And Greed. Greed kills, too.
Per a Thursday CNN report citing four FEMA officials, Noem recently enacted a requirement that DHS expenditures exceeding $100,000 be signed off by her office. As a result, the agency was unable to deploy proactive Urban Search and Rescue squads near anticipated areas of flooding, as it usually would. While state rescue teams sprang into action, “FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets”—and they didn’t receive it until Monday, at which point floodwaters had been raging for over 72 hours.
Texas’s request for aerial imagery to help with search and rescue efforts was also “delayed as it awaited Noem’s approval for the necessary contract,” and, at a FEMA-manned disaster call center, “callers have faced longer wait times as the agency awaited Noem’s approval for a contract to bring in additional support staff.”
Chris Tomlinson in Houston Chronicle (paywall):
Former Kerr County Commissioner Jonathan Letz, who retired in December, knew in 2016 that the flood risk was high and the warning system inadequate. Neighboring Comal County had spent about $300,000 to install a flood warning system with sirens.
“We are very flood-prone. We know that,” Letz told the San Antonio Express-News in 2016. “We have an obligation to look at what we have, especially since we have a warning system out there that may or may not work. If it doesn’t work, we need to get rid of it.”
The Republican leaders in Kerr County, which is relatively wealthy and very conservative, in 2018 chose not to spend less than $1 million to install a system like Comal’s.
The U.S. Geological Survey warned in 2019 that rain would fall faster and harder on the Guadalupe River due to climate change. Scientists compared past rainfall with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite data and global warming statistics and predicted a 20% increase in peak discharges.
The Texas Senate, which Patrick oversees, this year killed House Bill 13, which would have formed a statewide council to develop emergency response systems for the state’s growing number of natural disasters.
State and county officials also ignored more immediate warnings. The privately owned forecaster AccuWeather called out local officials for ignoring them and the National Weather Service.
“The heartbreaking catastrophe that occurred in Central Texas is a tragedy of the worst sort because it appears evacuations and other proactive measures could have been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities had the organizers of impacted camps and local officials heeded the warnings of the government and private weather sources, including AccuWeather,” said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.
The July Fourth Flood reveals a broader problem with conservative politicians ignoring scientists’ warnings of a worsening climate and more extreme weather.
Since the 1990s, climate scientists have predicted that a warming atmosphere would cause extreme rain events. Texans saw one of the most historic examples, Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Dozens of scientists and reporters, including me, warned that rain bombs are the new normal thanks to climate change, and we should prepare.
Since then, similar events have struck around the world: Macedonia in 2016, California in 2017, India in 2018, the Mississippi Basin in 2019, China in 2020, Germany in 2021, Australia in 2022, Vermont in 2023 and Spain in 2024.
After every incident, scientists showed the data proving that none of them would have happened without climate change caused by burning fossil fuels. Any community along a river or a coastline should know by now that the worst storms are on the way, and they need to prepare.
Abbott, Patrick and other GOP leaders deny climate change, choosing to do political favors for the fossil fuel industry. Every appointed state official knows they could be fired for acknowledging global warming, which is why you never hear it discussed at the Public Utility Commission, the Railroad Commission or even the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality.
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Below, pretty good discussion of the conspiratorial distractions that Fox News and others have sought to deploy in the wake of the tragedy.