Texas officials face scrutiny over response to catastrophic and deadly
flooding
[July 07, 2025]
By SEAN MURPHY and JIM VERTUNO
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 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.
The National Weather Service sent out a series of flash flood warnings
in the early hours Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a
rare alert notifying of imminent danger.
Local officials have insisted that no one saw the flood potential coming
and have defended their actions.
“There’s going to be a lot of finger-pointing, a lot of second-guessing
and Monday morning quarterbacking,” said Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Roy,
whose district includes Kerr County. “There’s a lot of people saying
‘why’ and ‘how,’ and I understand that.”
When the warnings began
An initial flood watch — which generally urges residents to be
weather-aware — was issued by the local National Weather Service office
at 1:18 p.m. Thursday.
It predicted between 5 to 7 inches (12.7 to 17.8 centimeters) of rain.
Weather messaging from the office, including automated alerts delivered
to mobile phones to people in threatened areas, grew increasingly
ominous in the early morning hours of Friday, urging people to move to
higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas, said Jason Runyen, a
meteorologist in the National Weather Service office.
At 4:03 a.m., the office issued an urgent warning that raised the
potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life.
Jonathan Porter, the chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, a private
weather forecasting company that uses National Weather Service data,
said it appeared evacuations and other proactive measures could have
been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities.
“People, businesses, and governments should take action based on Flash
Flood Warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that
have occurred or are forecast,” Porter said in a statement.
Officials say they didn't expect this
Local officials have said they had not expected such an intense downpour
that was the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.
[to top of second column]
|
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, and Texas Gov. Greg
Abbott, right, discuss the ongoing search and rescue efforts after
recent flooding along the Guadalupe River during a press conference
on Saturday, July 5, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Rodolfo
Gonzalez)
“We know we get rains. We know the river rises,” said Kerr County
Judge Rob Kelly, the county's top elected official. “But nobody saw
this coming.”
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said he was jogging along the
river early in the morning and didn't notice any problems at 4 a.m.
A little over an hour later, at 5:20 a.m., the water level had risen
dramatically and “we almost weren't able to get out of the park,” he
said.
Rice also noted that the public can become desensitized to too many
weather warnings.
No county flood warning system
Kelly said the county considered a flood warning system along the
river that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren about
six or seven years ago, before he was elected, but that the idea
never got off the ground because of the expense.
“We’ve looked into it before … The public reeled at the cost,” Kelly
said.
He said he didn’t know what kind of safety and evacuation plans the
camps may have had.
“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 said. "I
don’t know what kind of alarm systems they had. That will come out
in time."
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Saturday it was
difficult for forecasters to predict just how much rain would fall.
She said the Trump administration would make it a priority to
upgrade National Weather Service technology used to deliver
warnings.
“We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that's why we're
working to upgrade the technology that's been neglected for far too
long to make sure families have as much advance notice as possible,”
Noem said during a press conference with state and federal leaders.
Weather service had extra staffers
The National Weather Service office in New Braunfels, which delivers
forecasts for Austin, San Antonio and the surrounding areas, had
extra staff on duty during the storms, Runyen said.
Where the office would typically have two forecasters on duty during
clear weather, they had up to five on staff.
“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,” Runyen said.
___
Murphy reported from Oklahoma City.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
