In Texas Hill Country, where flash floods are common, questions linger about lack of warningsKristi Noem, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said although she does not oversee the NWS, she said the timeline she received from them stated that alerts about flash flooding in Central Texas began at 1:18 p.m. on Thursday, July 3.
“On July 3rd at 1:18 p.m., a flood watch was issued, although it was moderate, it wasn’t to the extremes that it was, that when the system came over the area that it stalled, it was much more water that much like I think we experienced during Harvey... the same type of system that was unpredictable in the way that it reacted and the way that it stopped right here and dumped unprecedented amounts of rain that caused a flooding event like this,” Noem said.
The initial flood watch sent by NWS on Thursday predicted rain amounts of between 5 to 7 inches. Weather messaging from the office, including automated alerts delivered to mobile phones to people in threatened areas, grew in the early morning hours of Friday, urging people to move to higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas, said Jason Runyen, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service office.
Rain in Central Texas began to fall around midnight on July 4, and, according to reports, the first flash flood warning issued by NWS was at 1:14 a.m. Friday.
The most serious warnings came around 4 a.m. when NWS issued a flash flood emergency warning of an “extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation,” urging immediate evacuations to higher ground.................
The flooding came amid concerns about staffing levels at the NWS, after the Trump administration fired hundreds of meteorologists this year as part of Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts.
Between 2 and 7 a.m., the Guadalupe River in Kerrville rose from 1 to more than 34 feet in height, according to a flood gauge in the area. The flooding reached its peak at around 6:45 a.m. in Kerrville, hours after warnings were first issued, according to the gauge..
https://www.click2houston.com/weather/2025/07/06/in-texas-hill-country-where-flash-floods-are-common-questions-linger-about-lack-of-warnings/#commentDiv
