Texas officials question scaled-back Weather Service's flood forecasts - but experts say the agency did all it could
Some state and local officials say the NWS didn't provide accurate forecasts ahead of Friday's destructive flooding, months after President Donald Trump's administration gutted the agency and experts warned forecasts could suffer.
Central Texas was struck by unexpected flash flooding on Friday after torrential rain caused the Guadalupe River to rise rapidly. The force of the fast-rising waters washed out homes and swept away vehicles. It also destroyed Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp situated on the banks of the river.
At least 51 people have been killed by the floods as of Saturday night, including 15 children. At least four of those killed were children attending Camp Mystic, and 27 attendees are still missing.
Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd told reporters at a press conference Friday that the NWS did not accurately predict the amount of rain Texas saw.
'The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,' he said at a press conference Friday. 'The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.'
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said that 'no one knew this kind of flood was coming.'
'We have floods all the time,' Kelly said. 'We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what's happened here. None whatsoever.'
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice echoed similar concerns, noting that the storms 'dumped more rain than what was forecasted.'
The NWS issued a 'life-threatening flash flooding' warning in Kerrville at 1:14 a.m. on Friday. The alert triggered the Emergency Alert System, meaning it would have sounded the alarm on cell phones throughout the area. Cell phone users who didn't have service or who turned off emergency alerts would not have heard the alarm.
That alert was issued more than three hours before the first reports of flooding came in, an agency spokesperson told The Independent.
'Flash Flood Warnings were issued on the night of July 3 and in the early morning of July 4, giving preliminary lead times of more than three hours before warning criteria were met,' NWS spokesperson Erica Grow Cei said.
While questions may be asked of local officials and their reaction to the warnings, Gov. Greg Abbott and other lawmakers are defending the response after what they called a once-in-a-century flood.
'There's going to be a lot of finger-pointing and a lot of second guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking,' Texas Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican, added. 'There's a lot of people saying why and how and I understand that. I understand why parents would be asking those questions and all of the media.'
Experts have previously warned that the Trump administration's decision to fire around 600 people from the agency could have drastic impacts on its ability to issue accurate forecasts. Former NWS forecaster John Toohey-Morales told The New York Times that people could die as a result.
'I am telling you, the American people are going to suffer from all this,' he said. 'Lives are being put in danger.'
Despite the cuts, nearby NWS offices had 'adequate staffing' during the storms, CNN reports. However, centers were missing a few key employees due to early retirement incentives offered by the Trump administration in an effort to reduce the government's workforce.
The Austin-San Antonio office was missing a warning coordination meteorologist — who helps link forecasters with local emergency managers — while the San Angelo office was missing a meteorologist-in-charge, according to CNN.
Some meteorologists say the forecasters at the Texas offices took all the right steps ahead of Friday's floods.
Austin-based meteorologist Troy Kimmel told the Austin American-Statesman that warnings were issued in time and that the NWS 'did its job,' even if rainfall amounts were underestimated.
'The sky fell,' Kimmel said. 'It was still the middle of the night, but that does not mean people should not be monitoring.'
Meteorologist Chris Vagasky told Wired that predicting how much rain will fall from a thunderstorm is 'the hardest thing a meteorologist can do.'
'The signal was out there that this is going to be a heavy, significant rainfall event,' he said. 'But pinpointing exactly where that's going to fall, you can't do that.'
Jonathan Porter, the chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, told the Associated Press evacuations and other proactive measures could have been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities.
'People, businesses, and governments should take action based on Flash Flood Warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that have occurred or are forecast,' Porter said in a statement.
When asked at a press conference why officials didn't issue evacuation warnings to camps near the Guadalupe River, Kelly said he didn't know, according to NPR. Rice added that it's difficult for county officials to decide when to issue evacuation orders.
"There's a balance between do you evacuate and put chaos on the road and potentially risk people getting stuck on a road?' Rice said. "A lot of our operations plans, especially with these camps, that is, the plan is sometimes shelter in place to get them to those known high grounds and then wait for rescue."
Speaking from Air Force One on the Fourth of July, Trump called the floods a 'shocking' tragedy but did not address questions about the cuts to weather agencies.
When asked whether the government would provide federal aid, Trump responded, "Oh yeah, we'll take care of them. We're working with the governor. It's a terrible thing."
Officials are continuing their search efforts as on Saturday night and have already rescued hundreds of people, as the death toll continues to rise.
"My instruction to every state official involved is to assume everybody who is missing is alive, and there's a need for speed. Not just every hour, every minute counts, which is why there's people in the air, people in the water, people at the ground right now because they're looking to save every last life and we will not give up that effort," Abbott said at a press conference.
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
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