The catastrophic floods in Central Texas that left over 80 people dead and several still missing have sparked a new round of backlash and questions after the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Weather Service.
Both state and federal officials are facing severe backlash on why residents were not alerted sooner or told to evacuate before the floods. As rain fell overnight and flood began early Friday, Texas officials were critical of the NWS, saying forecasters underestimated the rainfall totals.
President Donald Trump said Sunday that he would not call for an investigation nor would he hire anyone back that was fired from the NWS.
“I would think not. This was a thing that happened in seconds. No one expected it. Nobody saw it. Very talented people are there, they didn’t see it,” he said.
Meanwhile, the White House pushed back, claiming anyone saying NWS cuts had anything to do with the floods were “disgusting.”
Texas officials suggested the National Weather Center forecast did not correctly explain the storm’s threat and power.
“The original forecast that we received on Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3 to 6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4 to 8 inches of rain in the Hill Country,” Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd on Friday. “The amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts nonetheless.”
According to the National Weather Service social media timeline, an alert that could the Kerrville area could be at risk of flash flooding Thursday. It issued an urgent flash flood warnings for Kerr County at 1:14 a.m.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was peppered with questions about whether the federal government did enough to warn Texans about the floods and weather conditions.
When asked by a reporter if the federal government failed Texans, Noem, sitting alongside Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that “everybody knows that the weather is extremely difficult to predict.”
“The National Weather Service over the years, at times, has done well, and at times, we have all wanted more time and more warning and more alerts and more notification,” she said. “That is something, and one of the reasons that when President Trump took office that he said he wanted to fix and is currently upgrading the technology.”
