Texas Floods, Forecast Failures, and the Cost of Political Choices
RebelAI | July 2025
What happened in Texas was tragic.
At least 67 families are now mourning loved ones lost to the floodwaters that tore through the Hill Country on July 4th. Eleven girls from Camp Mystic are still missing, their young lives hanging in the balance as search and rescue teams—now aided by firefighters from Mexico—work around the clock in the churning waters of the Guadalupe River.
And it’s impossible not to feel a deep, aching sorrow for the lives lost and the families shattered by these floods.
But it’s also impossible to ignore what helped make this disaster worse.
Forecasting fell short. Warnings came too late. Evacuations didn’t happen in time.
Not because of incompetence. Because of deliberate policy choices.
đź”» What We Now Know:
Since January, the National Weather Service has reduced its workforce by nearly 600 people as a direct result of staffing cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), part of Trump’s broader mission to gut federal agencies.
Critical positions at the NWS San Antonio station remain unfilled—some impacted by DOGE-driven cuts—potentially affecting the service’s ability to effectively coordinate with local officials during emergencies exactly like this one.
The forecast began to look ominous Thursday afternoon, with a flood watch issued at 1:18 p.m. predicting up to 7 inches of isolated rainfall. But the reality was far worse.
Six to 10 inches of rainfall fell in about three hours—several months’ worth of rain in a single morning. The Guadalupe River rose 26 feet within 45 minutes, turning peaceful campsites into death traps.
The infrastructure for accurate, timely warnings was systematically dismantled. Key meteorological positions eliminated. Resources redirected. All in service of an ideology that views government expertise as expendable—until the moment you need it to save your life.
⚠️ The Human Cost of Efficiency
“The relationship between emergency managers, media, and [the] NWS is cultivated over years. It is a three-legged stool that can age well as long as it’s maintained with good comms and practice”, explained one meteorologist. That three-legged stool? It’s been deliberately kicked over.
We’re not talking about abstract budget numbers or bureaucratic inefficiency. We’re talking about the specific expertise needed to keep people alive during extreme weather events that climate change is making increasingly common and severe.
Heavy downpours like the one that sent floodwaters into Texas Hill Country summer camps are expected to grow more common. This wasn’t a once-in-a-century fluke—it was a preview of our new reality. And we’re facing it with a hobbled weather service and a federal government that has actively chosen to prioritize ideological purity over human safety.
đź’” Not Every Death Was Avoidable. But Many Were.
With full staffing at weather stations. With complete satellite coverage and functioning radar networks. With leadership that values scientific expertise over political optics. With warning systems that haven’t been gutted in the name of “efficiency.”
The girls at Camp Mystic deserved better than a forecast that underestimated the danger by half. The families swept away in their cars deserved emergency managers who had the resources and personnel to sound the alarm in time. The communities along the Guadalupe River deserved a government that understood that weather prediction isn’t just another line item to be slashed—it’s the difference between life and death.
🗳️ Elections Have Consequences
We won’t gloat. No family—regardless of how they voted—deserves to lose a child to floodwaters. Grief doesn’t discriminate by political affiliation, and neither should our compassion.
But we will say this plainly: Elections have consequences.
The decision to gut the National Weather Service wasn’t made in a vacuum. It was made by an administration that campaigned on dismantling federal agencies, that viewed expertise as elitist, that prioritized tax cuts for the wealthy over the basic infrastructure needed to protect American lives.
Texas officials are now casting blame on the National Weather Service for failing to forecast catastrophic flooding—the same officials who cheered when federal agencies were being “streamlined” and “made efficient.”
This is what “drowning the government in a bathtub” looks like in practice. It looks like actual drowning.
🌊 The Reckoning
We are living with the consequences of these choices in real time—in floodwaters that rose faster than anyone expected, in warnings that came too late, in families that will never be whole again.
Central Texas sits in what meteorologists call “Flash Flood Alley”—one of the most dangerous regions in the U.S. for flash flooding. This disaster was not unforeseeable. It was inevitable. What was unforeseeable was the decision to face it with a deliberately crippled weather service and a federal government that treats disaster preparation as optional.
The missing girls at Camp Mystic are still out there somewhere, their families clinging to hope as the hours tick by. The families of the 67 confirmed dead are beginning the impossible process of grieving and rebuilding. The survivors are asking how this happened, how the warnings failed, how the river could rise so fast with so little notice.
We owe them answers. We owe them accountability. And we owe them a commitment that this will never happen again.
Not just thoughts and prayers. Not just temporary aid and media attention. Real change.
A fully funded weather service. Emergency management that prioritizes people over politics. Leadership that understands that expertise isn’t elitist—it’s essential.
The floodwaters will recede. The news cycle will move on. But the families destroyed by this disaster will carry its weight forever.
We owe it to them—and to ourselves—to remember that every vote matters, every election has consequences, and every policy choice is ultimately a choice about who lives and who dies.
This is what accountability looks like. This is what the stakes are. This is why we can’t afford to get it wrong again.
The search continues for the missing girls of Camp Mystic. Our thoughts are with their families and all those affected by this preventable tragedy.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/05/nx-s1-5457759/texas-floods-timeline
https://time.com/7300310/texas-floods-national-weather-service-warnings-debate-staffing-cuts
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/texas-floods-live-updates-rcna217104
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