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Wow. Politico's Take on the Texas Floods Was...Fair?

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  July 07, 2025 6:30 AM

The floods in Central Texas are beyond tragic. It’s the worst weather-related disaster for 2025 thus far. The death toll has surged to almost 80 people, and it’s likely to rise as search and rescue operations find more bodies along the Guadalupe River (via NBC News): 

FLASH FLOODING: Catastrophic flooding struck central Texas on Friday, causing a surge of 20 to 26 feet on the Guadalupe River near Kerrville, leading to widespread damage and washing out roads. 

DOZENS KILLED: The death toll rose to 79 across six counties today. In Kerr County, officials reported 68 deaths — those of 40 adults and 28 children. Officials said 11 children are still missing from Camp Mystic. 

FLASH FLOOD WATCH: The National Weather Service extended the flood watch over much of south-central Texas as several inches of rain are expected for the region today. 

MAJOR DISASTER DECLARATION: President Donald Trump announced he had signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County. The declaration allows first responders to have access to the resources they need as they continue to work on search and recovery efforts. 

The stories are tragic, made even more horrific by the schadenfreude exhibited by liberals, another way for them to cope with being blown out in the last election. Natural disasters are easy pickings for this army of ghoulish anti-Trump clowns who think these incidents prove that the nation voted for the wrong guy. They’re cheering for death and more bodies; we all know it. The rot at the core of the average liberal voter has been well exposed.  

Politico surprisingly had a nuanced take on the disaster, despite criticism being lobbed at the Trump administration over the DOGE cuts and changes to the National Weather Service, all of which are unfounded. Warnings were issued 12 hours before the floods, and NWS had extra staffing during the storms: 

Trump critics fault his administration: Over the last 24 hours, many anti-Trump X users have shared a Texas Tribune article from June 9 about cutbacks at the NWS in Texas ahead of hurricane season — just a small sampling of the federal cuts in the age of DOGE. 

But the reality of this specific situation is nuanced. 

[…] 

From the Texas Tribune’s Paul Cobler: “The NWS forecasting offices were operating normally at the time of the disaster, said Greg Waller, service coordination hydrologist with the NWS West Gulf River Forecast Center in Fort Worth. ‘We had adequate staffing. We had adequate technology,’ Waller said. ‘This was us doing our job to the best of our abilities.’” Fahy tells the Tribune that the current staffing levels were “adequate to issue timely forecasts and warnings before and during the emergency.” 

Adds The Eyewall’s Matt Lanza, a critic of the NWS/NOAA cuts: “In this particular case, we have seen absolutely nothing to suggest that current staffing or budget issues within NOAA and the NWS played any role at all in this event. Anyone using this event to claim that is being dishonest. … In fact, weather balloon launches played a vital role in forecast messaging on Thursday night as the event was beginning to unfold. If you want to go that route, use this event as a symbol of the value NOAA and NWS bring to society, understanding that as horrific as this is, yes, it could always have been even worse.” 

Indeed, the NWS did send out warn officials and residents, including “a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger,” AP’s Sean Murphy and Jim Vertuno report. At 1:18 p.m. on Thursday, the NWS issued an initial flood watch predicting 5-7 inches of rain, kicking off a series of bulletins that “grew increasingly ominous in the early morning hours of Friday,” culminating in an urgent message at 4:03 a.m. warning of “the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life.” 

But aside from cellphone messages, there wasn’t much of a warning system in place for an urgent middle-of-the-night scenario. Rob Kelly, the top elected official in Texas’ Kerr County, told the AP that six or seven years ago the county considered creating a flood warning system along the Guadalupe River that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren. “The public reeled at the cost,” he said. 

Now, that could be where a real solution can be discussed to prevent future catastrophes of this sort—a flood warning system.