The waters rose fast in Central Texas. In Kerr County, July’s flash floods swept through like a freight train, tearing up roads, submerging homes, and leaving at least two people dead. Cars were flipped like toys, entire neighborhoods turned into a horrible soup of debris and loss, and emergency crews worked around the clock to rescue stranded residents. People were shocked. Grief hung thick in the air like the Texas humidity. The news cameras rolled. Officials offered “thoughts and prayers” and an old cover-your-ass trick whenever there’s a weather disaster, blamed the forecasters for a blown forecast even if the forecast, like in this case, gave enough warning. And then, once questions were raised about how this could have been prevented, predictably came the line we all knew was coming: “Now is not the time to politicize this tragedy.”

Because apparently, when you’re surrounded by wreckage and a rising death toll, it’s considered impolite to ask if something could’ve been done to prevent this. No, no: Emotions are high, families are grieving, let’s all take a breath, they say. The floodgates may be wide open, but the policy discussions are closed until further notice.

After the funerals, when the floodwaters recede and the news vans pack up, we will enter a new phase: We must move on. Ask again about why Kerr County didn’t get more advance warning from the National Weather Service, or whether climate change played a role in the storm’s intensity, and you will be gently told, “We must move on.”

“We must move on” is toxic as hell if the problem that contributed to the disaster is not addressed. And here’s where it gets harder to swallow; the very agencies responsible for forecasting and warning us, like the NWS and NOAA, have been systematically weakened. During Trump’s time in office, budgets for both agencies have been repeatedly slashed or proposed for cuts. Targets of DOGE, staff vacancies piled up, equipment aged, and morale sank. Cutting funding to the very people whose job it is to see disasters coming is like turning off the smoke alarm because it’s too loud.

But bring that up? You’re accused of politicizing a tragedy. So instead of progress, we get platitudes. Instead of investment in early warning systems, updated building codes, or serious climate policy, we get commemorative hashtags. Maybe a candlelight vigil. A ribbon-cutting for a very expensive but not particularly useful plaque.

And then, of course, the next disaster hits. Maybe it’s a wildfire. Maybe it’s another flood, or a heatwave that buckles highways and fries the power grid. Doesn’t even have to be weather-related. It could be related to teens high on opiates causing a tragic accident, poor design causing a bridge to collapse, ignoring regulations causing scores of people dying in a nightclub fire, and so on.

It doesn’t matter. The script is already written. The tragedy will be followed by mourning. Calls for action will be scolded as too soon. And then, as predictably as the summer sun in Texas, we’ll be told it’s time to move on.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

What gets lost in this cycle is not just policy, but lives. Real people in Kerr County lost everything. Some lost the people most important to them. They deserved more than sympathetic tweets and the soundbite shuffle. They deserved a government and a society that sees disaster response as something that can be constantly improved.

Because if now is not the time, and later is too late, when do we actually fix anything? Or do we just keep waiting for the next flood to wash away our excuses?

The last word goes to Bob Dylan: