People who lost everything describe leaving homes and express anger at poor preparedness and officials who seemed to shirk responsibility
As Texas marshals a formidable response to the flash floods that have already killed dozens, questions are now being posed about warnings that were given on Thursday and early Friday about the severity of the approaching storm and the co-ordination between local officials and the National Weather Service.
New flood alerts were issued for Texas “hill country” on Sunday, prompting rescue services to suspend the search for missing people, including at least 11 from Camp Mystic, the summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River hard hit by Friday’s flash flood.
At an early evening press briefing, Kerr county authorities said they were suspending the search and evacuating first responders from the river valley. They confirmed that 68 had died there, including 28 children. Not all have been identified, with officials still examining the bodies of 18 adults and 10 children.
This area is prone to flooding, according to scientists. This is when floods happen, according to scientists. Forecasters sent flood warnings hours in advance, based on the data.
Officials did not pass the word along. Massively fucking stupid thing to do. Waiting 4 hours and then you post to social media?
Parents had their kids staying in camps “without technology.” In flood lands, during flood season. Massively stupid thing to do. I mean how fucked in the head are these parents? They put their kids directly in harms way, took away their communication, and now many are dead.
I mean how fucked in the head are these parents? They put their kids directly in harms way, took away their communication, and now many are dead.
I mean, that’s just the free market at work. If they had done their research, they would have sent their daughters to a different camp that wouldn’t have flooded. No need for the government to be involved at all.
(Hope the /s isn’t needed)
Good thing Texas Republicans killed the bill that would have expanded the warning systems.
Also actively took funding from existing systems that would warn of weather problems.
Between this and blaming wind turbines for their massive power outage a few years ago (instead of, you know, actually exploring the real cause), it seems Texas has a hate-hate relationship with weather and general preparedness.
This is what happens when vital weather data is kept from forecasters and the weather service gets its funding shredded
Harumph. That was because something something Biden and “old technology”, obvs.
Team Taco is only trying to make things more “efficient” and get rid of the (repeat after me, in a mindless drone), “waste, fraud, and abuse”! Team Taco is only trying to clean up the mess of the Biden administration who was letting this go on for far too long and was the worst President in history with the worst economy ever [1], yadda yadda. We should all be thanking Taco right now for his glorious plans for our future…
[1] Which Taco is going to keep repeating forever even if we could see the economic data ourselves under Biden. It’s about repeating the big lie over and over and over. Sadly, many on the left help him in this…
saving so much damn $$$ you’ll be sick of saving so much damn $$$…
No, warnings were sent out by forecasters. It was hours before officials passed the word along.
The officials who let people die are saying it’s because funding was cut. Trump cut funding, so that’s why they waited 4 hours before posting the warnings to Facebook? Ok.
Yes but NO ONE could have PREDICTED that
You could say a lack of funds wasn’t in the… forecast.
Saw an interview of a guy whose house had like 5 feet of water…
He swam out a broken window, climbed on an electrical box but couldn’t make it to the roof so he held on for 3 hours.
He said the phone alarm that there was a warning came thru while he was already outside clinging to the side of his house.
Hope he sees the connection in his voting habits
You know they won’t. They dont want to make it “political.”
Now’s not the right time for this conversation.
Or tomorrow, or the next day. In fact let’s just keep our heads in the sand and keep doing nothing!
Over 200 people died in winter storm Uri, we had the Uvakde shooting, and then 2022 had insanely low turnout (like 45%) and the Republicans held onto control at all levels in the state. This is another absolutely tragic loss of life, but I’d be surprised if it impacts their votes (Abbott won Uvalde county).
it’s clear that no one can rely on help or warning from “officials” anymore. everyone needs to get themselves prepared for whatever weather disaster might happen in their area. supplies, bug out bags, escape plans–all of that
western NC is still trying to recover from the hurricane last september, with state legislature (all R) bickering and not passing the budget
This has always been the far right endgame. They don’t want people to rely on government, so they make government unreliable. Citizens become more exploitable, and thus more profitable.
it’s clear that no one can rely on help or warning from “officials” anymore. everyone needs to get themselves prepared for whatever weather disaster might happen in their area. supplies, bug out bags, escape plans–all of that
This is the Libertarian wet dream.
Every dumbfuck Dale Gribble that distrusted the Big Gubbermint couldn’t get normal Americans to buy into their Galt’s Gulch bullshit. Now that they’ve captured the government with the likes of Taco, they are going to FORCE normal Americans to join them in their stupid dystopian fantasies in Galt’s Gulch.
We all live in Galt’s Gulch now and I guess it’s prone to flash floods.
Can the bears just show up already? (I’ll take any opportunity I can get to expose more people to this hilarious, and informative, cautionary tale):
It’s a good book.
Every time the dumbass Texans get fucked by their representatives the question their leadership for about a month from what I’ve seen 😂 then back to business as usual. they love the free market so much I’ll bet they still haven’t winterized their infrastructure after that cold snap that destroyed a bunch of people’s houses. They probably don’t even think about it anymore, guess we will find out the next time that it happens
the leaderships usually flee the state, and only come back after the damage is done or it become severe.
There’s consequences to our actions… and our votes. Oh well at least it was Christian girls in the middle of Texas. No harm done.
Children died. Children who only knew what they were indoctrinated into. It’s horrible no matter how you look at it, and hand waving it away because they’re kids of people who are likely to be shitty is just as horrible. Shame.
Yep. Lots of kids (and parents) only kind of tacitly take part in such activities/groups, because it’s something fun to do. They might not buy into very much or even any of the religious part…
hand waving it away because they’re kids
Seems I heard recently that, “Everyone dies” from the same folks who hand wave it away with “thoughts and prayers”, when it is school kids who die.
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Remember when there was a natural disaster on the East Coast and when there were fires in California and Texans said it was God’s judgment?
I do.
It is almost like dumb shit Republicans are going to get you killed.
It’s like a death cult where they’re in a cult and their biggest objective is death
And this is when the government is just starting to strip out everything it used to do for the benefit of the people.
SO MANY people are going to die needlessly in the coming years.
What do Republicans (fascists) actually want or even do? Besides raising taxes, expanding military budget, war, dismantling institutions and programs, and rounding up immigrants. Crazy people vote for them, they literally dismantle everything to line their pocketbooks. They have no actual policy.
Furthermore, they don’t think there is anything you can do about weather/climate change, school and mass shootings, housing, education, healthcare, etc. Anytime some major event or catastrophe happens… “these things just happen, nothing you can do about it! Thoughts and prayers! Let’s not make it political.”
And then we just move on, with no actions being taken at all while everything around us just gets worse. Yes you CAN do things to help mitigate weather disasters and school shootings and all the rest. If they don’t think there is a way why are they in leadership positions? That’s the hypocrisy.
What do Republicans (fascists) actually want or even do?
To be feared. To exercise each and every whim with absolute authority and no consequences.
Outside of that, the usual. Chicks, football, cocaine, whoopin’ and a-hollerin’.
They want to own everything, even the people.
Theyre living in their power fantasy and are willing to destroy everything to gain more of it.
Republican ideology is hierarchical. There is the bottom layer of voters who votes for Republican politicians because of bigotry and hatred. Thenre there is the upper layer which consists of Republican politicians who uses bigotry to convincing ignorant morons to vote for them so they can grift in peace (and let their oligarch buddies grift alongside them).
So it depends on who you ask in this hierarchy. The bottom rung wants outgroups to suffer, because they think that means they will not suffer. The upper rung just wants to grift, and ignorant bigoted voters lets them do that. Undermining democracy, faking elections and disenfrachising political opponents of course lets them grift for much longer, so authoritarianism is a natural outcome of this.
I just read a headline about how accurately these floods were forecast. How did they not know? Is Facebook how people get flood warnings?
Thats what happens when DOGE fires a bunch of NOAA meteorologists.
When nobody pays taxes, and the national shit gets gutted, your state doesn’t function properly.
Texas keeps being surprised by weather.
Have the death you voted for.
