Texas

Who’s to blame for Texas flooding tragedy? There is a lot of finger pointing.

Published

6 months ago

July 7, 2025

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Who’s to blame for Texas flooding tragedy? There is a lot of finger pointing.

The catastrophe was caused by a perfect storm of difficult-to-forecast rainfall and fast-moving water. Some wonder if budget cuts made things worse.

The Texas rains hadn’t even slowed before the debate began about why forecasts had underestimated the devastating flooding over Independence Day weekend.

Local and state officials, social media users and even the meteorology community raised questions. What were the National Weather Service forecasts? Why is it so hard to know where rain will fall? Did staff reductions at the weather service, and other budget cuts by the Trump administration contribute to the catastrophe? What role did weather balloons play in the storm forecasts?

Answers to some of these questions and many others may never be adequately answered, especially for the families of dozens of children swept away by floodwaters.

At least 81 people died between July 4 and 6 and dozens more were injured or remain missing, state officials said. On a weekend when families often celebrate with cookouts and fireworks, these families, overwhelmed with grief, were providing DNA samples so a state laboratory could rapidly identify victims.

A series of circumstances, colliding at the worst possible location and time, caused the tremendous flooding, several meteorologists told USA TODAY. During a July 6 news conference, Texas state officials said there would be much to discuss in the weeks ahead.

A few things are known, including how difficult it remains to pinpoint where thunderstorms will drop their heaviest rain, what the weather service said and when, and staffing levels at two local forecast offices.

The horrific tragedy arrived in the midst of a maelstrom already brewing over the National Weather Service, its parent agency and the Trump administration’s budget cuts.

It’s “clear that many people are allowing their desire to score political points to color their insights and opinions on this tragedy,” Alan Gerard, who retired earlier this year from the National Severe Storms Laboratory, wrote in his Substack blog on July 6.

“The National Weather Service office did everything they should do from everything I can tell,” said Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground, a commercial forecasting agency, and a former hurricane scientist with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters.

Despite the recent cuts to NOAA, the National Weather Service performed well in the Texas tragedy and in the recent deadly flooding in Kentucky, Masters said. “It reminds us how important it is to have talented, experienced people at a well-funded National Weather Service.”

“But we are pushing our luck,” he noted,” if we think the cuts at NOAA won’t cause a breakdown in our ability to get people out of harm’s way in the future.”

Were weather forecasts wrong?

Although the warnings arrived less than 24 hours before the flooding started, long-time weather service veterans and regional experts say that’s not all that unusual in this region. It’s a known shortcoming of the localized rain models forecasters use. They can’t yet pinpoint exactly where intense rain might fall and when on an individual community.

One expert, Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, said it appears the weather service employees in Austin/San Antonio did what they could, based on the available information.

“From what I saw, the warnings were pretty timely,” said Nielsen-Gammon, a meteorology professor at Texas A&M University,

The weather service office first advised on July 1 and 2 that a very moist air mass was moving in that would increase rain chances across south-central Texas with heavy rain at times that could lead to minor local flooding.An early morning forecast on July 3 by the NWS Weather Prediction Center said the region should expect “unseasonably moist” air that could bring 1 to 2 inches of rain an hour and lead to flooding, with approaching storms tapping into abundant tropical moisture.

As the day progressed, a clearer picture emerged of how weather systems were interacting above Texas to form storms. An “urgent” flood watch at 1:18 p.m. July 3 warned heavy rain, with isolated amounts of 5 to 7 inches, could cause flash flooding and “excessive” runoff that could flood rivers and streams. The watch covered eight counties, including Kerr and Bandera where some of the heaviest flooding occurred.

By 7:02 p.m., the weather prediction center warned leftover bits of Tropical Storm Barry, near-record moisture and an unstable atmosphere meant any storms that formed could be self-sustaining, with a potential for rain rates of more than 3 inches an hour, and they could rain over the same area again and again. It stated: “Considerable flash flooding this evening is possible.”

A flurry of forecast updates continued.

At 1:14 a.m. on July 4, the weather service issued a “Flash Flood Warning” for central Kerr County and northwestern Bandera County. Almost simultaneously, water flow began increasing dramatically on the Guadalupe River at Hunt, Texas.

“This pleasing stream had a flow rate of 53 gallons per second at midnight on July 4,” said Nielsen-Gammon. At 3 a.m., it was flowing at 264 gallons per second. Between 3 a.m. and 3:30 am., the water flow jumped to 125,000 gallons per second. Within four hours of the initial rise, the river level jumped 21.8 feet and was flowing at 900,000 gallons per second.

Did weather service cuts have an impact?

President Donald Trump campaigned on cutting the federal bureaucracy and reducing the budget. His administration, including the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Governmental Efficiency, has been mission-focused on doing so.

The sweeping cuts left many federal offices short-staffed and demoralized, according to recent retirees.

Many remaining employees, including those who declined to speak on the record for fear of retribution, say employees still fear more jobs will be lost in a reduction in force. Federal agencies were required to prepare a plan for making further reductions, but a federal judge in California ruled in May that the job cuts could not move forward.

The weather service office in Austin/San Antonio oversees much of the Hill Country area where the flooding took place. Of the 26 staff positions in that office, six are vacant at the moment, including two senior members, said Victor Murphy, a recently retired National Weather Service meteorologist in Texas. One of those is the warning coordination meteorologist who oversees emergency warnings and working with local officials on communicating around such events.

The Austin office also is short two forecasters.

Did the cuts play any role in the recent tragedy? Murphy wondered out loud. “I don’t know … The fact is that the office had record flooding two days in a row.”

The San Angelo, Texas office is down four positions, including a staff forecaster, a lead hydrologist and its meteorologist in charge, said Tom Fahy, legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization.

Weather service forecasters often become “an easy target for people’s wrath,” when people are looking for someone to blame, Fahy said.

“The real blame is the Trump Administration budget cuts to NWS and FEMA that cut off coordination planning with local emergency management officials,” he said. “Even during Trump’s 1st term, NWS managers would plan, practice and train their combined teams for increased cooperation. All that ended when Trump was inaugurated in 2025.”

President Trump said July 6 that he doesn’t think the federal government needs to rehire weather service meteorologists in the wake of catastrophic Texas flooding.

“I would think not,” Trump told reporters when asked about rehiring weather forecasters, adding that flooding “happened in seconds. Nobody expected it.”

When asked if he would investigate whether the cuts left key vacancies in the weather service or emergency coordination, Trump said he “wouldn’t blame (former President Joe) Biden for it either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe, and it’s just so horrible for all.”

Why is it so hard to know where rain will fall?

At a news conference on July 5, Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said: “The original forecast that we received on Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3 to 6 inches of rain in the Concho valley and 4 to 8 inches in the Hill Country.”

“The amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts,” Kidd said.

Rainfall estimates in these extreme rainfall events have fallen short before, frustrating emergency managers, forecasters and even members of Congress, who approved measures in 2021 and 2022 to improve rainfall modeling and estimates of maximum possible precipitation within any given time frame.

As the weather service looked at their computers on July 3, the models they use for forecasting thunderstorms wouldn’t come together with a consensus on where the greatest rain would fall, according to their discussions. Many showed the potential for extreme rainfall somewhere in central Texas, while others showed almost nothing happening, Nielsen-Gammon said. “Where it was going to develop would depend on the details of the individual thunderstorms that popped up.”

Pinpointing localized extreme rain remains “a very difficult challenge,” said Gerard. Any time you have this type of environment, there’s going to be a chance that local areas are going to get more rain than anticipated.”

Rainfall in a storm is “controlled by very small-scale processes that are happening within the storm,” said Gerard, now CEO of weather consulting company Balanced Weather. “We don’t have the resolution of modeling to be able to forecast that yet.”

The storms laboratory is working to develop higher resolution modeling, he said, but it’s on the chopping block in the president’s proposed budget.

Did weather service balloon launches play a role?

Weather balloon launches measure moisture up through the atmosphere to help predict how much is available for rain. The better the data, the better the outcome, said Murphy, the recently retired Texas meteorologist. “You find out from a sounding what’s up 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 feet. The only way to measure that is with a balloon.”

However, staffing shortages at local weather service offices across the U.S. has forced the limiting or cancelation of numerous weather balloon launches. Of 11 locations in Texas and surrounding states that were launching in the early spring, only six of the sites now launch balloons on any given morning, Murphy said.

There was only one weather balloon launch within 200 miles of the flooded area, Nielsen-Gammon said.

However, that one weather balloon proved its worth, the experts said, providing essential information that helped weather service forecasters see the increased chances for rain.

Launched remotely from an automated site in Del Rio, Texas, Murphy said it’s “the only one of its kind in the region.”

But the federal cutbacks and rising number of climate disasters mean the public is likely to blame someone for every botched forecast and missed opportunity to warn ‒ whether deservedly or not.

On July 7, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the president and the National Weather Service’s performance.

“Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning,” Leavitt said. “The National Weather Service did its job.”

Contributing: Zac Anderson and Joey Garrison, USA TODAY

Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, writes about climate change, violent weather and other news. Reach her at dpulver@usatoday.com or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.

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Texas

Texas investigations into Charlie Kirk posts spark free-speech lawsuit

Published

10 hours ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Texas investigations into Charlie Kirk posts spark free-speech lawsuit

A Texas teachers union has sued the state over what it said was a trampling of educators’ free speech rights when hundreds came under investigation for their comments after the killing of Charlie Kirk.

The Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers filed the federal lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency and its commissioner Mike Morath on Jan. 6, the union said. The suit claims investigations into at least 350 teachers after Kirk’s death were “unlawful” and that a letter issued by Morath to superintendents around the state targeting “reprehensible and inappropriate content on social media” prompted punishment and retaliation against teachers.

Kirk, 31, was fatally shot on Sept. 10, 2025, while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The cofounder of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth-focused organization, Kirk was a close ally of President Donald Trump. Shooting suspect Tyler Robinson has been charged with his murder.

After Kirk’s death, a wave of backlash came in response to online posts condemning his views or otherwise criticizing him. Right-leaning public figures and prominent social media accounts called for firings of people whose posts they deemed inappropriate.

Morath’s letter on Sept. 12 directed superintendents to report “inappropriate conduct being shared” to the Texas Education Agency’s Educator Investigations Division, which investigates teachers for allegations of misconduct, the Texas AFT said in its suit, which was reviewed by USA TODAY. The union said teachers were investigated not for speech made in classrooms, but for posts made on their personal, often private social media pages.

“In the months since, the consequences for our members have run the gamut from written reprimands and administrative leave to doxxing and termination from their jobs,” AFT Vice President and Texas Chapter President Zeph Capo said at a news conference.

The Texas Education Agency didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Jan. 7.

Lawsuit claims teachers were disciplined for exercising free speech

The lawsuit filed by the Texas AFT claims that teachers in public schools have a constitutionally protected right to free speech, and that their speech in their personal capacity, such as on social media, is protected. The suit claims that teachers’ rights were violated when they were investigated or faced disciplinary action for their posts about Kirk. It also alleges that the policy to report teachers for “inappropriate” content was unfairly vague.

“These teachers were disciplined solely for their speech, without any regard to whether the posts disrupted school operations in any way,” the lawsuit reads.

Teachers whose cases are mentioned in the lawsuit were kept anonymous, Capo said, to protect them from further harassment. Many teachers are fearful to express any more opinions, effectively silencing their speech, he said.

One of the teachers, who made a post described in the lawsuit as one that “simply raised questions about the circumstances of Mr. Kirk’s death and did not promote violence in any way,” was shared by a lawmaker who used it as part of an election campaign and called for the teacher’s dismissal. The high school English teacher, who has taught for 27 years, was placed on administrative leave and later fired. She settled a wrongful termination claim with the school district, the lawsuit said.

Another teacher of 16 years and a military veteran who previously won “Teacher of the Year” in his school district and made posts criticizing Kirk for his views on Black Americans is under an ongoing investigation by the state agency, the lawsuit said.

“We denounced Charlie Kirk’s assassination, we denounced violence after Uvalde. We denounce violence,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “What happened in the next few days (after Kirk’s killing), wasn’t about violence or denouncing violence, it was about muzzling the expression of constitutionally protected nonviolent speech.”

Dozens lost jobs over posts about Kirk

In the wake of Kirk’s death in September, USA TODAY counted dozens of examples of people who lost their jobs, were suspended or investigated over posts or comments they made about the conservative podcaster, including educators, lawyers, doctors, first responders and others.

They include a dean at Middle Tennessee State, Laura Sosh-Lightsy, who was fired for a social media post saying she had “zero sympathy” for Kirk; a Marine who called Kirk a “racist man” who was “popped”; and Jimmy Kimmel, whose ABC show was temporarily suspended after he made comments about Kirk.

Some educators who lost their jobs filed lawsuits alleging their free speech rights were violated. A teacher in Iowa who compared Kirk to a Nazi; a South Carolina teacher’s assistant who posted a Kirk quote and said she disagreed with him but called the death a “tragedy”; and an employee of an Indiana university who said Kirk’s death was wrong and condemned some of his beliefs all filed suits on free speech, according to reporting from the USA TODAY Network. Each case kicked up a flurry of social media outrage and calls for the educators’ firings.

In Tennessee, a tenured theater professor at Austin Peay State University was reinstated after originally being fired for comments he made online after Kirk’s killing, the Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network, recently reported.

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Horror of school attack in Uvalde, Texas, brings tears as officer faces trial over police response – WTOP News

Published

22 hours ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Horror of school attack in Uvalde, Texas, brings tears as officer faces trial over police response – WTOP News

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — Families whose loved ones died in the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school massacre sobbed in court…

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — Families whose loved ones died in the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school massacre sobbed in court while listening to frantic 911 calls during the first day of testimony in the trial of a police officer accused of failing to protect the children by not doing enough to stop the attack.

A prosecutor told jurors Tuesday that former school officer Adrian Gonzales arrived outside the school just before the teenage gunman went inside but didn’t make a move to stop him even when a teacher pointed to where he was firing in a parking lot.

The officer went into Robb Elementary only “after the damage had been done,” special prosecutor Bill Turner said during opening statements.

The judge overseeing the case and attorneys warned jurors that the testimony and images will be emotional and difficult to process. Among those expected to testify will be some of the victims’ families.

Tissue boxes were brought to the families as the testimony began. Some shook their heads as they listened to audio from the first calls for help. Their cries grew louder as the horror unfolded on the recordings.

Defense attorneys disputed that Gonzales — one of two officers charged in the 2022 attack — did nothing, saying he radioed for more help and evacuated children as other police arrived.

“The government makes it want to seem like he just sat there,” said defense attorney Nico LaHood. “He did what he could, with what he knew at the time.”

Prosecutors focused sharply on Gonzales’ steps in the minutes after the shooting began and as the first officers arrived. They did not address the hundreds of other local, state and federal officers who arrived and waited more than an hour to confront the gunman, who was eventually killed by a tactical team of officers.

Gonzales has pleaded not guilty to child abandonment or endangerment and could be sentenced to a maximum of two years in prison if convicted.

Witness testimony will resume Thursday morning.

Students grabbed scissors to confront attacker

Defense attorneys said Tuesday that Gonzales was focused on assessing where the gunman was while also thinking he was being fired on without protection against a high-powered rifle.

“This isn’t a man waiting around. This isn’t a man failing to act,” defense attorney Jason Goss said.

Gonzales and former Uvalde schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo are the only two officers to face criminal charges over the response. Arredondo’s trial has not been scheduled.

Gonzales, a 10-year veteran of the police force, had extensive active shooter training, the special prosecutor said.

“When a child calls 911, we have a right to expect a response,” Turner said, his voice trembling with emotion.

As Gonzales waited outside, children and teachers hid inside darkened classrooms and grabbed scissors “to confront a gunman,” Turner said. “They did as they had been trained.”

Families question why more officers weren’t charged

It’s rare for an officer to be criminally charged with not doing more to save lives.

“He could have stopped him, but he didn’t want to be the target,” said Velma Lisa Duran, sister of teacher Irma Garcia, who was among the 19 students and two teachers who were killed.

Some families of the victims have voiced anger that more officers were not charged given that nearly 400 federal, state and local officers converged on the school soon after the attack.

An investigation found 77 minutes passed from the time authorities arrived until they breached the classroom and killed Salvador Ramos, who was obsessed with violence and notoriety leading up to the shooting.

Reviews found many failures with police response

State and federal reviews of the shooting cited cascading problems in law enforcement training, communication, leadership and technology, and questioned why officers waited so long.

The officer’s attorneys told jurors that there was plenty of blame to go around — from the lack of security at the school to police policy — and that prosecutors will try to play on their emotions by showing photos from the scene.

“What the prosecution wants you to do is get mad at Adrian. They are going to try to play on your emotions,” Goss said.

“The monster who hurt these children is dead,” he said.

Prosecutors likely will face a high bar to win a conviction. A Florida sheriff’s deputy was acquitted by a jury after being charged with failing to confront the shooter in the Parkland, Florida, school massacre in 2018 — the first such prosecution in the U.S. for an on-campus shooting.

___

Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press journalists Nicholas Ingram in Corpus Christi, Texas; Juan A. Lozano in Houston; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

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Former Texas Longhorns Fan Favorite WR Commits to Oklahoma

Published

1 day ago

January 6, 2026

Press Room

Former Texas Longhorns Fan Favorite WR Commits to Oklahoma

Former Texas Longhorns fan favorite wide receiver Parker Livingstone committed to the Oklahoma Sooners on Tuesday, per ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

Livingstone, who is transferring after his redshirt freshman season and will have three years of eligibility remaining, took visits to both Indiana and Oklahoma. He will now call Norman home and face his former school and new arch-rival annually in the Red River Rivalry.

The Lucas, Texas, native caught 29 passes for 516 yards and six touchdowns this season. He ranked third in yards, fourth in catches, and second in touchdowns amongst all Longhorns pass-catchers in 2025.

Livingstone’s goodbye message and transfer commitment

Nov 28, 2025; Austin, Texas, USA; Texas Longhorns wide receiver Parker Livingstone (13) before warming up before a game against the Texas A&M Aggies at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Wachter-Imagn Images | Scott Wachter-Imagn Images

Livingstone, who grew up a Longhorns fan, became a fan favorite early on in the season, as he scored three touchdowns in Texas’ opening two games to lead the pass-catching corps. The known fact that he was quarterback Arch Manning’s roommate also contributed to the fan-favorite sentiment. To many, it likely seemed that Livingstone would be here to stay in Austin.

But in college football’s present landscape, there are no guarantees, and Livingstone announced his decision to enter the portal on Jan. 1. His commitment to Texas’ biggest rival now adds to the shock of his departure.

“Never in a million years did I think I would be going into the portal looking for a new home,” Livingstone wrote in his goodbye on X. “Some things are out of my control. Such is the reality of the ever-changing landscape of college football. Emptied my tank every day for this great university, my teammates & all of the good folks of Texas. Grateful.”

The message that Livingstone’s transfer portal decision was “out of (his) control” brought a whirlwind of speculation and interest in the details of his exit from the Texas Longhorns program. It’s difficult to put together exactly what occurred behind closed doors to shatter the Livingstone-Texas relationship. But after an article in The Athletic mentioned Livingstone’s “out of my control” wording in his note, On Texas Football’s Bobby Burton wrote on X:

“Livingstone was offered a mid-six-figure NIL/rev share deal and turned it down. The offer was never withdrawn. But yeah, he was forced out involuntarily. Whatever.”

Livingstone’s move from one side of the Red River to the other will certainly be a storyline heading into the 2026 edition of the rivalry matchup on Oct. 10.

With both Livingstone and DeAndre Moore Jr. exiting the Forty Acres to enter the transfer portal recently, Texas has been expected to pursue top portal names to add to its wide receiver room. One of those players is former Auburn wide receiver Cam Coleman, who has taken a visit to Austin and is still in his decision-making process. Coleman, who will likely be a one-and-done at his next collegiate destination due to his NFL Draft status, ranks as the No. 1 player in the On3 Transfer Portal Rankings.

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