In the aftermath of the devastating flash floods in Central Texas that claimed dozens of lives, including many young people at a church camp, a familiar pattern has emerged: public officials and pundits quick to point fingers, often at the National Weather Service (NWS). The claim that the NWS blew the forecast is already spreading, with some linking it to ongoing budget cuts by the Trump administration. But this time, that narrative doesn’t quite hold up under scrutiny.
I say this as someone who used to work at a private weather company and has followed these dynamics closely for years. While I strongly agree that the massive cuts to NOAA and NWS are dangerous, both in the short and long term, it’s not at all clear that those cuts were the cause of this particular tragedy. In fact, there was plenty of warning issued well in advance of the flood.
Forecasting for Kerr County began as early as Thursday morning, days before the worst of the flooding. The NWS issued a flood watch that afternoon with increasingly urgent language as forecasts were updated. River forecasters warned that locally intense rain rates would quickly overwhelm the ground’s ability to absorb water and that the nocturnal timing would enhance the hazard potential. By 1:14 a.m. on Friday, a life-threatening flash flood warning triggered the Emergency Alert System. Additional flash flood emergency warnings followed before sunrise.
Still, over 15 inches of rain fell, far more than the already serious 5 to 7 inches originally forecast, causing catastrophic flooding in the dead of night. By 5 a.m., the Guadalupe River was raging beyond its banks, sweeping homes, campers, and vehicles away. The flood wave surged downstream in just 90 minutes.
So what went wrong?
It wasn’t that there were no warnings. The system did work, technically. The question now is whether people actually received the warnings, and whether they understood what they meant. That’s where the real breakdown occurred, and it’s a breakdown we keep seeing again and again in these events.
Communicating weather risks is incredibly difficult. Many people don’t trust forecasts, believe they’re always wrong, or dismiss serious warnings as hype. Some even cite past experiences, saying things like “Remember when it was supposed to rain and it didn’t?” to justify inaction. But often, those supposedly botched forecasts never actually existed. I’ve had many conversations trying to gently explain that no, no weather outlet ever forecast a sunny day for their rained-out picnic.
Unfortunately, public officials often fall back on blaming forecasters, assuming the public still buys the outdated myth that meteorologists are never right. That strategy may offer temporary political cover, but it obscures the more urgent problem: why people aren’t hearing or heeding the warnings that are issued.
The Wired article covering the Texas floods makes this point clearly, and CNN’s timeline confirms it. The NWS did its job. The problem isn’t that forecasters failed. It’s that our warning delivery and risk communication systems are not working well enough to prevent tragedy, especially during nighttime events when people are asleep or disconnected from phones and alerts.
Trump’s cuts to the NWS do threaten the quality and consistency of forecasting. Even more critically, they affect coordination among agencies, between forecasters, local officials, first responders, and the public. That coordination is essential for ensuring that warnings become action. When communication breaks down, people die, even if the forecast was spot on.
It’s especially tragic that many of the worst-hit areas are in red states that have often supported the very politicians pushing these cuts. Blue states aren’t immune, of course, but the irony is worth noting.
We need to start asking the right questions after weather disasters. Not just “Was the forecast right?” but also “Why didn’t people get the warning?” “Why didn’t they act on it?” and “How can we fix that before it happens again?” Taking a look at things like the event timeline of the flood is vital.
As the climate warms and these events become more extreme and more common, the consequences of our failure to answer those questions will only get deadlier.
The last word goes to an obvious one, Stevie Ray Vaughn.
I remember when the “early warning system” often included an old “air-raid siren”. We had one at school in the 60s (perceived nuclear threat), on the beaches in W. Florida (to warn of sharks and storms).
Their pretty hard to ignore, even when you’re sleeping…and there’s no “silence” button!
It’s good to hear the perspective of someone whose been in or close to that Industry. Cuts never are a positive thing and I admit I did wonder if perhaps they contributed to some of this horrible tragedy, but I just don’t know for sure what went so terribly wrong? The Camps didn’t allow Cellphones for the Campers so if the Weather Alerts went out via the Cellphones, perhaps they didn’t receive the earlier Warnings? And, the speed at which that River rose was unbelievable and it is pretty damned impossible to outrun rushing Water, especially if it hits while everyone is asleep and it’s dark and disorienting, or, perhaps roadways in and out are few or inadequate as escape routes, especially during a major holiday? My Heart just aches for all the Victims and Survivors. This was indeed catastrophic and still is, doesn’t look like the dangers are over yet.