extreme weather was forecast, the area weather service reports they had three extra staff members on site during the approaching storm system. DOGE cuts don't take effect until October 1 (new fiscal year) so those had nothing to do with the forecasting or warning systems.
Warnings were issued that the storm was approaching; flood warnings were issued as the river rose. However, no one could have predicted the river would rise 26 feet in 45 minutes. This is one of those rare acts of nature that happened every few decades that no one saw coming. Just like with Helene, forecasters knew there would be some flooding, but no one predicted the devastation that resulted from that storm. If we are going to blame Trump for the Texas flood, then in the same statement, we have to blame Biden for Helene. The truth is, neither were to blame.
Freder - Now do the Hawaii Lahaina fire. Hawaii is 100% controlled by democrats. Over a hundred people died - mostly elderly locals.
Former Law Clerk said, "Our emergency alert systems aren't really designed to wake people up."
Not sure that's true anymore. We get blaring emergency notices in the dead of night for Amber Alerts. Here in Florida, we also have our phones set to alert us when we're staring at serious weather (tropical storms, hurricanes, etc.). We get regular updates that annoyingly wake me up.
The question I don't know- did they have cell service in that rural area? Probably not. But you want to believe those in charge knew there was a flood warning...right? It seems like literally no one had any inkling of what was ramping up.
Just horrible, unbelievable heartbreak.
Freder - 4 years of mob-liar Joe - what did he do to fix it?
Go - tell us.
For the know-it-alls: When I said “unbelievable” at 12:11, I meant the quantity of water, not the flood. I spent 35 years in Arizona flash flood territory. This was awful, tragic and likely unpredictable in magnitude and human toll. Pray for survivors, families and rescuers if you are so inclined.
Freder - every time you show up - we all eat your lunch.
read cfs comment and others.
YOU are a LIAR.
The Dems are making a serious charge, and it deserves to be taken seriously as a marker of their good or bad faith in the political process. They state that, but for actions taken by Trump and, especially, DOGE, this incident would have been materially less horrific. It's such a serious charge that making the charge without persuasive evidence (as the Dems seem to have done) is strong evidence that the Dems are once again acting in bad faith.
The Dems keep forcing normies like me to support the Repubs.
Our atmosphere is still shedding some of the 150 metric megatons of water spewed into the air by the Hunga Tonga eruption in January 2022. Can we say that this water was from there? No- nor can we say it wasn't.
As FormerLawClerk said, and Yancey Ward reiterated- the warnings went out. Despite all the posts on X saying otherwise. The populace is getting pretty blasé about warnings of any kind. Safetyism ensures that will happen. How many times will YOU prepare for the Worst Case Scenario after being warned before you stop preparing?
After living through a half dozen ""You're going to die if you don't evacuate!" hurricane warnings, most will ignore the next one. Which may be the one they actually need to evacuate for. Or maybe the 3rd or 4th one after that. Severe weather events, especially during thunderstorm weather, are predictably unpredictable.
Lloyd “Doggy” Doggett (D - Texas Pinko) was just interviewed on MSLSD and of course he blamed Trump and DOGE. You see Trump fired every NWS employee east of California.
^^^^ Why I don’t believe a word any liberal says, including those on this blog.
"The National Weather Service, and indeed all of NOAA, has been gutted by Doge as part of Trump's master plan to defund all spending on science..."
If that was even true (it isn't), alerts were still made. According to the WaPo link above:
"The National Weather Service said its reports gave localities hours of lead time, but the speed and severity of the flooding still appeared to catch many off guard."
Gospace said... Our atmosphere is still shedding some of the 150 metric megatons of water spewed into the air by the Hunga Tonga eruption in January 2022.
Excellent point. I had completely forgotten about that. Interesting how the potential atmospheric effects from the Hunga Tonga eruption have mostly been ignored.
"Interesting how the potential atmospheric effects from the Hunga Tonga eruption have mostly been ignored."
They can't be blamed on ICE vehicles, cow farts and gas ovens. So they're ignored.
Gospace said...
The populace is getting pretty blasé about warnings of any kind. Safetyism ensures that will happen. How many times will YOU prepare for the Worst Case Scenario after being warned before you stop preparing?
I lived for 40+ years within 2 hrs drive time of the North Carolina coast. I can't tell you how many hurricane warnings I sat through where nothing happened. I can tell you how many hurricanes I personally experienced; which is exactly two.
Warnings may have gone out but went unheeded by the local populace because they get them all the time. It's one of the hazards of living in an area prone to bad weather. Trump, Musk, Doge and the NWS had nothing to do with people not evacuating. Freder, Hag, Kak, et al could have run down the street buck naked waving neon colored dildos, screaming that a flood was coming and all that would have happened is that they would have been eventually locked up.
The Self-Identified Hag writes, "Crucial positions at the local offices of the National Weather Service"...blah, blah, blah.
If the crone is so well-informed, she could name one National Weather Service employee with responsibility for issuing extreme weather alerts for South Central Texas who was fired due to DOGE-inspired action, or refused employment by the Trump Department of Agriculture for a position responsible for that flood-prone area. Just one bona fide name. JUST ONE.
I'll wager she cannot because she's an ignorant POS with a Blue Sky account.
This video on Facebook from the start of the flood wave is amazing.
If that was even true (it isn't), alerts were still made. According to the WaPo link above:
If you want to believe the cuts to NWS will not result in more tragic, avoidable, deaths, then there is nothing I can say or do (including providing links to how draconian the cuts are) that will change your mind. You are living on another planet.
"They state that, but for actions taken by Trump and, especially, DOGE, this incident would have been materially less horrific. "
Where are people making this exact claim?
I see points made about staffing of NWS, but the claim you are saying they make is your claim not theirs.
"If you want to believe the cuts to NWS will not result in more tragic, avoidable, deaths, "
The topic is what happened in Texas a couple of days ago, not what might (or might not) happen in the future. Why are you changing the subject?
Yesterday I read an X thread from some California Dem congressman that seemed to be tending towards saying that the NWS predicted less water than actually arrived, so the early warnings were insufficient because of DOGE. With better staffing they surely could have predicted a great deal more rain than current staffing allows. The smugness of his points was devastating.
In the search and rescue effort for this flooding, were any people passed over for help because the rescuers thought they were Democrats? You know- like FEMA did to Trump supporters last year?
Has anyone noticed that no commie news service has interviewed any recently jettisoned NWS employee from Texas?
to the empathy-free left - everything is a political calculation. That's how communists roll.
So, what do you guys think- Lefty Mark playing stupid or the real thing?
@Krumhorn, that's from Center Point, Texas, about 5 miles downstream of Kerrville. Truly awesome display of nature's forces.
The Dems keep forcing normies like me to support the Repubs.
@Ampersand, there’s no room for normies in their party. You’ll get used to us. We don’t bite.
"Where are people making this exact claim?"
Have you met Freder?
They need to extend Amber Alerts or presidential alerts for NWS but make its localized enough that people pay attention to them instead of ignoring them. Note this really should not add any expense as we already have these systems up for missing people and government anyways.
Related to the false positive alerts mentioned above. 1) We knew in Houston that areas along the Guadalupe River were being told to evacuate as it was happening. 2) We have family in Mabank, TX and because they share our Alexa, we are told every day that the NWS has issued some weather alert. Not kidding about every day. On a gorgeous sunny day, the warning is an ozone warning. Every other day is either severe thunderstorm, tornado, or fog. 3) On the Amber Alert (or Silver and now Clear), they are issued statewide in Texas, so if a kidnapping happens in El Paso, we get an Amber Alert in Houston, 700 miles away.
I think the real issue here was tropical weather system finding its way over warm west Texas and lacking steering currents for 24 hours and dropping nearly a foot of rain on a drought area. These riverbeds were reporting less than 3ft of water 6 hours before they were reporting 33ft of water. You could wade across shortly before trees and vehicles were being washed away. The area in effect was over 6000 square miles.
I'll also note that a week ago, we were planning for the week of July 4th. The Friday prior, no rain was in the forecast from Monday to Friday. By Sunday, the forecast was rain every day, which is what we got, in Houston. Much of that rain was moisture being pulled from the Gulf of America to that system sitting over West Texas.
Good read. Small clip:
For example, this New York Times article notes that the Warning Coordination Meteorologist (WCM) and Science and Operations Officer (SOO) positions were both vacant in the Austin/San Antonio office... Obviously, having both of these positions vacant for a prolonged time is not optimal, and certainly could have had negative impacts at some level. However, just looking at the actual warning services that NWS provided during the event, they were solid and provided the level of warning and alerts that the public should expect to receive for an event such as this.
https://balancedweather.substack.com/p/latest-on-texas-hill-country-flood
One more "ancient system" that needs to be updated. You'd think companies would be lining up to fill that need at reasonable cost.
If you want to believe the cuts to NWS will not result in more tragic, avoidable, deaths, then there is nothing I can say or do (including providing links to how draconian the cuts are) that will change your mind. You are living on another planet.
I would like to believe that the $1.3 Billion budget of the NWS would have been sufficient for it to carry out the most basic of it's responsibilities--monitoring, predicting and warning the public about severe weather events. Which it apparently did in this case. And in the case of Helene, under Biden. Budget cuts or increases will not change that.
Incidentally, here is a quote from the International Association of Emergency Managers about the 2024 NWS Budget--set by the then Democrat-controlled Congress under Joe Biden (the same Congress that determined the present level of NWS funding):
However, that meager funding amount has just been slashed for this fiscal year. This will negatively impact the NWS’s ability to conduct its mission. For fiscal year 2024 appropriations, NWS has an effective $45M less than needed to sustain fiscal year 2023 levels of support.
https://www.iaem.org/Groups/USA-Committees/Government-Affairs/NWS-Budget-Support
It's been reported that the Weather Service in the area staffed up because they anticipated flooding and that they issued warnings throughout the night. It's been reported that some camps moved everyone to higher ground on the basis of the warnings. So the Dems could know the truth - a properly staffed Weather Service issued early warnings and then increasingly urgent warnings which some unfortunate souls did not hear. But Dems don't want to know the truth about a tragedy. Every story in their minds slowly fades into a story about Trump or someone working for him and how Team Trump is doing any wrong or causing any disaster we hear about anywhere at any time.. It's tedious and it's useless. Trump is doing an incredible job and he and Elon Musk work far, far faster than we are accustomed to see in Government work. But they aren't causing everything bad by doing everything wrong. A party that thinks that way can't solve any real problems. So the Dems run a Mamdani and Team Dream with great slogans like "Let's legally loot" ; "Free is affordable" and so on. They're quite sure that there'll be no economic flash flood. Well, such floods are rare.
For those who are curious about National Weather Service and NOAA cuts, remember that instead of funding these things in the US, Joe Biden and the Democrats spent:
* $20 million on a Sesame Street TV show in Iraq
* $2 million for pottery classes in Morroco
* $1.5 million promoting DEI in Serbian workplaces
* $2 million promoting tourism in Lebanon
* $5 million on sustainable farming in Liberia
* $9 million in aid to Al Qaeda-linked groups in Syria
* $520 million on ESG grants for Africa
* 50 million promoting tourism in Tunisia
*
Italiacto!
A 19 year old hero! Story from girls Camp Mystic in Kerrville Texas. One article said 19 yr old counselor woke up to water to her chin woke the girls up pushed out window told them to hold on to clothes line and not let go. She was then swept away. And yelled back again don’t let go. She was just rescued 1 hour ago and found out all her campers were rescued hanging on to the clothes line.
Damn.
"A party that thinks that way can't solve any real problems."
Does anyone seriously believe that a party that can't tell you what a woman is can solve any real problems?
Test
how do those italics gremlins get loose, I thought that only happened in flashbacks in novels,
Straighten up.
Don't Feed Them After Midnight!
How did you do that?
Freder gets it right for once!
No, Freder, there is NOTHING you can say to convince me. In the past 10-15 years here have you ever made a single global whatsit prediction that turned out to be true? Why would I believe you this time.
Counter examples welcome.
You may have predicted correctly on some other things but I can't remember any offhand
I
whatever cut and paste he does from alternet or common dreams and the like, you can tell the hallmarks of political gasbaggery as Orwell described,
Two eyed jack,
The way Demmie pols think it works is that if only 2 weatherguessr predicted 15 feet, 4 would have predicted 30
My question is how many would you need to predict 60 feet?
Would it be 6?(2 more) or 8 (doubling)
Paging Mr Roberts
John Henry
It was Rep. Jack Kimble, by the way, who decided that politicizing a terrible weather event was insufficient, that the weather must be moralized as well.
now there have been flash floods in valencia and barcelona, this spring for instance, where the Spanish government had removed the dams, this did cause a certain fracas among the Sanchez coalition, but not enough to actually do anything as with the power grid, because they love the fear of the skydragon, over practical solutions,
https://twitchy.com/samj/2025/07/06/blue-fish-md-awful-doc-post-n2415280
"The way Demmie pols think it works is that if only 2 weatherguessr predicted 15 feet, 4 would have predicted 30"
Ha! There has to be a level of funding where further dollars does not result in an improved outcomes. Where is that level? Are we currently above or below it? That question ever gets asked.
And then there's the question of can we afford it? That question never gets asked, either.
"Rickles got his early start in show business as a heckler at telethons" Friars' Roast
Lefties here and elsewhere have the temerity to bitch about the clean-up of 4 years worth of malfeasance, mindless priorities and outright batshit, unexplainable actions taken by The Biden administration! What shitty people we have across the aisle!
I think of the terror the little girls and all of the others who experienced this demonstration of the destructive force of Mother Nature and it breaks my heart.
Thank you, Phaedrus. My sentiments exactly. Here in San Antonio the mood is very somber. People know people who know people who are affected by this tragedy. https://www.blogger.com/profile/02170935239852436113
"There has to be a level of funding where further dollars does not result in an improved outcomes. Where is that level? Are we currently above or below it? That question ever gets asked."
When it comes to dollars, the left's response is always "MOAR!" What percent of the X workforce did Musk let go? How much worse does X work today (ignoring the left's laments over the loss of censorship of viewpoints they don't like) than it did previously?
I deleted my comments because it's too nice of a day to deal with these fucking ghouls.
well they are ghouls, and they remove all doubt,
Freder writes, "If you want to believe the cuts to NWS will not result in more tragic, avoidable, deaths, then there is nothing I can say or do (including providing links to how draconian the cuts are) that will change your mind."
There is something you can do.
If the NWS was well-staffed with competent and attentive people under the previous administration, who are now, according to your statements, fired or under-funded by Trump, then explain why we should not hold Joe Biden accountable for the death and destruction inflicted on NC and SC by Hurricane Helene.
The TeaBagHag is LYING and calling other people dim.
The "Trump decimated" NWS local office (Austin/San Antonio) issued the following:
HAZARD ... LIFE THREATENING FLASH FLOODING
That weather analysis was 100% correct. The Hag is attempting to score political points on the backs of dead little girls and is either ignorant of the facts, or lying about the facts.
But remember "MAGATS", she is the good and wise person on Althouse while you are evil and stupid.
Seems likely a lot of blame to go around at the local level. As soon as the flood watch was issued why weren’t the camps on the river evacuated? Plenty of time.
I've lived in this part of Texas (San Antonio) since '82. I've seen numerous flash flood events in that time, including the '87 event in the same place. We're in the middle of a long endurance low-pressure event, one that already killed 13 people here in a flash flood. Any warning during this period should have had hair standing up like on a cat's back. There was a warning, it was ignored by too many.
Are we arguing about a flood?
Reminds me of that tragedy …the one of biblical proportions.
Let’s keep it going and put in more of the biblical angle, how it was promised that the earth would not be destroyed by flood again.
If a reformed NWS severe weather warning system is to be effective, it must produce fewer alerts and warnings, not more. Such programs, whether quasi-vigilante crime fighting such as the Amber Alert program, or the NOAA extreme weather warning system, create excitement followed inevitably by apathy. Avoiding public apathy requires alerts to be both rare and immediately applicable to those who receive the alert transmissions.
This lesson has been taught before. In the early weeks of WWII, civil defense programs based on British models were initiated across the country, complete with officious air raid wardens empowered with the authority to arrest blackout violators. The result was numerous and occasionally deadly air raid and invasion panics, particularly in the coastal counties of California. The harder the civil defense authorities pressed the public for more preparedness, the more evasive and resentful people became regarding air raid drills and blackout regulations.
well we have seen how they played games with katrina, and a generation later hurricane irma, they are so anxious about the blood price,
"requires alerts to be both rare and immediately applicable to those who receive the alert transmissions."
This could require a level of understanding of the workings of the world that might not currently exist.
I know some people are convinced it's possible to control the weather by eating bugs and know with a certainty what the temperature will be in 100 years with decimal point accuracy, but the reality is the weather is more complex than that.
it is much more complex, but the sky dragon warding amulets are at the ready,
I wonder why the Kerr County emergency management services didn't have a procedure to alert people along the river of flash flood watches and warnings? The initial notifications were publicized hours before. A single Sheriff depart deputy could have driven to the camp and rv areas.......
The Hag, Freder, and their pals ought to read Albert's Bridge.
"If a reformed NWS severe weather warning system is to be effective, it must produce fewer alerts and warnings, not more."
That's just not how government works. There is ZERO blowback for issuing a warning, especially in circumstances that are nebulous to begin with such as rain or hurricane strength - the predictions of which are as much art as science.
NOT issuing a warning is a death sentence. So they'll always err on the side of issuing a warning, even if it results in Boy Crying Wolf syndrome.
When we create a system like that, you will only produce a system that alerts on ANYTHING that could possibly result in a death sentence if you DON'T alert.
That was the lesson of Katrina. Democrats used it to destroy Bush and so that's the system we have now.
"I wonder why the Kerr County emergency management services didn't have a procedure to alert people along the river of flash flood watches and warnings? "
I would think radio alerts would do that.
It would be nice if we were to take the politics out of the discussion of this tragic disaster which has killed a lot of folk including innoceent young girls which is always terrible. I don't pretend to know any more about this event than the rest of you however I have lived down here in the Hill Country for over a decade and I have seen some bad weather events. Not too many years ago, 2013 our local town Boerne was in the news with cars floating down the river with people trying to get out, some did, some did not.
Earlier today I drove seven miles North of our house to the Guadalupe and saw a lot of fresh washed down river trees in the river. There were some people working along the banks and our local Kendall, County Sheriff's office put out a notice on line, to give the rescue workers room to work with their dogs and not be distracted by well meaning civilians wanting to help. There was a fair amount of activity where I was just South of Sisterdale and about 20 miles east of Center Point and helicopters were in the area. All of our local emergency personnel in the area are working as many hours as possible along with National Guard and Military from bases and posts near by.
Were I in charge of the world, my request would be for folks to slow down and let those who are involved do their best in a terrible situation. Unless you can help, which might be by donations, take some time to mourn those who lost their lives and respect their families as they go through their grief.
Let's please stop playing politics with half-assed information and move on while our area is under one more flood warning tonight.
Some of you all are ghouls.
I wonder whom would be the ghouls if these flash floods occurred in Pacific Palisades.
"Death toll nears 80 as local officials promise ‘full review’ of what went wrong."
It rained hard.. duh. I live in Texas and I've been to the Hill Country many times... flash floods happen! And a major rain storm can develop anytime!! So one must be cautions camping on a flood plain (which is what a whole lot of people do around the world.)
There is no 'blame'. It was tragic. But sooner or later it can happen to anyone who camps near a river.. cause rivers flood.
I wonder whom would be the ghouls if these flash floods occurred in Pacific Palisades.
There have been plenty of natural disasters in primarily blue areas. You're more than welcome to cite where anybody from the conservative side of the aisle lied about the details while dancing on the graves of the victims.
Watching the police, military, and Gov. Abbott dealing with the press right now. You don't hate them enough, and probably can't. They're smelling blood in the water, so every other question - while we're still counting the dead and searching for the missing - is homing in on 'who was notified' and 'how many empty slots exist at the National Weather Service and NOAA', with no questions connecting the two (Leave that to them, it's Trump's fault). Very few constructive questions being lobbed although there are a few. I highly recommend Roger Pielke's blog today.
A lot of people have been moving to Texas. I do wonder how many of the people camping in the floodplain are relatively new to the area and not aware of the danger of flash floods.
Different areas have different dangers and we live such generally safe lives, most people don't think about possible dangers.
D-Bag Hag is her name.
"One must be cautions camping on a flood plain"
It's worse than you think. These girls camps aren't even on flood plains. They're built right in the historic channel of the river. Like right next to the river at it's very, very lowest, but inside the banks that the river has carved out over time, through repeated flood events.
Nothing should be built in this area, much less a camp for kids.
Aggie said..
"Watching the police, military, and Gov. Abbott dealing with the press right now. You don't hate them enough, and probably can't."
Indeed. & thanks for the link.
The corrupt Democratic media do this every time.
I recall when GWB was to blame for Hurricane Katrina and Karl Rove was blamed for seeding the clouds.
“That is one of the reasons that, when President Trump took office, he said he wanted to fix and is currently upgrading the technology,” Noem said at a Saturday news conference alongside state officials.
“We know that everybody wants more warning time, and that’s why we’re working to upgrade the technologies that have been neglected for far too long,” Noem added with her $40,000 watch on full display.
However, she did not announce a timeline for completing the improvements, whatever they are, and she didn't mention that 600 professional weather forecasters has been let go by DOGE.
You can trust Agent Dan Rather Botfly.
Who’s going to be the first MAGA Republican to introduce a bill to rename the river?
It's a flood zone. The local officials dropped the ball, and will do anything to distract from that little nugget.
Let’s see what the lawsuits say…
That will give us a huge amount of information about how this tragedy unfolded.
Hurricanes hit when Biden was fake-president. And?
Perplexity says:
"The number of weather forecasters specifically laid off by DOGE from NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) was about 108 probationary meteorologists."
"The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), oversaw layoffs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which includes the National Weather Service (NWS). Reports indicate that approximately 600 NWS staffers, including weather forecasters, were laid off as part of these cuts. Specifically, around 375 of these were probationary employees within the NWS, though not all were necessarily forecasters. Exact numbers of weather forecasters alone are not consistently specified across sources, but the total NWS layoffs are estimated at 560–600, with a significant portion involving meteorologists and forecasters. NOAA as a whole saw about 1,029 employees laid off in one round, with earlier cuts affecting 800–880 employees, totaling around 20% of its 12,000-person workforce" ~ GROK
Specific Area Message Encoding (S.A.M.E.) . Those annoying tones that blare through everything before making announcements about impending events, civil, weather or otherwise "is a protocol used for framing and classification of broadcasting emergency warning messages."
The system is part of NOAA, and was primarily developed for weather radio alerts, but are also commonly broadcast on television and by cell phone. So if you're in an area with poor cell coverage, a weather radio will still pick it up. The message content is county-specific, although weather events frequently cover multiple counties. One can purchase standby weather radios off Amazon for less than $50, and they only come on when they get the signal to sound an alert.
"The number of weather forecasters specifically laid off by DOGE from NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) was about 108 probationary meteorologists."
You're wasting your time with these assholes. It's been pointed out warnings were issued. It's been pointed out there were five people on duty at the time when there's normally two.
You can ask them for specifics on just should've been done differently, and they simply scream more lies about Trump firing thousands upon thousands of weather forecasters. And they scream more and more lies about budget cuts made by DOGE when those cuts haven't even taken effect.
Fuck them. They're not worth the effort.
"You're wasting your time with these assholes."
Probably.
I asked grok about the ability to provide accurate rainfall forecasts for rural areas...
Challenges: Sparse ground-based observations (e.g., rain gauges) and variable terrain (hills, valleys) can lead to missed microclimate effects.
Are there any hills or valleys in Hill Country?
I am two degrees of separation from a man who lost all three of his daughters.
That's all I have to say.
I am two degrees of separation from a man who lost all three of his daughters.
Slightly related, but the Travis Decker situation out of Wenatchee, WA hit way too close to home for me.
I had deep roots in that community, and still do.
People making political hay out of this tragedy should be ashamed. But they have none.
I've already forgotten what the disaster was a few months ago in which the woman in charge of sounding the alarm failed to do so because she was in a confab across town. Was that part of the LA fire?
I imagine the flood happening in the small hours was part of the problem, but I hope it wasn't a single human failure.
I had two LOUD phone alarms last night for the first time: a tornado warning then a flash flood warning due to heavy thunderstorms and rain. Thankfully, I had neither, but my cellar floor drain was right busy.
That would be 6.8 x 10^12 liters to the rest of the world.
Related to Jim at comment at 9:57pm; not only were warning issued, but over 700 girls were at that one camp, and around 5 are confirmed lost, 2 rescued and 25 missing. That's about 5% loss in a massive flood. If there were no warnings, how did 95% of them have any chance at all?
This was a catastrophic natural event across a large area. Let the rescues continue before trying to score stupid political points that have no basis other than the time in which they occurred.
As with any natural disaster, the political opposition will try to hang this around their opponent's necks in the hopes of getting that next "Katrina moment". If the parties were reversed we'd hear something similar, though in that case it would be something along the line of "they were too focused on DEI stuff instead of watching the weather".
DEI refers to systemic, institutional class-disordered ideologies (e.g. racism). In the case of the Palisades fires in LA, transgenderism (e.g. homosexuality) was the plain excuse for the mayor's motives and the fire chief's distraction from her duty.
The problem in this case seems to be either communication or a history of excessive false positive predictions.
In the last three weeks it has rained about every other day here, and every other day we get severe storm warnings. Where i live there have been no severe storms. So at some point the warnings are ignored, or if in the middle of the night, not seen or heard.
Kakistocracy said...
“Who’s going to be the first MAGA Republican to introduce a bill to rename the river?”
I can think of a former Life Long Republican (LLR) commenter on here who might try something like that.
Language quibble: Professional search and rescue efforts are never "frantic" although headline writers love that word, slapping it inappropriately on headlines about LE manhunts and SROs willy nilly. "Frantic" states are uncommon among first responders, but very commonly used as clickbait to add emotion to headlines.
A few points.1) it's a terribly tragic event and people will be grieving for a long time. 2) in past times, Americans could feel sorry for victims without politicizing every news event. 3) camping near the river in the Hill Country is taking a chance. The risk of flood is well-known and the lakes on the Colorado River above Austin were built specifically for flood control. 4) if you don't want people to die in such an event you don't let them camp in the flood zone. Otherwise, it will surely happen again. Such zoning will be terribly unpopular in Texas 5) the NWS did their job in this case and was not understaffed on this occasion. 6) the major event came in the middle of the night - the odds of people monitoring their phones or having a radio on at those hours is small.
7) Grok really showed its ass on this one. Gave me disinformation until I called it out and it whimpered about sticking to the facts in the future
I don't think the weather service can be faulted at all. They can predict rain , but how much rain is difficult. You may remember that not too long ago in my section of Illinois we had 16 inches of rain in 24 hours. The best they could do was warn us of flooding. They couldn't tell us how much flooding.
For those still interested, and capable of rational thought, here is the NOAA resource that I usually go to when I need river information. The key to the symbols on the map are on the right. It's an ESRI format of layers - one selects / deselects what is desired.
As you can see, the state has a network of river gauges, and some of them have forecasts attached. The NOAA Advisory/Watch/Warning regions are shaded by county. Each gauge can be selected to view its history.
I think we will find out that NOAA did its job competently as required, and sent timely notifications as they were merited, but the user population probably over-relied on their cell phones rather than using the NOAA-dedicated radio frequencies, in an area with poor cell coverage.
And it's entirely possible (likely in my view, not an expert) that the floods formed too quickly to be captured by the river gauges and turned around by the notification system into an Evacuation Warning. The camps most affected by the tragedy are up in the hills, the headwaters. Kerrville and other points were far enough downstream to receive warnings and react well, and by then it was daylight.
It's really disappointing to see political advantage being sought before all of the victims have been accounted for. And not just know-nothing anonymous commenters, but elected political leaders. Shaking my head, God have mercy.
This is not first time these waterways have flooded, and they have flooded even higher, but it didn't happen recently enough to make people wary. It will happen again once it's been sufficiently forgotten by time and years of nothing to worry about. Not sure anything can be done about that, but it wasn't anybody else's fault. If you lived and slept there, you should think about that now. Only you can decide to risk it again.
All the weather service can do is announce it's best guess and warn you. You have to take the action needed, even if it turns out unneeded. People have come to depend on the government forcing you to save your own ass. I will never leave my ass in hands of the government. I live in a place with virtually no possible natural disasters other than being struck by lightning or blowing a tree over on head. I accept those possibilities and welcome mother nature to give it her best shot.
I've been following the same NOAA section from weather.gov, Aggie. I hope others check your link and click on some of the gauges still highlighted. Look at the jump. The time scale is skewed such that an hour isn't that long, but these still show a near wall of water in a scale that goes from small single digits to 20+ feet. Even the decline happened fairly rapidly hours later. I suspect people that have never seen this won't understand it.
"It's really disappointing to see political advantage being sought before all of the victims have been accounted for."
I don't know how anybody could think the availability of another 600 (or 6,000, for that matter) weather forecasters would have averted the disaster.
I've been very reluctant to follow the commentary on this horrific event on reddit. Too much eagerness to blame Trump.
From Cliff Mass Weather Blog:
The Texas Flooding Tragedy: Could It Have Been Avoided?
On Friday morning, heavy rains led to catastrophic flooding along the Guadalupe River in central Texas.
Tragically, it appears that at least fifty people lost their lives.
But what is particularly disturbing is that the National Weather Service (NWS) provided excellent warnings and forecasts before the event that clearly predicted a substantial threat.
And yet, no attempt at evacuation was made.
...
Any media or other organization suggesting that the National Weather Service was not on top of this event is not only not telling the truth, but doing a deep disservice to the highly professional and skillful folks in that organization.
More factual information here, if you're so inclined...
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-texas-flooding-tragedy-could-it.html
Now, here's a lovely lady .
A Houston pediatrician has that to say about 1000 people rescued, 80 dead, 21 still missing. Houston ! But, where is she from?
"...Dr. Christina Propst was born in New York City and raised in the New York metro area. She attended high school at Horace Mann School in New York and graduated from Princeton University in 1991. At Princeton, she majored in Politics and completed her Pre-Med requirements, graduating Cum Laude.......She received her medical degree from Tulane University School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than 20 years....."
Not any more, though. Both her clinic and the hospital system have invited her onward. But - can you imagine ?
You can take the bitch out of New York City, but you can't take New York City out of the bitch.
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