A meteorologist talks about the floods in the Texas Hill Country:
"I'm going to start off and say that this is not book-related content. This is me coming as a degreeed meteorologist, someone who is a meteorologist actively on TV right now, talking about what happened, the tragedy that occurred this past weekend in the Texas Hill Country. Before I break down the science and I break down the narration that's going around right now—that no one was prepared, no one was warned—if you turn this political, please see yourself out of my comments right now. We are not talking about politics, okay, when it deals with the loss of life of so many human beings, so many who were children just wanting to go and enjoy summer camp.
Now, with that being said, the narrative that's going around right now that no one was prepared, no one was warned is completely and totally false. If you choose to stay uninformed, that is on you—that is not on the people putting out the message.
Firstly, it is not uncommon to see flash flooding in the Texas Hill Country. These riverbeds are made of limestone and a bunch of rocky soils; of course, they are not going to be absorbing this water easily, ever. Also, it's the Texas Hill Country, okay, so there's lots of ups and downs, there's a lot of canyons where these rivers become very narrow, so when you have flash flooding, it's going to quickly funnel that water through and then pick up the speed of the water. So this is not uncommon. There are many major floods that have occurred down in the Texas Hill Country—2002, 1998, 1978—okay, there are so many different events of major flooding that have happened down in these areas like Kerrville and along the Guadalupe River because it's prone to flooding.
With that being said, the "meteorologists didn't warn anybody" narrative has to go away, especially from Texas officials going around and pointing the finger and saying that this is because of the DOGE cuts. This has not taken effect yet. In fact, the National Weather Service office down there—that's Austin and San Antonio—was overstaffed because they were prepared for this event. In a typical flooding event, they would have two meteorologists on staff; okay, they had five because they were ready for this event to happen. Now, to this scale? No, and that's why it's called a natural disaster because you literally cannot prepare to the point that you see these types of things happen. There's no way to do that. But what they did do is issue a flood watch, saying that the conditions are going to be favorable to see flash flooding, okay? That got issued Thursday afternoon. In that watch, there was a line mentioned that there could be isolated rain totals of over 10 inches of rainfall that would lead to flooding. It mentioned in flood-prone areas like the Guadalupe River that the rivers and the banks and the creeks were likely to go over their banks. That was issued on Thursday.
Then, going into Friday morning, a flash flood warning was issued at 1:13 a.m., so three and a half, almost four hours before the Guadalupe started to rise to that level, saying that life-threatening flash flooding was getting ready to take place. Again, three to four hours in advance, before the Guadalupe even reached its peak, these flash flood warnings were already coming out for Kerr County, for these areas that had the flooding. Now, I know it was the middle of the night, okay, and these areas, there is no cell service. I have gone to church camp my entire life in Ingram, Texas, which is right up the street from Kerrville. Okay, it's literally less than a 20-minute drive. I have been there again my whole life, and I know there's no cell service. I have also been at camp when the river has flooded before, so that's how I know these areas should be prepared for these types of situations.
One thing I think has to change is any type of camp, whether it's along a river, it's in Oklahoma, okay, it's in the mountains. Every single camp, if children are going to be present, they need to have a NOAA radio. A weather radio saves lives because it doesn't require there to be a phone connection, it doesn't require there to be internet. Those alerts are going to go off whether or not you lose power, and they are going to alert people because they are so obnoxious you cannot turn those off, okay? They are going to wake you up. In a situation like this, the flash flood warning would have been triggered at 1:13 in the morning, so if every single one of these cabins had them, okay, along the river, if people had them at these campgrounds and they were going off and it was really loud, people would have been well-warned in advance even if it was the middle of the night.
I also think it's really bizarre that we have the technology now in place that there's not sensors along the river that, if the river reaches a certain level, a certain height, automatically sirens should start going off in these towns along the river. We have tornado warnings, okay, we have outdoor warning sirens here, like in Oklahoma. Something should be in place like that along rivers that, again, if it reaches a certain height, it automatically triggers those, and so people start to hear those warnings and they know they need to get away from the water.
Going back to the science, okay, it was 5:34 in the morning when the flash flood emergency came again; it was an emergency because it was saying if you do not get to higher ground, you are going to die. Now, not long after that, I think it was around 5:45, 5:50, is when the Guadalupe started to crest, so that's when it was reaching its highest level, and that came not too long after the flash flood emergency.
Now, where did all this rain come from? Earlier on in the week, there had been a tropical system that had impacted Mexico—it’s name was Barry—and it came up through Mexico and was going through the Rio Grande Valley, and then it kind of stalled right over Austin and Central Texas. Mixed with that low-pressure system and all the moisture that we have in the Gulf, it kind of created this perfect storm, if you will, that this just sat in one spot and just dumped so much rainfall over the next two days. Over 48 hours, so many places in the Central Texas region—again, the Texas Hill Country, Austin, New Braunfels, along parts of San Marcos—so many different places, okay, had to deal with all this rainfall because there was so much moisture available from that tropical system and then also being next to the Gulf.
Again, this was like the perfect storm of the worst-case scenario, worst situation possible. But going around on social media and seeing people sharing things about that there was no warning, nothing came, you can never just fully unplug, okay? I know we live in a world where sometimes you don't want to be on social media, but you truly should never be so fully unplugged that you are not aware of your surroundings around you. And after a situation like this occurs, we should not be pointing the fingers and saying, "you're to blame, you're to blame, you're to blame." We should all collectively just be praying for the families of those who still have missing people, the ones who have lost their children or lost loved ones. Those who found their family safe, okay, they have to still deal with the guilt of knowing that they have their loved one that's safe and knowing what could have been.
And please, think about the meteorologists that are down there—that did their job, from the National Weather Service, okay, all the way to the local TV meteorologists who were talking about this from Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, Thursday night—they all did their jobs, and they are going to live with the guilt of this still, of what could I have done differently? What could I have communicated a little bit better to make people listen to this? Everyone wants to say you want to cry wolf, okay? Even here in Oklahoma as a meteorologist, we deal with this with tornado warnings that people are like, "oh, it's never going to happen to me," and we issue tornado warnings and people don't listen because they don't think it's going to happen to them.
Unfortunately, that looks like it's what happened here. Okay, people heard that there could be flooding, but they thought it was a case of crying wolf because they have flooding so often there that they never thought it would happen at this level. It doesn't usually, okay? I want to reference that, like this is one of those things that, again, it was perfect storm, everything coming together to be the worst situation possible.
But before you point the finger, before you start being a Twitter warrior or you're all over Facebook or something and making this political, again, if you try to make this political, let's just remember the loss of life. Let's collectively now, as the United States, as a nation, think of what can we do differently. How can we get the funding to put weather radios in all camps? How can we find the technology to make sure that these places along the river again have sirens? Things have to change in these cities, along these communities, if they don't have any service. What can we do differently now to make this never happen again?
If anyone has any other further specific questions, you can leave it in the comments, and I'll try to come back and filter this over the next few days and answer anything if I can. But I just ask that you guys pray for the Texas Hill Country, pray for again, all the meteorologists down there who are having to deal with this guilt, with all the first responders that have been having to deal with this, that have been working night and day trying to find these people still, that all the people that are missing, they're trying to give peace to their loved ones, at least know, know that the bodies have been found, know that they’re not just going to be missing forever.
This is a tragedy, and that’s what it needs to remain first and foremost is people talking about being a tragedy, not trying to turn it political."
