--:-- [Sound of a gentle morning atmosphere]
--:-- Noel King: Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning. Relax, relax, relax. In Texas, officials are facing hard questions about why so many people were in the path of floods that inundated parts of Kerr County this weekend.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: As of 8:30 this morning, we recovered 75 deceased bodies here in Kerr County, including 48 adults and 27 children. Many of the victims were children because that area is home to a bunch of summer camps.
--:-- Noel King: Someone told me that when they were walking around campgrounds that they saw that cabin 5, their wall had fallen over. And my door flooded away. What went so wrong here? Did the weather alert system fail? Did cuts to the National Weather Service leave critical jobs unstaffed?
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: We've got some answers coming up on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from BetterHelp. Let me tell you a true story. Last weekend, I got an email from a listener who wanted to discuss their problems with me. And I said, look, I don't think that this is about me personally. At least I hope it's not. Why don't you try BetterHelp.com slash Explained? Absolute truth.
--:-- Noel King: As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. The one is not me, guys. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash explain. That's BetterHelp.com slash explain.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Support for this show comes from Macy's. Layering is an art form. All it takes is a bit of intention, style, and of course, the perfect cold weather staples. So find the perfect look for you with the help of Macy's Fall Fashion Guide, your one-stop shop for fall's latest trends and must-haves, curated by their experts.
--:-- Noel King: From leather to denim to cozy knits, find everything you need to piece together your new fall look. Explore the Macy's Fall Guide for yourself and shop in-store or online at Macy's.com. You're listening to Today Explained.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: I'm Dominic Anthony Walsh, I'm a senior reporter with Houston Public Media, the NPR station in Houston. It seems like the big story now is the search for people who are still missing. Where do things stand there?
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, so we know how many children were at some of the popular summer camps. For example, Camp Mystic had 750 kids. The majority are accounted for. But we don't know exactly how many people were camping along the river.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: So officials have been reluctant to estimate the total number of missing people. They said over the weekend that more than 850 had been rescued. And first responders, of course, have discovered dozens of bodies.
--:-- Noel King: Officials are holding out hope that they'll still find people alive. But I mean, they're really hoping against hope. It's been, as we're speaking, more than 72 hours since the flooding.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: At some point, this will turn from search and rescue to recovery. What does search and rescue actually look like for people who aren't there? What is happening on the ground?
--:-- Noel King: Yeah. I mean, so if you drive or walk along the Guadalupe River, you will see and hear helicopters flying overhead, swift water rescue boats behind trucks loading into the river.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: So people on foot, people in boat, people in helicopters. Authorities also have drones in the air. So a lot of activity on the ground.
--:-- Noel King: So you have, from what I'm seeing, you have official first responders, but you also have people looking for their family members?
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Yes, and local authorities have asked people to not self-deploy. Understandably, some people are very anxious to find their loved ones.
--:-- Noel King: So we absolutely have seen people just walking along the river. It gets dangerous. We had a flash flood warning in effect last night.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: And authorities have basically said that folks self-deploying complicates their work, and they have encouraged people to not do that.
--:-- Noel King: It's not that we think we don't need any help. It's that we want to make sure everyone helping is doing the job that we need, where we need it, and when we need it, and we have the ability to communicate with them.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: What is the latest on these children from Camp Mystic who are missing, these girls?
--:-- Noel King: Right. There were 750 girls at this nearly century-old summer camp right on the river. Camp Mystic this morning confirmed that 27 campers and counselors have been found dead.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: The camp director, Dick Eastland, was found dead on Saturday, reportedly near the bodies of three girls.
--:-- Noel King: Initially, they were saying 27 people were missing. That statement this morning says 27 people were dead. So the majority of them at this point are accounted for.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Let's go back to the early hours of July 4th when the flooding started. What were the warnings like? What advance notice did people get?
--:-- Noel King: Yeah, the timeline starts as early as Wednesday. That's when the state's emergency management division mobilized swift water rescue teams in anticipation of flooding.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: On Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service issued a flood watch, which is essentially warning that a flood is possible.
--:-- Noel King: That was followed by a flood warning just after midnight, so saying that floods are happening, and after 5 a.m. it announced a flash flood emergency, the highest alert level.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: The Washington Post looked at federal logs of emergency alerts, and it turns out the local government did not issue its first amber alert-style warning until Sunday, so two days after the flooding.
--:-- Noel King: Questions remain about why that wait happened, And the actual timeline of the flooding was just so fast. Between 4 and 6 in the morning, the Guadalupe River rose as much as 30 feet.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: In most segments, that rise happened in less than an hour. That affected homes along the river where residents were shocked awake by the flood waters.
--:-- Noel King: This is a popular area for camping and it was a holiday so the flooding washed away campers and RVs Trees were pulled from their roots cars swept downstream along with an undetermined number of people
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: And the consistent theme I heard from folks was that they just did not have warning They did not know this was coming until the floodwaters hit them.
--:-- Noel King: We lost everything, but we have our lives. It was very difficult to get out of the house. We couldn't push the door open with all the water that just came within five minutes.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: And my neighbor up the hill helped my husband with a rope around his waist. He has Parkinson's. And like many of us, we lost everything inside the home. But we have our lives.
--:-- Noel King: In terms of where the warnings come from, Who is actually pushing those alerts? Is it the National Weather Service? Is it the local government?
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: If I were there and my phone was to sound an alarm, who would it come from?
--:-- Noel King: There are two levels of responsibility, the National Weather Service and the local government.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: The National Weather Service did send alerts in the middle of the night. But according to an analysis by The Washington Post, the local government didn't send any alerts until Sunday.
--:-- Noel King: So significantly after the floodwaters hit. Residents I spoke with said they didn't know what was coming until the floodwaters reached their homes.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: And of course, campers along the river didn't know until they were swept away.
--:-- Noel King: You've been out in the field talking to people who live in this area, including people who are looking for family members. What do you feel like you're hearing again and again? What's sticking with you?
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: So as soon as I got into town, my first stop was the reunification centers and the supply depots. They were together. The reunification centers were also serving as supply depots.
--:-- Noel King: And I spoke with folks dropping off supplies like resident Marissa Baldwin and her son Hudson. They were pulling a cart full of blankets and towels to a supply depot.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Yeah, right now we have blankets and towels. We dropped off non-perishable food earlier.
--:-- Noel King: I heard from them and from other residents time and time again that the small towns along the Guadalupe River form a tight community.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: And so the scale of this destruction hits especially hard. So everyone knows someone that's been affected.
--:-- Noel King: We have friends that are missing, friends that were recovered last night. So everyone's just doing what they can.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Kirk County is home to just over 50,000 people. So everyone knows everyone.
--:-- Noel King: I also spent some time on Sunday in a little neighborhood called Bumblebee Hills.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: We have about 20 homes here at Bumblebee, and they're all devastated, but one house, which is up on the hill. He was our refugee to everyone around here.
--:-- Noel King: When I stopped by, residents and volunteers were scooping out mud and ruined possessions from their homes.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: We did not have flood insurance, and they said they would not cover not one thing.
--:-- Noel King: Folks are still in shock. They're still processing what happened, especially the people who know people who are missing, the people who, you know, lost their homes or had their homes damaged by the floods.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: The mood is somber. Folks are grateful. You know, I heard over and over again, even from the folks who lost their homes, that they're lucky to be alive.
--:-- Noel King: Not everybody is alive. You know, I've been living in Houston since 2021, and we saw three major weather disasters last year.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Each time the community came together, and I saw that same spirit in Kerr County.
--:-- Noel King: I actually found another man from Houston who felt the same way. My name is Donnie Mosher. I'm from Houston.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Who was trapped in his Airbnb without food or water. Local residents took him in.
--:-- Noel King: He said, look, y'all need coffee and you need food. And he gave us directions to his house that said, be there at noon. We're eating.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: And he said it reminds him of the way Houstonians come together after hurricanes.
--:-- Noel King: This is an incredibly, incredibly sad situation, but the way people just kind of took us in and helped us and just made us part of their family, it's just amazing.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: So even though there's this somber mood, there's also this community spirit. People are coming together.
--:-- Noel King: Dominic Anthony Walsh is a senior reporter with Houston Public Media. Dominic, thanks so much for your time.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Thank you, Noel. You can find Dominic's work at HoustonPublicMedia.org. They're doing some great reporting.
--:-- Noel King: Coming up, did President Trump's cuts to the federal workforce play a part in this disaster? We're going to talk to a reporter who's been doing some digging.
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--:-- Noel King: I sometimes wonder how many of you are running businesses out there. I would love to know. Please email me, noelle at king.com.
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--:-- Noel King: This is Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: The mandate of the National Weather Service is a simple one, to protect people and property.
--:-- Noel King: And right now, that agency, which has been subject to cuts by the Trump administration, is taking a lot of flack.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Did Trump's cuts to the National Weather Service cause the situation in Texas? Here's what the information tells us so far.
--:-- Noel King: The state's emergency management chief says the amount of rain that fell was never in the weather service's forecast.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: What happened? Andrew Friedman, a senior reporter covering weather and climate for CNN, has been banging the phones trying to figure out who, if anyone, dropped the ball.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: In this instance, there were two weather forecast offices that were involved.
--:-- Noel King: But the idea behind that is that these are meteorologists who are embedded in these communities, come to know these communities and the idiosyncrasies of their weather, and are better able to warn for inclement weather than, say, somebody just forecasting out of Washington, D.C. or somewhere else.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: So we're talking about two offices in Texas. And what do we know about them? Were they fully staffed?
--:-- Andrew Friedman: The term that I would use is they were adequately staffed. They were staffed to the extent that most offices would be staffed overnight during the night of the horrible, tragic flooding.
--:-- Noel King: They each are missing some employees. In the case of the Austin San Antonio office, they're missing a warning coordination meteorologist and a science and operations officer.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Both of those positions were opened up because people took early retirement under the Trump administration's program to try to get people to reduce the size of the federal government.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: And then the office in San Angelo, Texas, is missing a meteorologist in charge. So that's like the top meteorologist for the office.
--:-- Noel King: These staff cuts in those two particular offices do not seem to have had a major impact or even a very clear impact on the way the Weather Service performed during this event.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: What I think I'm hearing from you, Andrew, is that your reporting does not seem to suggest at this point that the disaster in Texas was caused by the Trump administration cuts.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: You are hearing that right. The missing warning coordination meteorologist in the Austin office, that's the biggest question because that position is somebody who interacts with emergency managers who are then responsible for warning the community.
--:-- Noel King: But when I've talked to sources, they basically are saying it probably did not affect the timeliness of the warnings, the tone of the warnings, which ratcheted up very quickly, as well as how early they caught on to this event possibly taking place.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Do we know why that top meteorologist position in San Angelo was unfilled?
--:-- Andrew Friedman: I don't know specifically offhand. However, there are offices around the country that are without their meteorologist in charge.
--:-- Noel King: The National Weather Service lost about 600 people. They did get hit hard by doge cuts.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Federal workers who were not let go said the afternoon layoffs included meteorologists who do crucial local forecasts in National Weather Service offices across the country.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: It is truly the backbone of all weather forecasting in this country. Every living former NWS director is warning potential funding cuts could lead to needless loss of life.
--:-- Noel King: What's happened with these cuts is they're losing the most experienced people.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: The people who are near retirement age are taking these packages and are leaving. And then you have to train up people who are coming in and they don't have the same level of experience.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: But again, when one looks at the warnings that were issued, when they were issued, There isn't really a smoking gun there.
--:-- Noel King: But there is one point that's really important here. Because the cuts have been so deep around the country, this is a question that's going to come up at every single disaster that takes place.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Because the meteorologists that I've been talking to in the broader community are basically telling me this doesn't seem to be the event that vacancies caused a tragedy.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: But mark my words that that will happen at some point if this isn't addressed.
--:-- Noel King: What are your sources worried about?
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: They're concerned about hurricane season.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: This event actually was the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry and that rained out over inland Texas We also just had Tropical Storm Chantal that made landfall in South Carolina and is causing flooding today and caused flooding over the weekend
--:-- Noel King: So it's just this sense in the community that they're really stretched thin, that people are working longer shifts, people are working six-day weeks.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: We are generating kind of a Swiss cheese weather service. We have holes throughout the weather service now that are not well thought out.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: It is not an ideal situation. And people are worried that there is going to be a time when they miss something.
--:-- Noel King: But this doesn't seem to have been it. When that time comes, when a disaster hits, FEMA is often there to pick up the pieces, to help clear up the wreckage.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: The Trump administration has also made cuts to FEMA.
--:-- Noel King: Do we know how broad those are?
--:-- Andrew Friedman: Yeah, the cuts to FEMA from, you know, reporting done by my colleagues really are quite broad. They really are quite deep.
--:-- Noel King: The administration has talked about getting rid of FEMA after the hurricane season. FEMA's turned out to be a disaster.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: I think we're going to recommend that FEMA go away. However, they pretty much kind of stopped that process as hurricane season came upon us.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: Are you still planning to phase out FEMA?
--:-- Noel King: Well, FEMA is something we can talk about later. But right now they're busy working, so we'll leave it at that.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: So FEMA is active in Texas, but they lost a lot of experienced staff.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: They have a shortage of the people that go out to immediately respond and immediately offer help.
--:-- Noel King: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is losing a fifth of its staff.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: We're talking about a thousand permanent full-time workers that are expected to take the voluntary buyouts.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: These are, of course, part of Doge's latest staff reductions.
--:-- Noel King: I worry a lot about how thin the situation is and the ability to get information across during what could be a very active season.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: These cuts are being made to the National Weather Service, FEMA, in the name of cost savings.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: This will save the federal government money. Does this actually save money?
--:-- Noel King: You know, that's a very good question. I don't know that I can answer that conclusively here.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: I can tell you, though, that there are enormous economic benefits to accurate weather forecasts.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: Studies have shown the savings of billions of dollars with more accurate hurricane track forecasts, for example.
--:-- Noel King: And if you look at the proposals that the administration has put forward for the 2026 budget, they want to actually close every single weather and climate lab that we have in this country.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: So the people who are working on improving flash flood forecasts, the people who are working on improving hurricane forecasts and doing the research that would then lead to the forecast capabilities of tomorrow would be out of a job if that budget were enacted as proposed.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: All right. So your reporting suggests that staffing cuts are not the cause of the disaster in Texas.
--:-- Noel King: But I wonder if you have spoken to people inside the Trump administration who are now going to have to grapple with what occurred and with a popular narrative that says the Trump administration did this by cutting jobs.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Do you think in some way this tragic event makes this real for the Trump administration?
--:-- Andrew Friedman: I think there is an element of that. You actually saw the administration pushing back on social media over the weekend, saying the mainstream media is lying to people by saying it's due to these cuts.
--:-- Noel King: At DHSGov, the mainstream media is deliberately lying about the events leading up to the catastrophic flooding in Texas.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: The National Weather Service executed timely, precise forecasting and warnings, despite unprecedented rainfall overwhelming the region.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: When the mainstream media, myself included, all we're doing is asking the questions that need to be asked and then coming to the conclusion almost universally that the cuts probably were not a significant contributor to this event.
--:-- Noel King: The real problem that I think most weather experts have been pointing to is the so-called last mile problem, which is what happened between the times when the weather service pushed the button to set off emergency alerts on people's phones.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Did they get these warnings? Was there any type of a warning system? What was cell phone coverage like? Okay, what was the wording of the warning? And did it give people actionable information of what to do?
--:-- Andrew Friedman: But yes, this makes it real for the administration. This makes it an accountability issue.
--:-- Noel King: And like I said, I think that's going to keep happening the more you have weather-related disasters.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Andrew Friedman is a senior reporter covering climate and weather for CNN.
--:-- Andrew Friedman: Andrew, thank you so much for your time.
--:-- Noel King: Thank you for having me.
--:-- [Sound of a gentle morning atmosphere]
--:-- Noel King: Denise Guerra and Peter Balanon-Rosen produced today's show.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Jolie Myers edited.
--:-- Noel King: Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christian's daughter are our engineers.
--:-- Dominic Anthony Walsh: Miles Bryan and Gabrielle Burbay checked the facts today.
--:-- Noel King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Thank you.
