Latest news with #W.NimKidd
Yahoo
a day ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Texas officials question scaled-back Weather Service's flood forecasts - but experts say the agency did all it could
Texas officials are questioning the actions of the National Weather Service leading up to Friday's deadly floods, as fellow meteorologists defend the agency. 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.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
15 Heart-Wrenching Photos That Show The Texas Flood Devastation
This weekend, flash floods ripped through Central Texas, reportedly killing more than 60 people. Twitter: @STX21 According to Texas state officials, floods caused the Guadalupe River to rise 26 feet in 45 minutes. One time-lapse video showed an entire road being overtaken by water in under four minutes: Twitter: @EuropeCentral_ Related: Dozens of people remain missing, including a group of girls who were attending a summer camp in Hunt, Texas, located near the Guadalupe River, when the floods came. According to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, search and rescue missions will continue. Officials say over 100 people have been airlifted, and several children have been found in "trees and other stranded locations." "When you talk to the men and women that are up there in those helicopters and out in those boats and walking the ground, they're looking for live people right now and doing everything they can to continue to search as fast as possible," W. Nim Kidd, Chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management said in a recent press conference. Here are 15 photos of the Texas flooding devastation: 1. Related: 2. 3. 4. 5. Related: 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Related: 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. Also in In the News: Also in In the News: Also in In the News:
Forbes
4 days ago
- Climate
- Forbes
Texas Flood Live Updates: 59 Dead Including 15 Children
At least 59 deaths—including the deaths of 15 children—have now been confirmed in the central Texas flash floods, according to the latest update from officials, though dozens of children from a summer camp remain unaccounted for as blame swirls over preparedness and whether residents were properly alerted. Flooding caused by a flash flood at the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas. Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images Texas authorities confirmed at least 59 people were dead as of Sunday morning, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on Fox News, and an unclear number were still missing. Rescue teams are searching for a group of around 27 people who were attending Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River. More than 850 people have been rescued across Kerr County, which saw some of the worst flooding, by the Coast Guard and at least 1,000 first responders from Texas state agencies, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said. Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, when he was asked why camps along the Guadalupe were not evacuated, told reporters Friday, 'I can't answer that, I don't know,' before saying the county had 'no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what's happened here.' W. Nim Kidd, director of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, faulted the National Weather Service for not predicting 'the amount of rain we saw,' though alerts were issued beforehand and as it became clear the region was facing a flash flood emergency. The NWS issued a flash flood watch Thursday afternoon that noted Kerr County, where much of the flooding began early Friday morning, was a particularly vulnerable area, along with more urgent flash flood emergency alerts in the overnight hours as the disaster unfolded. The NWS was one of several federal agencies targeted by the controversial cost-cutting efforts of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, and has recently laid off nearly 600 employees—around the same amount of staffers it lost in the 15 previous years, the Texas Tribune reported. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Trump administration would 'honor' a federal disaster declaration from Abbott, who also declared Sunday a 'day of prayer' as first responders search for the missing campers. Forbes has reached out to the NWS for comment. A representative for the union for NWS employees told CNN that the offices in Austin and San Antonio had 'adequate staffing and resources,' but also said the San Antonio office was missing a coordination meteorologist to work directly with emergency managers. When asked by a reporter from Kerrville if the government's preparedness was a 'failure,' Noem said the Trump administration was trying to 'upgrade' the technology the NWS uses to send alerts and notify the public about catastrophic weather events. 'For decades, for years, everybody knows that the weather is extremely difficult to predict, but also that the National Weather Service has done well,' Noem said at a press conference alongside Abbott. 'And at times we have all wanted more time, and more warning, and more alerts, and more notification.' Noem added the Trump administration is working to update what she called an 'ancient system has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years.' How Has The Nws Been Impacted By Federal Funding Cuts? Some NWS field offices have reported the loss of around-the-clock staffing and reductions in weather balloon launches, which are crucial in collecting data on humidity, pressure, temperature and more elements needed to produce forecasts. The NWS office overseeing Kerr County, where at least 24 people have died in the floods, is the Austin/San Antonio Weather Forecast Office. Longtime meteorologist Troy Kimmel, who leads his own meteorological services company, told CBS Austin in May that local Texas offices such as the Austin/San Antonio office experienced some staffing shortages. The Austin/San Antonio office's website shows a total of six vacancies across its meteorological, management, observations and technician teams, though it is not clear how many of the vacancies are a direct result of cuts engineered by the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump said Friday the deaths reported in Texas were 'shocking' and that the government would work with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to provide federal aid. He added in a statement on Truth Social Saturday morning his administration is working with state and local officials in Texas, adding Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem would visit the state Saturday. Trump has insisted states should play a larger role in handling their own weather disasters, saying last month his administration intends to 'wean' states off help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency following this year's hurricane season. FEMA has lost hundreds of employees since Trump took office and ended its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, which awarded around $4.6 billion to communities throughout the U.S. in an effort to prepare them for future weather disasters. What To Watch For The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for San Antonio and several neighboring cities, warning of two to four inches of additional rainfall and excessive runoff that may result in flash flooding for rivers and creeks, low-lying areas and low water crossings. What Do We Know About The Missing Children? The children considered missing as of Saturday were attending an all-girls Christian summer camp known as Camp Mystic. The camp has been around since 1926 and operates two sites along the Guadalupe River. The organization told parents in an email Friday morning it experienced 'catastrophic level floods.' according to The New York Times. Big Number Over 1,000. That is how many rescuers were deployed in Texas on Saturday morning, the Associated Press reported. The Guadalupe River has had a history of floods, with one of the most prominent incidents occurring in 1987, when five to 10 inches of rain fell in the upper headwaters of the river's basin. The river crested at 31.5 feet and flooding resulted in the deaths of 10 teenagers and 33 injuries. Inclement weather in Texas may continue in the coming months, as it and several other states are approaching the most active part of the 2025 hurricane season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season, forecasting a range of 13 to 19 named storms, six to 10 of which are forecast to become hurricanes.
