From CNN: Local officials facing questions over their actions in the years and hours before deadly Texas floods

“As Central Texas reels from flash floods that killed over 100 people this weekend, questions are sharpening about whether officials could have done more to avert the tragedy – both in the decades leading up to the disaster, and in the moments after the Guadalupe River began cresting its banks.

In recent years, multiple efforts in Kerr County to build a more substantial flood warning system have faltered or been abandoned due to budget concerns, leaving the epicenter of this weekend’s floods without emergency sirens that could have warned residents about the rising waters.

And while at least one neighboring county issued evacuation orders in the morning hours of July 4, Kerr County officials don’t appear to have done so.”

From WashPost: See how FEMA maps reveal camps’ flood risks. Many camps in the region are adjacent to or partly inside high-risk flood zones, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.-

“More than a dozen summer camps dot the banks of the Guadalupe River and its tributaries, a vast network of waterways twisting through the hills of Kerr County, Texas.

But many of the camps’ idyllic locales also face the danger of severe flooding, since much of the land near the river is designated as a high-risk area by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In the most affected area, on the upper Guadalupe River in Kerr County, at least 13 of them lie next to or are partially inside high-risk flood zones, according to a Washington Post analysis of FEMA maps.”

From the NYTimes, article by former FEMA official:
Texas Hill Country Is Underwater, and America’s Emergency Lifeline Is Fraying

“When a flash flood inundates your town or a wildfire devours your neighborhood, you expect the federal government to show up — fast, focused and fully mobilized. That expectation underpins our national resilience. But today, that system is cracking. The help Americans rely on in their darkest hours is in danger of arriving late, underpowered or not at all.”

From CNN: Children’s camps in Texas were located in areas known to be at high risk of flooding

“The waterways in Texas Hill Country have carved paths over the centuries through the granite and limestone, shaping the rocky peaks and valleys that make the region so breathtaking.

When too much rain falls for the ground to absorb, it runs downhill, pulled by gravity into streams, creeks and rivers. The rain fills the waterways beyond their banks, and the excess overflows in predictable patterns that follow the terrain.

Governments and waterway managers know what will flood first and who will be threatened when a truly historic rain event takes place.”

From the NY Times: Officials Feared Flood Risk to Youth Camps but Rejected Warning System. Kerr County had discussed buying such things as water gauges and sirens after previous flood disasters. But as with many rural Texas counties, cost was an issue.

“The rural county of a little over 50,000 people, in a part of Texas known as Flash Flood Alley, contemplated installing a flood warning system in 2017, but it was rejected as too expensive. The county, which has an annual budget of around $67 million, lost out on a bid at the time to secure a $1 million grant to fund the project, county commission meeting minutes show.

As recently as a May budget meeting, county commissioners were discussing a flood warning system being developed by a regional agency as something that they might be able to make use of.

But in a recent interview, Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, said that local residents had been resistant to new spending. “Taxpayers won’t pay for it,” he said, adding that he didn’t know if people might reconsider now.”

From the WashPost: Texas Hill Country is no stranger to flash floods. Why were so many caught off guard?

” When the precipitation intensified in the early morning hours Friday, many people failed to receive or respond to flood warnings at riverside campsites known to be in the floodplain.

“The disaster has prompted renewed emphasis on a years-long push for a comprehensive flood monitoring system in Kerr County. And it has raised questions about whether anything could be enough to prepare and protect communities in places like this, where cellphone-based alerts can be unreliable, emergency managers have limited resources and the potential for disaster is hig.”

From CNN: ‘We’ve been ghosted by FEMA’: Officials across country say they can’t get answers on critical funding

“As hurricane season bears down, a new layer of uncertainty is spreading through the disaster response system: a wall of silence from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that’s leaving officials from across the country scrambling for answers.

“We’ve been ghosted by FEMA,” Robert Wike Graham, deputy director of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Emergency Management, told CNN, describing repeated, unanswered requests for information on vital emergency preparedness funding for his North Carolina community.

In Wyoming, where more than 90 percent of the state’s emergency management budget comes from the federal government, officials say their requests for clarity on emergency management funds also have gone unanswered. rom Cnn: ‘We’ve been ghosted by FEMA’: Officials across country say they can’t get answers on critical funding.”

From Politico: No alternative funding sources’: Trump’s stifling of disaster aid leaves cities adrift. The president canceled $4.5 billion in FEMA grants that helped communities prepare for rising disaster damage.

Thanks to Chris Jones for the citation.

FRom HSToday: Critical Hurricane Forecast Tool Abruptly Terminated
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Defense announced it would immediately stop ingesting, processing, and transmitting data essential to most hurricane forecasts.

The announcement was formalized on Wednesday when NOAA distributed a service change notice to all users, including the National Hurricane Center, that by next Monday, June 30th, they would no longer receive real-time microwave data collected aboard three weather satellites jointly run by NOAA and the U.S. Department of Defense.

The permanent discontinuation of data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS) will severely impede and degrade hurricane forecasts for this season and beyond, affecting tens of millions of Americans who live along its hurricane-prone shorelines..S. Department of Defense announced Tuesday it would no longer process and deliver data essential to most hurricane forecasts

From the NY Times: As FEMA Shrinks, a Grassroots Disaster Response Is Taking Shape. Aid groups, some of which helped after Hurricane Helene, are preparing to take on more responsibility when storms, floods and wildfires strike.