A flash flood in Texas has become a political issue the same way hurricanes sometimes do. (2 Viewers)

[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

 

[faceman]

I wonder how long till ICE shows up? I can see that happening after showing up Trump. of course, bidens fault somehow.

It didn't take very long. How some people believe what comes out of his mouth is beyond me. He's
obsessed with Biden.

'100-year catastrophe': Trump deflects blame, calls Texas flash flood 'Biden setup' as toll nears 80

Speaking on Sunday, President Donald Trump brushed aside criticism that federal budget cuts to weather, and emergency agencies had worsened the disaster. He instead claimed the situation was a "Biden setup," despite having been in office for around six months.

www.wionews.com

Speaking on Sunday, President Donald Trump brushed aside criticism that federal budget cuts to weather, and emergency agencies had worsened the disaster. As questions grow about why the public was not warned sooner or why people were not evacuated from the area known to be popular with campers, Trump sought to deflect the blame and claimed that the situation was a "Biden setup". "That was not our setup," Trump said when asked about warnings that failed to reach campers in time. He claimed the situation was a "Biden setup," despite having been in office for around six months.

 

[MT15]

From the NYT article I posted, it’s clear that the 2 main closest offices for weather warnings were seriously understaffed. Local officials weren’t properly proactive either, but in fairness to them the federal employees who might have followed up with them were gone, fired or took the DOGE buyout and never replaced.

That he blamed it on Biden is the most despicable cowardly response imaginable.

 

[longtime lurker]

Kristi Noem 'Bragging' About Using FEMA Funds for 'Alligator Alcatraz' Resurfaces After Deadly Texas Flood

As Texans mourn the loss of life from devastating July 4 floods, backlash grows over Kristi Noem's decision to use FEMA funds on "Alligator Alcatraz."

www.latintimes.com

 

[GrandAdmiral]

It didn't take very long. How some people believe what comes out of his mouth is beyond me. He's
obsessed with Biden.

'100-year catastrophe': Trump deflects blame, calls Texas flash flood 'Biden setup' as toll nears 80

Speaking on Sunday, President Donald Trump brushed aside criticism that federal budget cuts to weather, and emergency agencies had worsened the disaster. He instead claimed the situation was a "Biden setup," despite having been in office for around six months.

www.wionews.com

Speaking on Sunday, President Donald Trump brushed aside criticism that federal budget cuts to weather, and emergency agencies had worsened the disaster. As questions grow about why the public was not warned sooner or why people were not evacuated from the area known to be popular with campers, Trump sought to deflect the blame and claimed that the situation was a "Biden setup". "That was not our setup," Trump said when asked about warnings that failed to reach campers in time. He claimed the situation was a "Biden setup," despite having been in office for around six months.

Last I checked, I haven't made 50 yet, and I'm seeing too many of these 100-year catastrophes...

 

[fooferdoggie]

Kristi Noem 'Bragging' About Using FEMA Funds for 'Alligator Alcatraz' Resurfaces After Deadly Texas Flood

As Texans mourn the loss of life from devastating July 4 floods, backlash grows over Kristi Noem's decision to use FEMA funds on "Alligator Alcatraz."

www.latintimes.com

And these same idiots accused FEMA and such of giving money to ilegals. they are doing it now in a roundabout method.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

It didn't take very long. How some people believe what comes out of his mouth is beyond me. He's
obsessed with Biden.

'100-year catastrophe': Trump deflects blame, calls Texas flash flood 'Biden setup' as toll nears 80

Speaking on Sunday, President Donald Trump brushed aside criticism that federal budget cuts to weather, and emergency agencies had worsened the disaster. He instead claimed the situation was a "Biden setup," despite having been in office for around six months.

www.wionews.com

Speaking on Sunday, President Donald Trump brushed aside criticism that federal budget cuts to weather, and emergency agencies had worsened the disaster. As questions grow about why the public was not warned sooner or why people were not evacuated from the area known to be popular with campers, Trump sought to deflect the blame and claimed that the situation was a "Biden setup". "That was not our setup," Trump said when asked about warnings that failed to reach campers in time. He claimed the situation was a "Biden setup," despite having been in office for around six months.

I don't think Trump's obsession with Biden has anything to do with Biden personally. I think it's solely because Biden challenged him and then went on to beat him in 2020. Anyone that challenges or beats Trump at anything gets a lifetime of grudge and attempted retribution from Trump. This is why I believe that.

Did Richard Branson Say Trump Spent a 2-Hour Lunch Speaking of Revenge?

The Virgin Group founder wrote that Donald Trump vowed to "spend the rest of his life destroying five people" who had declined to help him.

www.snopes.com

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

Kristi Noem 'Bragging' About Using FEMA Funds for 'Alligator Alcatraz' Resurfaces After Deadly Texas Flood

As Texans mourn the loss of life from devastating July 4 floods, backlash grows over Kristi Noem's decision to use FEMA funds on "Alligator Alcatraz."

www.latintimes.com

Thumbs up for it resurfacing. Mad emoji for it happening.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

Last I checked, I haven't made 50 yet, and I'm seeing too many of these 100-year catastrophes...

It's only happening, because you're looking. If you don't look, then you won't see it so it won't be happening anymore. That's Trump's philosophy. I bet he pulled his sheets over his head a lot when he was a child.

 

[SamAndreas]

Last I checked, I haven't made 50 yet, and I'm seeing too many of these 100-year catastrophes...

I just brought up another 100 year cycle event in another thread here. MAGA is a 100 year cycle event, last time, 100 years ago MAGA was called the KKK

When I say 100 years I mean exactly 100 years, the KKK took over Colorado between 1924 and 1926.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Why exactly so many people drowned in the terrible Independence Day floods that swept through Texas’s Hill Country will probably have multiple explanations that take a while to obtain.

But it’s 2025, and people want answers immediately, and lots of people seized on stories blaming the National Weather Service (NWS).

There were two opposing reasons to blame this vital government service.

For local and state authorities, blaming a branch of the federal government was a way of avoiding culpability themselves.

And for a whole lot of people who deplore the Trump/Doge cuts to federal services, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, the idea that the NWS failed served to underscore how destructive those cuts are.

Many of them found confirmation in a New York Times story that ran with the sub-headline: Some experts say staff shortages might have complicated forecasters’ ability to coordinate responses with local emergency management officials.

Might have is not did. Complicated is not failed.

It’s a speculative piece easily mistaken for a report, and its opening sentence is: “Crucial positions at the local offices of the National Weather Service were unfilled as severe rainfall inundated parts of Central Texas on Friday morning, prompting some experts to question whether staffing shortages made it harder for the forecasting agency to coordinate with local emergency managers as floodwaters rose.”

A casual reader could come away thinking that staffing shortages had had consequences. But if you give the airily innuendo-packed sentence more attention, you might want to ask who exactly the anonymous experts were and whether there’s an answer to their questions.

Did it actually make it harder, and did they actually manage to do this thing even though it was harder, or not? Did they coordinate with local emergency managers?

The piece continues: “The staffing shortages suggested a separate problem, those former officials said,” and “suggested” sounds like we’re getting an interpretation of what these anonymous sources think might have happened or been likely to happen, rather than what actually did.

Suggestions are not facts. Likelihoods are not actualities. Eventually we get to a named source: “A spokeswoman for the National Weather Service, Erica Grow Cei, did not answer questions from The New York Times about the Texas vacancies, including how long those positions had been open and whether those vacancies had contributed to the damage caused by the flooding.”

In other words, there’s no answer to the suggestions and questions and intimations.

Nevertheless, a lot of readers gathered the impression that this was not speculation aired by unnamed experts but confirmation that the NWS had failed.

One prominent public figure with three quarters of a million BlueSky followers shared the New York Times piece with this note: “The United States government is no longer able to protect us from real hazards, such as flash floods, because it’s shifting funds to fake hazards, such as a non-existent immigrant crime wave.”………

Did National Weather Service cuts lead to the Texas flood disaster? We don’t know | Rebecca Solnit

We all need to be careful about how we get information and reach conclusions – especially now

www.theguardian.com

 

[bird]

Chip Roy doing Chip Roy things…

'You need fewer bureaucrats': Chip Roy uses TX flood as excuse to cut government

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) argued that the government should be cut in response to the deadly flooding in Texas over the weekend.In a Sunday interview on Fox News, host Lisa Boothe asked Roy if there was "blame to be assigned" for the deaths of more than 50 people."Yeah, I mean, in classic Washington...

www.rawstory.com

 

[coldseat]

I wonder how long till ICE shows up? I can see that happening after showing up Trump. of course, bidens fault somehow.

IDK, but clean up is going to be a lot harder without illegal aliens. And they're not going to show up in the Republican area with the threat of deportation. Clean up is going to be a lot slower and a lot more expensive. That area will be trashed for a while.

 

[coldseat]

It didn't take very long. How some people believe what comes out of his mouth is beyond me. He's
obsessed with Biden.

'100-year catastrophe': Trump deflects blame, calls Texas flash flood 'Biden setup' as toll nears 80

Speaking on Sunday, President Donald Trump brushed aside criticism that federal budget cuts to weather, and emergency agencies had worsened the disaster. He instead claimed the situation was a "Biden setup," despite having been in office for around six months.

www.wionews.com

Speaking on Sunday, President Donald Trump brushed aside criticism that federal budget cuts to weather, and emergency agencies had worsened the disaster. As questions grow about why the public was not warned sooner or why people were not evacuated from the area known to be popular with campers, Trump sought to deflect the blame and claimed that the situation was a "Biden setup". "That was not our setup," Trump said when asked about warnings that failed to reach campers in time. He claimed the situation was a "Biden setup," despite having been in office for around six months.

As usual, dumb arse doesn't know what he's talking about. This is probably more like a 500-year flood event given the amount of rain dropped and the time in which it occurred. In any case, in engineering it is well known that with climate change our modeling for floods is very outdated. We normally design structures for 100-year flood events, for critical structures we also design for 500-year flood events. We are getting 100-year flood events on the regular now. And 500-year flood events much more often.

 

[fooferdoggie]

if it helps people, it is always too expensive for republicans.​

​

Texas officials scrapped ‘Flash Flood Alley’ warning system before 27 killed at Camp Mystic — because it was too expensive​

Texas officials scrapped ‘Flash Flood Alley’ warning system before 27 killed at Camp Mystic — because it was too expensive

Officials in Kerr County, Texas — where 27 campers and counselors at a Christian summer camp were killed in catastrophic flooding — had discussed installing a flood warning system along…

nypost.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Hope they're ready because these will be the questions after every natural disaster from now on

Did all the NOAA cuts affect warnings about this disaster?

Did FEMA cuts affect the response to this disaster?

 

[Dragon]

Hope they're ready because these will be the questions after every natural disaster

Did all the NOAA cuts affect warnings about this disaster?

Did FEMA cuts affect the response to this disaster?

When mexican first responders arrives before FEMA I'd say it is a clear YES!

 

[coldseat]

The reason for the extreme loss of life in this flood is that you have Republican control at all 3 levels of government in this area. When that's the case, ignorance and incompetency is what truly reign. Republican's do not believe in a competent, functioning government. They believe in and effectuate a dysfunctional government so that they can profit off of it and have their draconian controls over people they dislike. These are the results that the people of that area largely voted for. It's truly sad, but until people stop voting Republican, we're going to keep getting these tragedies all over the country.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noemasked her social media followers to pick which portrait of her on horseback they prefer, leading some social media users to accuse her of horsing around on Instagram amid a disaster in Texas.

Noem — known online as ‘ICE Barbie’ for her role in the federal government — is now cosplaying as what the Daily Beast described as ‘Cowgirl Barbie’ after she posted her three potential official portraits as South Dakotagovernor. She served as governor from 2019 to 2025.

“Which one do you like for the official Governor’s portrait to hang in the South Dakota State Capitol?” she posted on Instagram Monday. “Thank you David Uhl!”

The first image features Noem, dressed in a collared white shirt and matching white pants, looking pensively to the side as she poses on horseback.

The second shows Noem dramatically riding in full stride in white fringe pants and a gray zip hoodie with a furry hood, her silver earring blown by the breeze.

The third captures Noem with her hands crossed atop her dark jeans as her gaze focuses on something off to the side.……

‘Ice Barbie’ Noem ripped for asking fans to choose a favorite horseback portrait

As the search and rescue efforts in Texas continue, the Homeland Security Secretary asked her Instagram audience to choose which portrait of her they like best

www.independent.co.uk