The disaster that unfolded in Kerr County, Texas shows how many communities will struggle to prepare for extreme weather as the federal government pulls back.
Kerr County, Texas, wasn’t prepared for the deluge that killed more than 100 people this weekend, despite more than a century and a half of flash flooding along the Guadalupe River.
Other communities around the country may find themselves just as exposed for the next catastrophe, emergency managers and scientists warned — pointing to the soaring toll of climate change and the Trump administration’s steep cuts to weather and disaster spending.
Those cuts may not have played a direct role in the death toll from the central Texas floods, a point the White House argued strenuously Monday while maintaining that “the National Weather Service did its job” in predicting the rising waters. Meteorologists and climate scientists also praised NWS for its accurate, timely forecasts.
But the weather service and its parent organization are reeling from mass layoffs and early retirements pushed by President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, and the sprawling tax bill that he signed last week canceled more than $200 million in spending that was supposed to improve weather forecasting and make communities more resilient to disasters.