AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Local, state and federal officials are all pointing fingers in the wake of the deadly Texas flooding, but one thing is certain: The warnings weren\u2019t heard by the people who needed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the catastrophic Independence Day floods that killed at least 90 across central Texas, state and county officials told reporters that the storm had come without warning. But a wide array of meteorologists \u2014 and the Trump administration itself \u2014 has argued that those officials, as well as local residents, received a long train of advisories that a dangerous flood was gathering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The timeline of the floods on Friday, experts say, revealed a deadly gap in the\u2002\u201clast mile\u201d\u2002system<\/u><\/a> that turns those forecasts into life-saving action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That issue is particularly pronounced in central Texas, where cellphones go off with National Weather Service (NWS) flash flood advisories practically every time there is a thunderstorm \u2014 and where limestone canyons split by countless creeks and punctuated by riverside campgrounds and vacation homes are particularly vulnerable to sudden floods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) timeline\u2002released over the weekend<\/u><\/a> showed a drumbeat of steadily increasing warnings \u2014 something that is characteristic of flash floods, said John Sokich, former legislative director of the NWS staffers union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether a specific neighborhood or camp floods can come down to \u201cwhich creek basin the rainfall is going to fall, and 3 miles makes a complete difference,\u201d Sokich said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So NWS forecasters, he said, put out regionwide warnings of potential flash floods, which they tighten as the danger develops. \u201cAnd then when it gets really bad, they put out the \u2018catastrophic flood levels,\u2019 messages, which is what they did for the situation in Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe challenge there,\u201d he added, \u201cwas people receiving the information.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meteorologists\u2019 warnings of potential flooding, which drew on NWS forecasts, began as early as Wednesday, when CBS Austin meteorologist Avery Tomasco warned that the dregs of Tropical Storm Barry had parked \u201call this tropical fuel\u201d<\/u><\/a> over central Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI hesitate to show you this because it\u2019s so outlandish,\u201d Tomasco said, but the storm could produce \u201c5 to 15 inches of rain somewhere in central Texas. Again, I think that\u2019s pretty far-fetched, but you can\u2019t rule out something crazy happening when you have this kind of tropical air in place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By sunset the night before the floods, federal forecasters were warning that rainfall would \u201cquickly overwhelm\u201d<\/u><\/a> the baked-dry soil. By 1:14 a.m. local time, the NWS released the first direct flash flood warnings for Kerr County, which officials told\u2002The Texas Tribune<\/u><\/a> should have triggered direct warnings to those in harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, beginning on the day of the flood, state and local officials insisted they had no idea the flood was coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said leaders \u201chad no reason to believe this was going to be anything like what has happened here, none whatsoever.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n They were echoed the following day by Nim Kidd, the state\u2019s top emergency management official, who told reporters that forecasts \u201cdid not predict the amount of rain that we saw.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That quote \u201cbaffled\u201d meteorologist Ryan Maue, who in a post on social platform X blamed Kidd for setting off \u201ca furious news cycle<\/u><\/a> in which the National Weather Service was blamed for the tragic events because a forecast 2 days prior wasn\u2019t as extreme.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Monday, Sen. Ted Cruz\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-Texas) said\u2002that \u201csomething went wrong\u201d<\/u><\/a> when Camp Mystic and other sleepaway camps alongside the region\u2019s rivers didn\u2019t receive warnings of the oncoming waters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNext time there\u2019s a flood,\u201d Cruz said during a Kerr County press conference Monday, \u201cI hope we have in place processes to remove the most vulnerable from harm\u2019s way. But that\u2019s going to be process that will take careful examination of what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some \u2014 like Sokich \u2014 argued that one possibility is that after rounds of staff reductions, NWS offices that may have had enough staff to issue accurate predictions didn\u2019t have the personnel for potentially life-saving outreach. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have the full staff, then you can\u2019t do that,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople are just focusing on issuing the watches and warnings.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n University of California, Los Angeles meteorologist Daniel Swain wrote\u2002on X<\/u><\/a> that such outreach is \u201cone of the first things to go away when offices are critically understaffed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R) told reporters that he would urge state lawmakers<\/u><\/a> to focus on a better system of state warnings in the upcoming July special legislative session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One such system exists in other flood-prone basins, where gauges in a cresting river automatically send alerts to a network of river sirens, which sound alarms across the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s technology that Kerrville officials say they have needed for years. But locals \u201creeled at the cost\u201d of a county program, Kelly told\u2002PBS\u2019s \u201cFrontline<\/u><\/a>,\u201d and attempts to pay for it with state or federal funds failed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018, during the first Trump administration, Kerr County and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for about $1 million to build a flood warning system \u2014 and were denied, KXAN\u2002reported<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year, a bill that would have spent $500 million on a modern system of disaster warnings across the state passed the House but died in the Senate. One House member who voted against it, first-term state Rep. Wes Virdell (R), represents Kerr County. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now,\u201d Virdell told\u2002The Texas Tribune<\/u><\/a> on Sunday, adding that he had objected to the measure\u2019s price tag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2020, with no prospect for paying for such a system, the county joined FEMA\u2019s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System<\/u><\/a>, which sends out cellphone alerts when floods threaten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One problem with the text-based flood warnings \u2014 and with warnings in general \u2014 is that \u201cpeople don\u2019t understand what a flash flood is,\u201d said Keri Stephens, a University of Texas professor who studies disaster communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her research has shown that in Texas, \u201ca lot of people are completely unaware that they\u2019re even at risk for flash floods.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey don\u2019t understand how they happen. They don\u2019t understand what it means to experience a 20-plus foot rise in water in a short period of time \u2014 because they can\u2019t imagine and visualize what that looks like,\u201d Stephens said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No technology is good enough to keep people safe on its own, she added. Disaster warnings have to plug into accurate forecasting on one side and a clear course of action on the other \u2014 and they have to be believed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stephens\u2019s research found that the ubiquitous warning aimed at keeping motorists from crossing flooded rivers \u2014 \u201cTurn around, don\u2019t drown\u201d \u2014 doesn\u2019t work for young adults. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey don\u2019t think it\u2019ll happen to them,\u201d Stephens said. Her research\u2002found that<\/u><\/a> a better message \u2014 for those who don\u2019t believe that a foot of water can wash away a car<\/u><\/a> \u2014 was \u201cStay High and Dry,\u201d which emphasizes the danger not to the driver but to the car\u2019s undercarriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a rural area, those disaster notifications can often be handled individually: a county emergency manager working the phones, or a campground texting its visitors, which can make the question of whether they go out in time dangerously arbitrary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amanda Sue Jones, a woman camping beside the Guadalupe with her family, wrote on\u2002Facebook<\/u><\/a> that she had received NWS notifications all night \u2014 but that only after it was clear from the rising water that they had to evacuate did she receive a text from the campground telling her to seek higher ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n