While the death count from the Texas floods continues to rise, with people still missing and more rain is expected to come, the Trump administration and Texas officials are busy playing the blame game.
More than 80 people have been confirmed dead and 41 are still missing—a catastrophic loss of life as a result of aggressive staffing cuts, Texas’ longtime dismissive attitude toward public safety, and extreme weather.
Much of the fight between the Trump administration and the state centers on whether the National Weather Service issued accurate and timely warnings about the flash flood that swept the Texas Hill Country early on July 4.
The NWS began providing early forecasts on July 1, and by the afternoon of July 3, it issued a flash flood watch—predicting up to 7 inches of rain. By that evening, the agency issued a “special weather discussion” explaining that flash flooding was likely and rainfall would exceed 3 inches per hour.
At 1:14 AM on July 4, the NWS issued a flash flood warning for Kerr County, tagged as “considerable,” which typically triggers alerts to be sent to mobile phones. And at 4:03 AM, the agency upgraded the warning to a flash flood emergency, which is only issued when there is a severe danger to human life.
So that’s the NWS side of things. How about Texas?
Well, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, the NWS said it would flood, but it neglected to emphasize the severity.
“The problem with that is that, to most people in the area, flash flooding would mean one thing, not what it turned out to be, because they deal with flash floods all the time. There’s the potential for flash flooding, but there’s no expectation of a water wall of almost thirty feet high,” he said.
Also, according to Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr., the problem was that “this came at night when people were asleep in bed.”
It isn’t clear if Herring’s complaint was that the NWS warnings came while people were asleep or that the storm did, but either interpretation makes Herring look like a buffoon.
The state government also seems quite willing to place blame on local officials. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that local mayors and county officials are supposed to evacuate their residents if they feel the need.
And those local officials? They’re throwing their own residents under the bus. Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly explained that the county doesn’t have its own warning system because it costs too much and “taxpayers won’t pay for it.”
And what does President Donald Trump think about all of this? Surely he’ll have some words of comfort.
“I’ll tell you, if you look at that, what a situation that all is. And that was really the Biden setup. That was not our setup. But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe, and it’s just so horrible to watch,” he said.
Trump is also planning to visit the flood-ravaged area on Friday, an entire week after the flooding began.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues its stellar track record of being unable to coordinate messaging. While whining that it was “shameful and disgusting” that anyone would say that NWS cuts might be to blame, a White House spokesperson said that “NWS did their job, even issuing a flood watch more than 12 hours in advance.”
But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and, by extension, NWS, kicked her own team in the teeth, saying that the “moderate” flood watch wasn’t enough because it didn’t predict the amount of rain.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas is calling for an investigation into whether the staffing cuts at NWS played a role in the shocking death toll.
There’s no doubt that letting the untrained teen gremlins at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency gut government agencies contributed to this catastrophe. On the day of the flooding, the San Angelo NWS office was down a senior hydrologist, a staff forecaster, and a meteorologist. And the vacancy rate at the two local NWS offices is about double what it was before Trump took office.
But perhaps the most glaring evidence is that the NWS was also missing a warning coordination meteorologist, who had taken one of the retirement bribes that the Trump administration forced on federal employees. Warning coordinators liaise with local public safety officials, so the lack of that role likely compromised efforts to keep people safe.
There’s plenty of blame to go around here. Trump let his team gut the NWS, and it’s absurd to pretend that didn’t play a role here. But Texas’ desire to do things on the cheap can’t be discounted either.
No rules, no coordination, no accountability—just vibes. Seems to be working out just fine.