Trump's people a month ago, were frantically trying to repair the damage by hiring people to fill critical positions in this agency left vacant by DOGE.
With a massive search effort underway, some have raised questions about whether cuts to the NWS played a role in the tragedy after it was reported that the two NWS offices mostly closely involved in forecasting and warning about the flooding along the Guadalupe River—Austin-San Antonio and San Angelo—are missing key staff.
The NWS said last month that it would be hiring new meteorologists and specialists to "stabilize" operations after the Trump administration's job cuts. NBC News reported in May that the NWS was scrambling to reassign staffers internally and fill more than 150 positions to cover critical roles. The Associated Press earlier reported that nearly half of NWS offices had vacancy rates of 20 percent or more, with some locations facing even more severe staffing shortages.
Are Donald Trump's NOAA cuts to blame for Texas flood tragedy? What to know
The question is not whether or not the agency was critically damaged by Trump's cuts. It is whether or not the damage was repaired in time to provide warning to the people who died in that flood. That's still being reviewed. Trump's attempt to blame Biden for the flood is a pretty good indicator that Trump knows he messed up. I suspect that the investigation report will have the same transparency that the Epstein papers have.
For the same reasons.
Based on NYTimes articles, it looks to me like the NWS did what they were supposed to. However the person who retired early had local contacts and thus might have done extra communications. But still, they issued a warning the prevous day. and alerts as the situation developed. Clearly Trump was not responsible. The acclerated retirement might have had an effect, but that seems conjectural, and they seem to have done their job anyway.
It's a difficult situation. My after the fact inclination is to say that given that the camp was in a place known to be prone to flooding, when the warning came out the previous day they should have made sure someone was in a position to get alerts. But warnings aren't very specific. It would be interesting how often warnings like this happened. Still, if I were running a kid's camp in a flood plain, I'd want to make sure I monitored the situation.
They were not alone. A nearby Presbyterian camp got all their kids out.
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It was about 1 a.m. on the Fourth of July when the facilities manager at a central Texas summer camp saw water from the Guadalupe River steadily rising amid a deluge of rain.
"Aroldo Barrera notified his boss, who had been monitoring reports of the storms approaching Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, a recreation destination where an intercultural youth conference had been called off early just hours earlier.
"Despite an absence of warning by local authorities, camp officials acted quickly on their own,..."
That's how I'd hope it would work. It's hard to know whether complaints about insufficien precautions are fair or just 20/20 hindsight. To me they sound at least partly fair.
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The NYTimes coverage also showed that much of the camp was in a flood plain. This is more than just an area at risk for flood. It's a high probability. There was a recent expansion, where local authorities allowed more buildings in that area. The camp assured them that they had an evacuation plan.
