Latest news with #WesVirdell
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Texas officials defend response to deadly floods: 'We saved as many people as we could'
CENTER POINT, Texas — Local and state officials who responded to the catastrophic flooding this month in Central Texas defended their actions in an interview with NBC News, saying they did everything in their power to save lives and are now considering what more could be done to prevent future tragedies. 'Our teams did everything that they possibly could with this gruesome, devastating situation that happened, and we would not change the way we did that. And I think we saved as many people as we could,' Dalton Rice, the city manager of Kerrville, said. He spoke with NBC News alongside Jeff Holt, a Kerr County commissioner, and state Rep. Wes Virdell, over the weekend, before a new round of heavy rain and flooding threatened parts of the region. The officials said they did their best to coordinate evacuations and rescues against uncontrollable forces of nature, but noted that a permanent emergency operations center, more diversion dams and better cellphone service in certain areas might help save lives in future floods. Hundreds of people were rescued in the early morning of July 4 as the Guadalupe River surged to unprecedented heights in less than an hour, its intractable current carrying homes and vehicles for miles downstream. At least 132 people died in the flood, including campers and counselors at a girls' summer camp, and more than 160 people are still missing. Flash floods are common in the Texas Hill Country, where Kerrville is located, but National Weather Service forecasts predicted less rain than ultimately descended on July 4 — and by the time officials learned that lives were in jeopardy, many homes along the river were already submerged or washed away. 'It happened so rapidly that nobody, nobody could have anticipated it,' Rice said. Kerr County and Kerrville officials held separate meetings Monday about the ongoing flood response. Officials mostly steered clear of addressing speculation over how leaders communicated about the events on July 4, but one noted that he had received death threats. Rice told NBC News the water level was normal in his morning run along the river at about 3:30 a.m., during which he planned to survey the Fourth of July festivities. At 5:20 a.m., he started getting phone calls and text messages about the water surging. By that point, evacuations were already underway at campgrounds and RV parks. Holt, who is also a volunteer firefighter, received an alert from the Center Point Volunteer Fire Department at 4:59 a.m. that help was needed along the river. He had been up with his cat, who was agitated by the storm, for the past hour and a half. 'My cat would not leave me alone, actually scratched my eyeball when I was sleeping,' he said. In anticipation of heavy rain, some first responders from the Texas Division of Emergency Management were already stationed in the area, along with volunteer swift water rescue teams. Holt assisted with evacuations at around 5:30 a.m. at the Old River Road RV Park in Kerrville, he said, where some people were still fast asleep as the water encroached. 'We all came in to meet probably the hardest day we're going to see in our lives, and I'm a 30- year combat Marine,' he said. Virdell, a Republican state lawmaker who represents Kerr County, woke to messages about the flood at around 8 a.m. He got in his car as fast as he could, he said, and drove to the scene from Brady, more than an hour and a half north of Kerrville. 'I just threw, I think, one shirt, some gear or whatever in there, and my wife hopped in with me, and we drove 90 miles an hour,' he said. In the wake of the disaster, questions have swirled about whether residents were adequately alerted about the dangers facing them, and if such alerts could have made a difference. Since its approval in 2009, Kerr County has used a phone notification system, known as CodeRed, to deliver emergency messages to residents who opt in. Officials have not said whether CodeRed alerts went out to warn about the weather and evacuations, or who was driving the decision of whether or not to send them. NBC affiliate KXAN in Austin obtained audio of a volunteer firefighter in the city of Ingram asking a county sheriff dispatcher at 4:22 a.m. if they can 'send a CodeRed out to our Hunt residents, asking them to find higher ground or stay home.' The dispatcher responded: 'We have to get that approved with our supervisor.' KXAN reported that one person near a flooded area said they received a voicemail at 1:14 a.m. from a number traced back to CodeRed, while another area resident received a CodeRed alert at 5:34 a.m. about the National Weather Service's 'flash flood warning,' suggesting inconsistencies among recipients countywide. Parts of the county also have spotty cell service or none at all. Others may not have had their phones with them, like the young girls who were staying at Camp Mystic in the unincorporated community of Hunt, where officials say at least 27 campers and staff members died. Holt, the Kerr County commissioner, said the county judge and sheriff typically must agree on issuing alerts such as a CodeRed. From his perspective, evacuating people on the ground, he said, 'felt like we were all in the fight already, and didn't need necessarily a call out for it.' 'It's not easy for anyone, especially if you live on the river and your own home is flooding and you can't get to the [emergency operations center] because you live on Highway 39, which is the case with a county judge,' Holt added. 'He is caught up in the disaster and trying to respond from home as much as possible.' Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said at a July 5 news conference that he lives along the Guadalupe River and his properties were devastated by the flood. As a city manager, Rice said, 'CodeRed was not on our mind' at around 5 a.m. when evacuations were underway. 'We were actively communicating with emergency responders in the community,' he added. 'It's very tough to say, would that [alert] have been effective?' Hours after the flood, Rice helped establish an emergency operations center at the Hill Country Youth Event Center, where state, county and city officials — including the county judge and sheriff — could coordinate their response. Virdell, the state representative, praised the effort to synchronize local and state operations, noting that two county commissioners worked out of the emergency center while the remaining two assisted with active rescues. 'People know me as sometimes being hard on government, government efficiency. What happened here was one of the most efficient things that I've ever seen between all the agencies working together,' he said. Questions over the timeline of events continued Monday as elected officials in Kerr County and Kerrville held public meetings. 'This flood was impossible to accurately and precisely predict,' Mayor Joe Herring said at the end of the Kerrville City Council meeting. He previously said he was awakened to the flooding by a call from Rice at about 5:30 a.m. and received no emergency alerts that morning. At the Kerr County Commissioners' Court meeting, residents praised the response from emergency crews amid exhaustive search and rescue operations. Kelly, in his first public appearance since the news conferences immediately after the flood, said he would not be answering questions. 'This is not a press conference today,' Kelly said. 'This is a business meeting, and we've got business that we have to do in the midst of this disaster response.' Commissioner Rich Paces said Monday he has received death threats in response to prior actions the county has taken over funding. He clarified that Kerr County received $10 million in federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act, a trillion-dollar Covid relief package signed by President Joe Biden in 2021, but that the money was for a radio system to help with emergency response — not a flood warning system. 'It's sad to see the evil that's out there as well. In the midst of all this beauty,' Paces said, referring to the donations and support. 'You know, I've been getting death threats. Can you imagine, and people cursing us for decisions that we've never had a chance to make? And they're just playing a blame game,' he said. More than a week after the flood, state and local officials said they're focused on recovery operations — including locating the bodies of missing people — rather than identifying any points of weakness in their emergency response. 'Right now I don't want to spend my time having to go back and look at timelines, because our focus is on the operation,' Rice said. Holt said the county likely needs more diversion dams to strip off water in the flood zone, an action that would require signoff from private landowners. And while officials were able to quickly organize an emergency operations center, establishing a permanent one would be a wise long-term solution, he added. He described the need for officials to rehearse for emergency scenarios like flash floods at a single location that's built for that purpose, 'instead of relying on [the Texas Division of Emergency Management] to bring us all together.' Virdell said it's also important to find out whether sirens were useful during the disaster, since people sleeping indoors may not have heard them. One resource that may have helped, he added, is better cellphone service along the river in Hunt. 'I'm going to be requesting that some of the cellphone companies work on putting towers in that area,' he said. 'I think that's going to make a big difference because we didn't have communication with a bunch of the camps.' A spokesperson for the Eastland family, which owns and operates Camp Mystic, said the camp's director, Richard 'Dick' Eastland, who died that day, received a flood warning from the National Weather Service at 1:14 a.m. on his cellphone. He alerted his family via walkie-talkies, the spokesperson said, but it's unclear if the camp had means of communicating with authorities other than cellphones. Eastland was last seen evacuating girls from the Bubble Inn cabin, where the youngest campers were staying. Virdell said he has been looking into whether satellite communication could help generate alerts in coordination with the National Weather Service. However, he noted, even those tools might not have been enough to avert disaster on July 4: 'The general consensus is, everything was done that could be done at that moment.' Aria Bendix and Morgan Chesky reported from Center Point, and Erik Ortiz from New York. This article was originally published on
LeMonde
08-07-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
Deadly floods in Texas put Republicans on the defensive: 'It was an act of God, not the administration'
If only he had known... Three days after catastrophic floods devastated his county, Republican Representative Wes Virdell publicly admitted he regretted voting against a natural disaster response bill introduced in early March in the Texas legislature. The bill, called "HB 13," would have implemented an action plan across all 254 counties in the state. It aimed to improve warning systems where they existed and offered grants to other counties to purchase emergency communications equipment and build radio towers. These precautions were sorely lacking for residents of Kerr County, Virdell's district, when the Guadalupe River overflowed in the middle of the night after torrential rains, sweeping away trailers and people in a torrent of mud. The county had no emergency siren. More than 100 people died, including 28 children spending July at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp established a century ago on the riverbank. More than 10 people are still missing as of Tuesday, July 8. In this staunchly Republican state that prides itself on not charging a state income tax – residents pay only federal tax – the bill, with an estimated cost of $500 million over 10 years, was deemed too expensive for Texas taxpayers. "I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now," Virdell told the Texas Tribune, while noting that, even if adopted, the warning system would not have been in place before early September.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Texas state rep on why he voted against emergency alert bill
Texas Republican State Rep. Wes Virdell, who represents Kerr County, joins NewsNation after facing backlash for voting against a $500 million emergency alert bill. Critics say the system could've helped during last week's deadly Texas floods.
Axios
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Texas state leaders didn't prioritize flood management
As Texas state leaders have prioritized spending on border security and property tax cuts, they have been far more reluctant to fund flood management efforts. Why it matters: Texas leads the nation by a wide margin in flood deaths. More than 1,000 people died in Texas floods from 1959 to 2019, according to an academic analysis, most having occurred in the Hill Country. Local officials in areas like Kerr County have struggled to secure funding for basic warning systems and have instead relied on National Weather Service text alerts and word-of-mouth to alert residents of flooding, rather than costly outdoor siren systems. The big picture: Despite Texas' vulnerability, the state didn't complete a comprehensive statewide assessment of flood risk and solutions until last year. "Planning, in the long term, is going to save lives; it's going to protect people; it's going to reduce misery ... not just in monetary costs but also in human suffering," Reem Zoun, the director of flood planning for the Texas Water Development Board, told members of the board last August. "What we do will not eliminate flooding. If we have large storms, we're still going to flood — but if we work properly and proactively, and have appropriate floodplain management practices, we will see less impact." By the numbers: Though the Texas Water Development Board has identified more than $54 billion in needed flood-control projects, lawmakers have only allocated roughly $669 million so far, the New York Times reported Monday. This year, the Legislature approved $2.5 billion for the Texas Water Fund — used to finance water projects in Texas, including conservation, desalination, and flood mitigation — with the possibility of $1 billion per year over 20 years using sales tax revenue, pending voter approval in November. Lawmakers also passed Senate Bill 1967, expanding projects that can be awarded from the Texas Flood Infrastructure Fund. One key proposal, House Bill 13, would have created a state council to establish a unified disaster response and alert system, but it stalled in the Senate after some Republican lawmakers questioned its cost. The bill would have required the council to consider the use of outdoor warning sirens and implement an emergency alert system. "I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now," state Rep. Wes Virdell, a Republican who represents Kerr County, told the Texas Tribune. Zoom in: In the Hill Country, technological and infrastructure barriers have slowed adoption of modern flood alerts. Kerrville officials explored installing a warning system in 2017 but rejected the idea over its price tag. The county later missed out on a $1 million grant and, as recently as 2023, was still weighing other funding options, according to KXAN. Outdoor emergency sirens may have given people more time to escape, former Kerr County commissioner Tom Moser told the New York Times, but a single siren can cost as high as $50,000. What's next: Gov. Greg Abbott indicated Sunday that he'll include the notification issue on the upcoming special session agenda.
Time of India
07-07-2025
- Climate
- Time of India
Texas flooding: Kerr County said no to alert sirens over cost — now it's facing the consequences
Kerr County Siren System Rejected Over Cost Concerns State Bill to Improve Alerts Failed in Senate Lawmakers Now Rethinking Their Vote Live Events Flash Flood Strikes While Residents Slept No Backup Alert System in Place Governor Acknowledges Need for Change FAQs (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel When the Guadalupe River rose from one foot to over 34 feet in just a few hours, inundating parts of Kerr County in the early morning on Friday while most residents were asleep and by the time many realized what was happening, it was already too late, as per a report. This has led to increased scrutiny about Kerr County's past decisions to reject an outdoor siren alert system because of cost concerns, as reported by Latin Kerr County is located in a flood-prone region of the Texas Hill Country, there were proposals for siren-based warning systems, but they were previously rejected because of the financial burden on local taxpayers, according to the this year, an effort at the state level to improve the emergency communication infrastructure, House Bill 13, failed in the Texas Senate, as reported by Latin Times. Bill 13 was to fund the improved disaster alert systems and provided grants for counties to build infrastructure like sirens and radio towers, as per the READ: Trump's tariffs may split the world into 3 rival blocs — here's where each nation could land But a few lawmakers, like state Rep. Wes Virdell, had voted against it because of its projected $500 million cost, though several now are saying that they would reconsider their stance as flash flooding killed about 82 people statewide, with 68 of them in Kerr County alone, according to Latin Times who were killed were attending camps or camping along the river, and even though mobile alerts were issued via the National Weather Service, many residents are believed to have not seen the warnings because they were issued in the early morning hours, or many even lacked access to mobile devices, as per the READ: Flyers fume as Southwest Airlines shocks passengers with policy changes — key updates you need to know According to the report, only a county-wide siren system could have served as a secondary, audible layer of alert, which Kerr County never implemented. Now the local and state officials are trying to search, conduct rescue operations, and support survivors, as per Latin Gov. Greg Abbott now admitted to the potential value of better alert systems and highlighted that future legislation might address the issue, but he declined to commit to including it in the special session beginning July 21, as reported by Latin READ: Wolfspeed stock soars over 100% after shock CFO appointment — who is Gregor van Issum? The county had considered outdoor sirens in the past but rejected the idea, citing cost rains caused the Guadalupe River to rise over 34 feet in just a few hours, as per Latin Times.
