Texas flood highlights deadly climate risk at crucial moment

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

The tragic Fourth of July flash flood in Texas that has killed at least 78 people is shining a spotlight on the nation's growing vulnerability to climate disaster.
As rescue crews continue their frantic search for missing children along the Guadalupe River, experts warn that similar incidents could continue to happen as the federal government slashes funding for weather forecasting, shutters climate websites and databases, lays off scientists and researchers and weakens disaster response capabilities at a moment when climate change is increasing the frequency of such events.
That includes California, where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its subsidiary, the National Weather Service, are reeling from cutbacks ordered by the Trump administration. In May, at least two California offices of the NWS said they no longer have enough staff to operate overnight: Hanford and Sacramento, which together cover nearly all of the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains, some of the state's most fire-and-flood-prone areas.
Nationally, more than 600 scientists and meteorologists have already been laid off or taken a buyout from NOAA this year. The Trump administration is planning to cut thousands more employees next year — approximately 17% of its workforce — and slash the agency's budget by more than $1.5 billion, according to the fiscal 2026 budget request. The president has said the changes will help reduce federal waste and save taxpayers money.
Yet these and other changes come as human-caused climate change contributes to larger and more frequent floods, wildfires and hurricanes, among other worsening disasters. The Texas flood, in particular, was marked by the type of extremely intense, highly localized downpour that is becoming much more common due to global warming. Portions of the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in less than an hour, state officials said.
'This is one of the hardest things to predict that's becoming worse faster than almost anything else in a warming climate, and it's at a moment where we're defunding the ability of meteorologists and emergency managers to coordinate,' said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. 'That trifecta seems like a recipe for disaster.'
Indeed, just how frequently such events occur will soon become harder to tell, as the Trump administration has already eliminated NOAA's database for tracking billion-dollar disasters. Its last update before the shutdown confirmed that there were 27 weather and climate disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion each in the United States in 2024. In the 1980s, the nation averaged just 3.3 such events per year, adjusted for inflation, the database shows.
The administration last week shut down the U.S. Global Change Research Program's website, which housed congressionally mandated reports and research on climate change. Meanwhile, the weather service has begun halting weather balloon operations at multiple locations due to staffing shortages, reducing the amount of data that's available.
Details about the Texas incident are still unfolding. Some state officials were quick to point the finger at the National Weather Service — including Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd, who said forecasts did not adequately predict the amount of rain that fell on the area.
Agency officials said they did their job — issuing multiple warnings in advance of the incident, including some that advised of potentially catastrophic conditions. A timeline provided to The Times by the National Weather Service indicated that an expanded flood hazard outlook was issued on the morning of July 3, and that multiple, increasingly urgent alerts followed.
'The National Weather Service is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life in Kerr County,' agency spokesperson Erica Grow Cei said in an email, adding that the NWS 'remains committed to our mission to serve the American public through our forecasts and decision support services.'
However, the local area office was also short several key positions, including a senior hydrologist, staff forecaster and meteorologist in charge, the New York Times reported Sunday. Also absent was the office's warning coordination meteorologist — the person who acts as the liaison between the weather service and the public and emergency management officials — who took Trump's buyout earlier this year.
On Sunday, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro called for an investigation into whether staffing shortages at the agency played a role, telling CNN's 'State of the Union' that 'not having enough personnel is never helpful.'
In a statement, the White House did not address staff reductions but said no funding cuts have yet occurred at the National Weather Service.
'The timely and accurate forecasts and alerts for Texas this weekend prove that the NWS remains fully capable of carrying out its critical mission,' a spokesperson from the U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees NOAA, said in an email.
While the precise circumstances that surrounded the Texas tragedy will continue to be studied in the days and weeks ahead, experts say it is clear that such climate hazards will continue to happen.
'With a warmer atmosphere, there is no doubt that we have seen an increase in the frequency and the magnitude of flash flooding events globally,' said Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist with AccuWeather.
Porter credited the weather service with issuing warnings in advance of the flash flood, but said there was a breakdown when it came to local officials' response to the information.
'The key question is, what did people do with those warnings that were timely, that were issued?' Porter said. 'What was their reaction, what was their weather safety plan, and then what actions did they take to based upon those timely warnings, in order to ensure that people's lives were saved?'
Yet even efforts to enhance coordination between the weather service, the government and the general public could soon be on the chopping block. NOAA has been researching better ways to communicate disaster warnings, including improved public education and early warning systems, at its Oceanic and Atmospheric Research division, which is facing a hefty 74% budget cut if not complete elimination.
The president's proposed 2026 budget would also reduce funding for specialized, high-resolution thunderstorm models that have been developed for just this type of event, according to Swain of UC ANR. He noted that it's an area of research that was pioneered by the U.S. government, in large part because the country has some of the most extreme thunderstorm weather in the world.
'Nearly all of the research in the world, historically, toward understanding these types of storms and predicting them has been sponsored by the U.S. federal government, and nearly all the advances we have made have been U.S. taxpayer-dollar funded,' Swain said. 'Other countries aren't going to do that on behalf of the U.S. ... So if we don't do it for ourselves, we aren't going to have access to that.'
The Texas flood 'is representative of precisely the kind of nightmare scenario that is going to become more likely with the further extreme cuts that are proposed, and likely to be implemented to some degree,' he added.
Notably, the changes at NOAA and the NWS are meeting with other new priorities from the president, including a renewed investment in oil and gas drilling — fossil fuel industries that are among the top contributors to global warming.
In southeastern states such as Florida, officials are also grappling with reduced hurricane forecasting capabilities at the height of hurricane season.
And in California, where multiple wildfires are currently burning, state officials are also facing reduced firefighting capabilities as Trump deploys National Guard firefighting troops in Los Angeles and reduced forest management and firefighting staffing at the U.S. Forest Service.
The administration has also expressed interest in disbanding FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as early as this fall.