Schumer wants probe of National Weather Service response in Texas
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer asked the Department of Commerce's acting inspector general Monday to probe whether staffing vacancies at the NWS's San Antonio office contributed to "delays, gaps, or diminished accuracy" in forecasting the flooding. He asked the watchdog to scrutinize the office's communications with Kerr County officials.
The NWS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Schumer's letter. It defended its forecasting and emergency management in a statement Monday, adding that it assigned extra forecasters to the San Antonio and San Angelo offices over the holiday weekend.
A top three leadership role at the NWS's San Antonio office has been vacant since earlier this year after Paul Yura, the U.S. forecasting agency's warning coordination meteorologist, opens new tab for San Antonio, accepted an offer from the Trump administration to retire.
Yura's role was to form relationships with local emergency managers and officials, with the goal of building trust in the community before disaster strikes.
DOGE, the Trump administration's cost-cutting effort, has been pushing the NWS to cut jobs. It gave hundreds of employees the option, opens new tab to retire early, rather than face potential dismissal.
The NWS's San Antonio office is responsible for forecasting the area's weather, collecting climate data and warning the public about dangerous conditions. Texas officials criticized the NWS over the weekend, arguing it failed to warn the public about impending danger.
The office sent a stream of flash flood warnings on Thursday and Friday across the digital and radio services it uses to communicate with public safety professionals, according to alert records. The messages grew increasingly urgent in the early morning hours on Friday. The team sent an emergency text message to area cell phones at about 1:14 a.m., calling it a "dangerous and life-threatening situation."
Phones must have reception or be near a cell tower to receive that message, said Antwane Johnson, former director of FEMA's public alert team. Mobile coverage is spotty in areas around the Guadalupe River, according to Federal Communications Commission records last updated in December.
"Even though those messages were issued, it does not mean it got to the people who needed them," said Erik Nielsen, who studies extreme rain at Texas A&M University.
The death toll from the catastrophic floods reached at least 78 on Sunday, including at least 28 children. It is not clear whether the opening for a warning coordination meteorologist contributed to NWS's forecasting and alerts.
Jon Zeitler, the office's science and operations officer, also left NWS's San Antonio office around the same time in April, according to his LinkedIn profile. Zeitler was responsible for training new hires. Reuters could not confirm why he exited. The office's other management roles are filled, according to its website, opens new tab.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday was asked by reporters about whether federal government cuts hobbled the disaster response or left key job vacancies at the NWS under Trump's oversight.
"They didn't," Trump told reporters prior to boarding Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey.
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The Independent
39 minutes ago
- The Independent
How Texas flash floods burst into a deadly tide in mere hours
With at least 105 dead and two dozen still missing, Friday's catastrophic flash flooding in Central Texas ranks among the worst natural disasters in the state's history. The brunt of the disaster centered in Kerr County, where the torrential rainfall caused the Guadalupe River to burst its banks, taking 84 victims, including 28 children. Among those killed were 27 young girls and staff members at Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp situated on the riverbank. Eleven were still missing on Tuesday morning. What began as a routine flood watch quickly devolved into a deadly disaster. The National Weather Service predicted between one and three inches of rain, with some isolated spots possibly getting five to seven inches. Instead, parts of Kerr County were slammed with 10 to 15 inches, and in some places, over 20 inches, within a few hours. The storm is believed to be fueled by warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and leftovers from Tropical Storm Barry, according to San Antonio Express-News meteorologist Anthony Franze. These combined to create a slow-moving weather system that slowed over the area and dumped heavy rain over hills and valleys. The geography of Hill Country made things worse. The steep hills and rocky land don't absorb water well, so rain quickly flows into creeks and rivers. This caused the Guadalupe River to rise rapidly to its second-highest level ever recorded, even higher than a historic 1987 flood, Franze said. The area is often called ' Flash Flood Alley' because it's prone to these kinds of fast, dangerous floods, Hatim Sharif, a hydrologist and civil engineer at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said in an article for The Conversation. Experts say predicting exactly where and how much rain will fall is difficult, and this storm caught many off guard. Dr. Jess Neumann of the University of Reading said this was a 'tragic reminder of the dangers of sudden extreme rainfall and flash flooding.' 'This terrible event, in which children are missing and many have died, raises critical questions about effective early warning systems, flood planning and preparedness in the region,' Neumann said in a news release. 'It cannot be right that a flood of this magnitude, in an area known to be at high risk of flash floods, caused such devastation and has taken so many people by surprise.' The flood struck in the middle of the night when most people were asleep. There weren't strong warning systems in place to alert residents or campers in time to escape. 'We didn't know this flood was coming,' Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said Friday. 'No one knew this kind of flood was coming.' Chuck Schumer, the Senate's top Democrat, demanded that the government's watchdog investigate whether the Trump administration's cuts to the National Weather Service 's workforce increased the death toll. The strength of the flood was depicted by a 22-year-old woman who was swept 20 miles downstream and survived by clinging to a tree until help arrived. More than 850 people had been rescued by Tuesday morning, with Texas Governor Greg Abbott stating that over 1,750 personnel from 20 state agencies had been deployed so far to respond to flood threats. As the hopes of finding survivors faded, hundreds of emergency responders continued to search through the debris. 'Texas is working tirelessly to assist local officials with recovery and rescue operations,' Abbott wrote on X Monday. 'Texas will not stop until every missing person is found.'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Texas couple details their miraculous escape from floods
It just looked like a bit of drizzle when they went to bed but the trickles of rain over their Texas home turned out to be the start of a nightmare for Jennifer and Jack Hudson, 61. The couple, who live in the flood-ravaged town of Ingram, told the Daily Mail that they thought nothing of the storms circling Hill Country – until they woke in the early hours of Independence Day to find floodwater surging through their single-story home. 'It was about quarter to five in the morning and for some reason I got woken up,' a distraught Jennifer said in an exclusive interview. 'I heard a noise, and we were trying to connect the dots when the water started. The water was up.' That water was the Guadelupe River bursting its banks and causing deadly flooding that has so far claimed the lives of 80 people, 28 of them children. The couple live less than 100ft from its brackish brown waters, but their house sits on top of a small bank and has never previously been flooded. But all that changed in the early hours of Friday morning – sparking a terrifying ordeal that saw the pair submerged in flood water that came up to their shoulders for over an hour as they struggled to hold on to their porch while being battered with strong currents. 'Some people are saying there weren't emergency alerts ,' Jennifer said. 'There were. But Jack's phone was in the living room, and my phone was on silent, so it wasn't loud enough to wake you up.' The power had gone out leaving them in pitch darkness while the flood waters were rising so rapidly, their home was flooded with four feet of water in less than four minutes. 'I grabbed a tote bag, and I ran to the back office and got our birth certificates and passports,' said a tearful Jennifer. 'It's dark, I can't see anything, but I could feel those, so I grabbed them, then our phones and chargers, money and our medicine. 'By that time, the water was so high, we couldn't open a door to get out. So, we had to go through a window. 'Everything in our house was floating, and the water was coming at what felt like 100 miles an hour towards where we were. 'It was crash, bang, boom, refrigerators, big armoires, everything. And it was all happening in the dark.' Once outside, the couple realized their predicament was even worse than they had realized with the surging currents threatening to tow them and their dogs Georgie and Zumi out into the flood. Jennifer said she tried to climb onto the roof with miniature mongrel Zumi but proved too petite at 5ft 2' to make the climb. Meanwhile Jack was trapped at ground level with the much bigger Alsatian-cross Georgie who was too heavy to hoist into the air. Instead, the pair climbed onto the low wall surrounding their porch and clung on for over an hour even as the flood water rose to nine feet and surged around them. Jennifer said: 'It's dark and you're frantic. And you do the funniest things when you're in a panic like that. 'We didn't know we were gonna only have four minutes in the house, but we knew we had to get out of the house. 'But I was thinking, I gotta have on a bra. I got on a bra. And I got on my tennis shoes, but I forgot my glasses. 'I didn't even realize I didn't have glasses on until after it the waters subsided, and we went back into the house.' By the time the water went down, both Jack and Jennifer were battered and bruised thanks to the surging current that had tossed them around like ragdolls. 'When we were in it was so scary,' Jennifer told the Daily Mail. 'We're standing on the wall. We're in water up to the tops of our shoulders. 'I'm thinking, OK, it's gonna go up, up, up, and we're about to die. I was hoping not. 'It was our 31st anniversary to so I just told him 'Happy Anniversary' and hoped for the best.' She added: 'Thank God we got out when we did, because we probably would have been trapped by all the furniture.' When they finally did manage to get off their perch, it was to a scene of devastation: a home filled with foul-smelling mud, a garden scattered with dying fish and most of their possessions swept away. Some of their neighbors died while others saw their homes trashed and their cars destroyed. Jack, a furniture maker, also lost most of the lumber – which was worth $10,000 - stacked outside his home workshop as well as most of the tools needed to make the garden chairs he specializes in – a devastating financial blow that he says will mean he will now need to work well into his 80s. The pair, who are currently living in a cabin lent to them by friends, say the kindness of the local community is helping them get through the dark time – with neighbors and friends descending to help them clear the mud from their home and salvage what possessions they can. They are also providing a steady stream of food and drink, as well as letting the couple do their laundry at their homes.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Intense downpours like those in Texas are more frequent, but there's no telling where they'll happen
It's not just Texas and North Carolina. Intense rain is falling more frequently in many areas of the U.S. — though where it occurs and whether it causes catastrophic flooding is largely a matter of chance, according to experts. More than 100 people died in Texas Hill Country over the weekend after 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain fell in just hours. The deluge was driven by warm, moist air left over from Tropical Storm Barry and Hurricane Flossie that created conditions for repeated thunderstorms in the same location, said Texas Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon. Last year, Hurricane Helene dumped more than 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain on western North Carolina, triggering catastrophic flooding that washed away roads and homes, killing more than 100 people in that state alone. This week, flooding from the remnants of Tropical Storm Chantal prompted dozens of water rescues in other parts of North Carolina. And this spring, record rainfall in Kentucky caused severe and deadly flooding. Although it can be difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change — and hilly or mountainous terrain worsen flooding — experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans due to the burning of fossil fuels make catastrophic storms more likely. That's because the atmosphere can hold 7% more water for every degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), creating a giant sponge of sorts that sucks up moisture from bodies of water and vegetation. The moisture later falls back to earth in increasingly intense, unpredictable and destructive downpours. 'It's just loading the dice toward heavy rainfall when the situation is right,' said Kenneth Kunkel, a climate scientist at North Carolina State University. Intensifying rain storms Going back through U.S. weather station records dating to 1955, Kunkel found that rain over the past 20 years has become more intense in the eastern two-thirds of the country, including the southern Great Plains, where Texas is located. Intensities have remained the same or declined in the West and southwest. At the 700 stations that began collecting data in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the highest proportion of two-day rainfall records have been set in just the past 10 years, Kunkel said, though that doesn't fully reflect most Western stations, which were established later. Nielsen-Gammon said the overall intensity of extreme rainfall in Texas has increased by 15% over the past 40-50 years. Still, it's almost impossible to predict where the most catastrophic rain will fall in any given year, Kunkel said. 'This month was the Texas Hill Country's turn to get hit. Last fall ... in western North Carolina, it was our turn,' Kunkel said, adding that just because an area was spared over the past 20 or 30 years, it 'doesn't mean that they aren't vulnerable. ... They got lucky.' A 'perfect storm' in Texas The worst flooding and greatest loss of life in Texas occurred in Kerr County, in an area known as 'flash flood alley' because of its steep terrain that funnels water to the Guadalupe River, a popular recreational area. Though the county did not get the most rain from the storms, the 'distribution of rainfall was one of the worst possible patterns' because the most intense downpours were over the headwaters of the south fork of the Guadalupe River, causing water to rush into areas where hundreds of people, including children, were camping, said Nielsen-Gammon. If the epicenter had been 10 miles (16 kilometers) north or south, the rain would have been divided among different river basins, he said. If it had been farther downstream, larger floodplains would have absorbed and slowed much of the water. Years of drought also likely exacerbated the flooding. Kerr County, for example, had been in extreme or exceptional drought for more than three years, aside from one four-week period last fall. That likely left the soil compacted, which caused water to run off instead of soaking into the ground, said Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist. Then, air from the warmer-than-normal Gulf of Mexico — a reflection of global warming — blew into the state with a higher water content than it would have had decades ago. It all added up to 'just a perfect storm of events' that caused a catastrophe, said Rippey. 'There are things that had to come together to make this happen.' ____ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
