A flash flood in Texas has become a political issue the same way hurricanes sometimes do. (1 Viewer)

[SamAndreas]

The flood in Texas was almost as bad as the Big Thompson flood was in Colorado back in 1976. Both were caused by about 10 to 11 inches of rain. The death toll in Texas is around 60 people now, in Colorado 76 there were 144 deaths, which is gross.

The New York Times published this and that makes it an official political issue. Oddly enough they lifted the paywall at least for me, you might be able to click and read it as well:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/us/politics/texas-floods-warnings-vacancies.html

The premises is that Trump caused vacancies at the weather forecast office such that those poor folks didn't get a warning, as thus they didn't seek higher ground, as thus they died.

The question is it trumps fault

 

[fooferdoggie]

I dont think this is real. All the news I can find says they were all permitted to come in.

Mexican volunteers rushed in to help after floods in Texas. Some want to continue recovery efforts.

More than two dozen Mexican rescue volunteers and firefighters have been looking for victims and clearing debris along the Guadalupe River. Others were left waiting for visas and humanitarian permits to cross the border.

www.kut.org

 

[MT15]

What has happened is that there were over 20 volunteers that are trained in search and rescue from Mexico City that wanted to help, but only 5 were granted permission to come. This is a specific volunteer group -

“Morales is part of the volunteer-led recovery team International Tlatelolco Azteca Rescue Brigade, which was created after the 1985 earthquake that left thousands dead in Mexico City. The group is better known as “Los Topos,” which translates to “the moles,” because members search for victims after natural disasters.

Los Topos had at least 20 volunteers ready to head to the U.S. to help look for victims along the miles of flood-ravaged areas on the Guadalupe River. Together, they had decades of knowledge from being part of international rescues after earthquakes, volcano eruptions and tsunamis.

But only five Topos made it to Texas. The rest were left waiting for visas or humanitarian permits to enter the U.S.

Residents in Kerr County were doing a different kind of waiting. During the days after the flood, many calls to the Federal Emergency Management agency went unanswered. People started walking the river looking for their loved ones.”

Mexican volunteers rushed in to help after floods in Texas. Some want to continue recovery efforts.

More than two dozen Mexican rescue volunteers and firefighters have been looking for victims and clearing debris along the Guadalupe River. Others were left waiting for visas and humanitarian permits to cross the border.

www.kut.org

I would like to hear the explanation for why more were not allowed to come.

 

[fooferdoggie]

What has happened is that there were over 20 volunteers that are trained in search and rescue from Mexico City that wanted to help, but only 5 were granted permission to come. This is a specific volunteer group -

“

I would like to hear the explanation for why more were not allowed to come.

evil Mexicans of course. but you know hotwheels would have loved to arrest them.

 

[Sendai]

What has happened is that there were over 20 volunteers that are trained in search and rescue from Mexico City that wanted to help, but only 5 were granted permission to come. This is a specific volunteer group -

“Morales is part of the volunteer-led recovery team International Tlatelolco Azteca Rescue Brigade, which was created after the 1985 earthquake that left thousands dead in Mexico City. The group is better known as “Los Topos,” which translates to “the moles,” because members search for victims after natural disasters.

Los Topos had at least 20 volunteers ready to head to the U.S. to help look for victims along the miles of flood-ravaged areas on the Guadalupe River. Together, they had decades of knowledge from being part of international rescues after earthquakes, volcano eruptions and tsunamis.

But only five Topos made it to Texas. The rest were left waiting for visas or humanitarian permits to enter the U.S.

Residents in Kerr County were doing a different kind of waiting. During the days after the flood, many calls to the Federal Emergency Management agency went unanswered. People started walking the river looking for their loved ones.”

Mexican volunteers rushed in to help after floods in Texas. Some want to continue recovery efforts.

More than two dozen Mexican rescue volunteers and firefighters have been looking for victims and clearing debris along the Guadalupe River. Others were left waiting for visas and humanitarian permits to cross the border.

www.kut.org

I would like to hear the explanation for why more were not allowed to come.

In addition to the Los Topos.

“Across the border, other Mexican teams jumped into action. Javier Alvarado, the fire chief in Acuña, Coahuila, made calls July 5 to offer his team’s help.

Fundación 911, a binational nonprofit that works with firefighters on both sides of the border, helped Alvarado's firefighters get humanitarian permits. They drove to the border and in less than 24 hours of that first call, Alvarado and his team of 14 — including his 20-year-old son — were on U.S. soil.

Acuña firefighters hit the ground running. They were under the command of the Mountain Home Fire Department, which had trained them a few months before. Six of their members are part of the Kerr County swift-water rescue team.”

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

The governor, state legislators and local officials here in Texas do not give a fork about the victims, they are in full cover your arse mode. They do this with every tragedy in Texas, whether it's the Uvalde massacre or this. There will be no accountability and the dumb right wing voters of this state will let them slide and not hold them accountable. They will all be reelected and we will have more tragedies in this state. I wouldn't advise anybody move to this state, it's the culmination of right wing run amuck. Just pure incompetence. You add on top of that a horrible federal government response and this is what you get.

I've been telling a friend who lives in Houston that it would be in her best interest to leave, but not by going back to Louisiana.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

That is completely crazy

At first this can't be true when I clicked to start the video, but sure enough right off the bat is the Texas governor confirming it to be true and completely on board with it. Now there's a question of it's authentic or deepfake video.

Here's the thing, even if it's a deepfake, it's really easy to believe it's true, because of everything else Trump, his Republicans and ICE have done and said.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

Yeah, this didn’t happen.

That would mean the video of the governor is a deepfake. I can't find anything that says if it was a deepfake or not. Do you have a link to a credible source that says it's a deepfake?

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

In addition to the Los Topos.

Are you quoting from MT15's linked source?

 

[fooferdoggie]

That would mean the video of the governor is a deepfake. I can't find anything that says if it was a deepfake or not. Do you have a link to a credible source that says it's a deepfake?

no they just spliced that part into the fake part. hotwheels was referring to the o0ens that got turned back. this has been added to the post.

Readers added context they thought people might want to know


This is AI misinformation The unedited 45 minute press meeting with Gov. Abbot notably does not mention the Mexican volunteers at allThe tiktok account appears to be a bot account with the handle @user876153022127

 

[MT15]

Are you quoting from MT15's linked source?

I don’t know what he’s doing. Yes, there were others allowed in, has nothing to do with the post I made or the question I was asking. They could have used all the help they could get, so why deny those?

 

[Sendai]

I don’t know what he’s doing. Yes, there were others allowed in, has nothing to do with the post I made or the question I was asking. They could have used all the help they could get, so why deny those?

Just providing facts.

 

[MT15]

Just providing facts.

Why do you respond to my post to do it then? What is your reason to make it a reply if you are just putting facts out there.

 

[Sendai]

Why do you respond to my post to do it then? What is your reason to make it a reply if you are just putting facts out there.

Because your post was missing those facts.

 

[MT15]

Because your post was missing those facts.

My post was about one team only, I said as much and the link I provided had all the information.

I said I am talking about one team only. Yet you felt the need to jump in and insert yourself. Does your arrogance ever give you pause, I’m curious?

 

[Sendai]

My post was about one team only, I said as much and the link I provided had all the information.

I said I am talking about one team only. Yet you felt the need to jump in and insert yourself. Does your arrogance ever give you pause, I’m curious?

the first line in my response

“In addition to the Los Topos.”

It was simply further information about the assistance from Mexico. Nothing more.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

Because your post was missing those facts.

Your post didn't provide a link to your source and you didn't specify if you were quoting from someone else's linked source. Putting something in " " doesn't make it a verified fact. It just makes it something you said that you put in quotation marks. "Anyone can do that." See?

 

[fooferdoggie]

Proving once again, republicans and Christians don't care about their people.​

Texas Lawmakers Largely Ignored Recommendations Aimed at Helping Rural Areas Like Kerr County Prepare for Flooding​

Sixteen months had passed since Hurricane Harvey tore through the Texas coast in August 2017, killing more than 80 people and flattening entire neighborhoods. And when Texas lawmakers gathered in Austin for their biennial session, the scale of the storm’s destruction was hard to ignore.

Legislators responded by greenlighting a yearslong statewide initiative to evaluate flood risks and improve preparedness for increasingly frequent and deadly storms. “If we get our planning right on the front end and prevent more damage on the front end, then we have less on the back end,” Charles Perry, a Republican senator from Lubbock who chairs a committee overseeing environmental issues, said at the time.

In the years that followed, hundreds of local officials and volunteers canvassed communities across Texas, mapping out vulnerabilities. The result of their work came in 2024 with the release of Texas’ first-ever state flood plan.

Their findings identified nearly $55 billion in proposed projects and outlined 15 key recommendations, including nine suggestions for legislation. Several were aimed at aiding rural communities like Kerr County, where flash flooding over the Fourth of July weekend killed more than 100 people. Three are still missing.

But this year, lawmakers largely ignored those recommendations.

Instead, the legislative session that ended June 2 was dominated by high-profile battles over school vouchers and lawmakers’ decision to spend $51 billion to maintain and provide new property tax cuts, an amount nearly equal to the funding identified by the Texas Water Development Board, a state agency that has historically overseen water supply and conservation efforts.

Although it had been only seven years since Hurricane Harvey, legislators now prioritized the state’s water and drought crisis over flooding needs.

Legislators allocated more than $1.6 billion in new revenue for water infrastructure projects, only some of which would go toward flood mitigation. They also passed a bill that will ask voters in November to decide whether to approve $1 billion annually over the next two decades that would prioritize water and wastewater over flood mitigation projects. At that pace, water experts said that it could take decades before existing mitigation needs are addressed — even without further floods.

Even if they had been approved by lawmakers this year, many of the plan’s recommendations would not have been implemented before the July 4 disaster. But a ProPublica and Texas Tribune analysis of legislative proposals, along with interviews with lawmakers and flood experts, found that the Legislature has repeatedly failed to enact key measures that would help communities prepare for frequent flooding.

Such inaction often hits rural and economically disadvantaged communities hardest because they lack the tax base to fund major flood prevention projects and often cannot afford to produce the data they need to qualify for state and federal grants, environmental experts and lawmakers said.

Texas Lawmakers Largely Ignored Recommendations Aimed at Helping Rural Areas Like Kerr County Prepare for Flooding

Texas lawmakers’ inaction on flood prevention often hits rural and economically disadvantaged communities the hardest, experts said.

www.propublica.org

 

[Optimus Prime]

David Richardson, the acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), on Wednesday defended his agency’s handling of recent deadly floods in Texas, claiming the response was a “model” for “how disasters should be handled”.

The comment came as Richardson faced accusations that the response to the floods was botched, characterized by ignorance and carelessness.

“This wasn’t just incompetence. It wasn’t just indifference. It was both,” Greg Stanton, a Democratic representative from Arizona, told Richardson at the House transportation and infrastructure committee hearing. “And that deadly combination likely cost lives.”


The hearing followed a slew of reports saying Richardson was nowhere to be found during the flood. Earlier, the acting director, who has no previous experience in disaster management, reportedly said he was unaware that hurricane season exists in the US – something the White House later said was a “joke”.……

Fema director defends Texas flood response as ‘model’ for disasters

David Richardson’s comments follow claims of federal agency’s ‘incompetence’ and inaction during fatal floods

www.theguardian.com