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Warnings missed in deadly Texas floods
Energy & Environment
Energy & Environment
The Big Story
Warnings missed in deadly Texas floods
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’t heard by the people who needed them.
© Michel Fortier, The San Antonio Express-News via Associated Press
After the July 4 floods 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 — and the Trump administration itself — has argued that those officials, as well as local residents, received a long train of advisories that a dangerous flood was gathering.
By sunset the night before the floods, federal forecasters were warning that rainfall would “quickly overwhelm” 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 The Texas Tribune should have triggered direct warnings to those in harm’s way.
Instead, beginning on the day of the flood, state and local officials insisted they had no idea the flood was coming.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said leaders “had no reason to believe this was going to be anything like what has happened here, none whatsoever.”
They were echoed the following day by Nim Kidd, the state’s top emergency management official, who told reporters that forecasts “did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.”
On Monday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) © The Hill
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