Downed Weather Balloons and Missing Gauges: What Went Wrong With the Central Texas Floods

[planosteve]

It’s a familiar cycle. Texas bears witness to a terrible tragedy, and citizens soon raise questions. Could the loss of life have been prevented or mitigated? Who, if anyone, bears responsibility? Those in power respond with “Now’s not the time” or point fingers at other authority figures. And then little is done. Uvalde. The West fertilizer explosion. The 2021 winter freeze. Hurricane Beryl. Texas politicians have a knack for shifting blame and limiting their exposure to accountability.

And so the cycle begins again with the horrific flooding in the Hill Country, where at least 119 people have died, including 27 children and counselors at Camp Mystic. Another 173 remain missing. State officials have blamed the National Weather Service for botched forecasting. The Trump administration is defending the DOGE cuts that decimated the weather service. Kerr County officials, meanwhile, are arguing, essentially, that the flooding was merely an act of God, and the loss of life couldn’t possibly have been mitigated. (Some social media users, helpful as always, are overdosing on conspiracies about cloud seeding and Egyptian gods.)

On Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott lashed out when asked a question about who bears responsibility. “Who’s to blame? Know this: That’s the word choice of losers.” He then made a lengthy football analogy. Losing teams look for culprits, he said, while championship programs respond to mistakes by saying, “We got this. We’re going to make sure that we go score again, that we’re going to win this game.”

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-polit ... as-floods/

[GRANDPA]

Do you get paid for every new thread you start? Or did you forget what you posted 22 minutes previous to this one?

[planosteve]

Do you get paid for every new thread you start? Or did you forget what you posted 22 minutes previous to this one?

Well it's certainly not the first. Could be the 2nd. But, more likely it's that any additional are new info. It looks now like the main story here is incompetency at the top level of Texas govt. which was the main topic on TV this morning.

[Sangersteve]

CNN admits that President Trump and Governor Abbott are not responsible for the flood deaths in Texas.
Shimon Prokupecz admits that the federal government issued the proper warnings before hand and the state government moved the resources into the area before hand, and it was the local government under the microscope now:
"And that's what this is about at this point. It's about the local officials. What did they do? Not the state, not the federal government, because on July 2nd, on July 2nd, two days before this, the state is already sending out press releases saying, be careful, you've got this weather storm, you've got this storm coming through, raising the alarm bells. The alarm bells are starting on July 2nd, and the Texas Department of Emergency Management is moving in resources. They're moving the resources in saying to the locals, we have things available for you. We have emergency response available for you. So get prepared. And this was a warning....What efforts did the locals make? At this point, it doesn't appear to be that they were making any efforts."

https://x.com/i/status/1943318034619175177