What They Needed Was Sirens in Texas

As the facts about the tragedy in Texas over the holiday weekend come out, we are learning that all the fingers are pointing in the wrong direction. 

The National Weather Service did their jobs–multiple warnings were put out–one up to 12 hours before the event, and several as the storm stalled unexpectedly, dumping a great deal of rain in a short period of time, causing the flash flood. 

Texas flood victims furious as local officials blame Trump’s National Weather Service over failed warnings https://t.co/LDaLJyAw4v

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) July 6, 2025

Democrats and the national media have been pointing the finger at Trump and DOGE, but on Friday night, the NWS office in New Braunfels was actually overstaffed, as is often the case when bad weather is predicted. While the normal complement is two staffers, five were manning the station that night. Flash flood warnings went out when it became clear that a danger was brewing–but unless people had a weather radio or were checking their phones in the wee hours of the night, they never got the warning. 

‘The warnings were there. They just didn’t get to people in time.’ 

Further complicating matters, these warnings were issued during hours many Texans were asleep. 

‘The Weather Service was on the ball,’ Chris Vagasky, a Wisconsin-based meteorologist told Wired. 

Who is to blame for the Texas flood devastation?

‘I really just want people to understand that the forecast office in San Antonio did a fantastic job. They got the warning out, but this was an extreme event.’ 

But local officials have shifted the blame to the NWS, claiming the agency cost people their lives. 

At a Friday press conference, Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd said the amount of rain that slammed the Hill Country and Concho Valley was drastically underestimated. 

‘The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts,’ he said.

Dalton Rice, the city manager for Kerrville, Texas, agreed that communities were under prepared for the sheer amount of rainfall. 

My wife and I bought a weather radio a decade ago after a tornado blasted through our neighborhood in 2011, destroying a swath of North Minneapolis, including homes a few hundred feet from us. It emits a deafening blare that would wake the dead, but unless you have one, a warning at one or two in the morning would go unnoticed. 

Asked a weather scientist about the discussion on social media blaming Trump National Weather Service cuts for the loss of life in Texas over the storms

He said no evidence for that (and he didn’t vote for Trump, btw). He pointed to other experts saying the same thing https://t.co/e9MXrYZ5Hm pic.twitter.com/bBnsFgqXJi

— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) July 5, 2025

Unfortunately, when people are out in the boonies, there is no obvious way to get them a warning if they don’t have a weather radio, and even then, I don’t know the range. And Texas is huge, as was the warning area. And even with warnings, people are often complacent because the number of warnings exceeds the actual number of events, since the number of potentially dangerous situations exceeds the actual number of disasters. 

‘There were extra people in here that night, and that’s typical in every weather service office – you staff up for an event and bring people in on overtime and hold people over,’ he said. 

While Texas officials point fingers at the federal government, victims are frustrated with the lack of an efficient emergency response system to circulate emergency warnings. 

‘What they need is some kind of external system, like a tornado warning that tells people to get out now,’ Christopher Flowers, 44, said. 

Flowers was staying at a friends house along the Guadalupe River as the chaos erupted. When he checked the forecast in the hours before the floods surged, he was unalarmed. 

It was not until he woke up in the pitch black, surrounded by water, that he knew something was wrong. 

Still, the Pravda Media is pushing out the narrative that Donald Trump is the author of this tragedy–just like they blamed the hurricane last year on Biden. 

Or not. That was (D)ifferent. 

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly revealed the county most devastated by the floods has no unified emergency response system to notify residents of an oncoming disaster. 

‘We’ve looked into it before … The public reeled at the cost,’ he said. 

He also did not know what kind of alert system Camp Mystic had to try and get all 750 of its campers to safety. 

‘What I do know is the flood hit the camp first, and it came in the middle of the night. I don’t know where the kids were,’ he added. 

‘I don’t know what kind of alarm systems they had. That will come out in time.’ 

The National Weather Service had extra staffers on duty during the storms.https://t.co/fn09rDuJhY pic.twitter.com/8uf6EDvDfn

— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) July 6, 2025

Media figures are hoaxing that the staffing levels were reduced, when in fact, at that point, they were more than double the norm. Because, well, Trump is Orange. 

Observe a mature Clintonista in its natural habitat of effortlessly spinning the web of toxic bullshit, under the guise of legitimate journalism, with the ease of a lifetime’s practice.

You seldom see such performance these days, as the species is almost extinct. https://t.co/E5LHf4w1VA

— LoLNothingMatters (@DastDn) July 6, 2025

The facts don’t matter. The Narrative™ does. 

The National Weather Service issued a flood watch 12 hours before flooding began in Kerrville. The NWS also issued multiple flood warnings for the area hours before the flooding started. The NWS did its job, saving countless lives. Shame on elected Democrats and their mainstream… pic.twitter.com/dmORdlXo2Z

— Charles R Downs (@TheCharlesDowns) July 6, 2025

The sad fact is that, as with tornadoes, until flash floods happen, you can only make moderately accurate predictions that they MIGHT happen. You can monitor conditions, make informed predictions, warn people about potential dangers, and then wait and see what happens. The weather is a chaotic system. As I understand it, the crisis stemmed from the storm stalling, moving more slowly than predicted. Our models are not accurate enough to provide us with precise predictions, even when Democrats are in charge. 

Chris stands on the bodies of dead children to make a political point, and his whole point is a lie https://t.co/Apg9xieoob pic.twitter.com/Ima6czIDtP

— John Hasson (@SonofHas) July 6, 2025

To give you an idea of how quickly the flood happened, you can watch a video of the flash flood here. It was literally a wall of water that rose by inches a second, and by many feet in a minute. Within half an hour, the water rose by, if I had to guess, 20+ feet. 

Please do not victim shame: This is what a Texas hill Country flash flood looks like. pic.twitter.com/3m5VcvJHCY

— Houston Flood (@houston_flood) July 5, 2025

AS things stand, the best government can do is increase resilience and encourage people to be vigilant. Stay away from low-lying areas when rain is predicted in dry regions. 

DOGE cut hundreds of jobs at the NWS, but experts who spoke to WIRED say the agency accurately predicted the state’s weekend flood risk. https://t.co/HnUpsgifnH

— James Pethokoukis ⏩️⤴️ (@JimPethokoukis) July 7, 2025

As for the Democrats lying about what happened? It’s a day ending in “y.”