Texas officials face scrutiny over response to catastrophic and deadly flooding

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

Updated 8:31 PM EDT, July 5, 2025


KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Before heading to bed before the Fourth of July holiday, Christopher Flowers checked the weather while staying at a friend’s house along the Guadalupe River. Nothing in the forecast alarmed him.

Hours later, he was rushing to safety: He woke up in darkness to electrical sockets popping and ankle-deep water. Quickly, his family scrambled nine people into the attic. Phones buzzed with alerts, Flowers recalled Saturday, but he did not remember when in the chaos they started. “What they need they need is some kind of external system, like a tornado warning that tells people to get out now,” Flowers, 44, said.

The destructive fast-moving waters that began before sunrise Friday in the Texas Hill Country killed at least 43 people in Kerr County, authorities said Saturday, and an unknown number of people remained missing. Those still unaccounted for included 27 girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along a river in Kerr County where most of the dead were recovered.

But as authorities launch one of the largest search-and-rescue efforts in recent Texas history, they have come under intensifying scrutiny over preparations and why residents and youth summer camps that are dotted along the river were not alerted sooner or told to evacuate.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/texas-floods-hill-country-weather-warnings-238d4325bb58f0b410015f74684738b6

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

The NWS DOES have that - it's called a "Flash Flood Emergency" and that goes out over the EAS (Emergency Alert System) to all broadcast outlets and cell phones (at least those equipped with the capability - most models do have that capability nowadays).



Apparently FFEs WERE sent out - at least in the Austin metro area and I expect in all of the areas that were impacted. You do have an issue where those "off the grid" and/or any without a cell phone and/or a NOAA weather radio, would not get the alert.

Of course, Muskrat and DOGE took a chainsaw to the NWS and NOAA for ideological reasons, so many bets are off.