Latest news with #emergencyalerts
The Verge
a day ago
- The Verge
Citizen will share crime videos with the NYPD
Mayor Eric Adams announced over the weekend that New York City will send users real-time public safety alerts based on their specific location through the crime-tracking app Citizen. The city also announced that public safety agencies, like the New York City Police Department, Fire Department, and Emergency Management, will have access to a portal to review footage shared by users on Citizen. Citizen's verified partner program for cities like New York is tied to a partnership with Axon's (formerly known as Taser) Fusus platform, the 'real-time crime center' it acquired last year. Axon announced a partnership with Ring in April that allows law enforcement to request access to video footage from owners' security cameras in a certain area during a certain time. At the same time, it also announced an integration with Citizen to support sending alerts and pulling in public videos from Citizen's users. According to Citizen, users who don't want their videos shared directly can opt out in the app's settings, but all videos posted are still 'viewable and downloadable by the public.' Adams said the new NYC Public Safety account on Citizen will send notifications about public safety, weather emergencies, and major incidents based on a user's neighborhood, ZIP code, or borough. Citizen lets users report potential safety incidents, share videos, and broadcast live footage from within its app. It also says it can send alerts to nearby mobile devices 'within seconds' of a 911 call or a user report, and also offers a premium safety line. Citizen already allows law enforcement to obtain information from its app as long as they have a warrant, but it also offers the ability for police to get data 'without delay' in case of emergencies. It originally launched under the name 'Vigilante' in 2016, but the app was booted from the App Store for promoting vigilantism, TechCrunch reported at the time. The app later relaunched as Citizen and has faced heavy criticism in the years since, with some arguing it fuels fear in communities. In 2021, Citizen CEO Andrew Frame came under fire for encouraging users to hunt down the wrong person suspected of starting a California wildfire.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Trump's NWS cuts were blamed for Texas flood deaths. Here are the facts
Following the devastating and destructive flash flooding in central Texas on July 4, 2025, users online claimed that U.S. President Donald Trump's administration was ultimately to blame for the flood's 100 deaths due to staffing cuts at the National Weather Service. The weather service issued a series of timely alerts: a flood watch early in the afternoon on July 3, a flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m. July 4, and a flash flood emergency at 4:03 a.m. July 4, before any in-person reports of flooding had been received. Communicating the warnings to the public was made more difficult because the flooding happened in the middle of the night in an area without a robust emergency communication system. Also, it was the Fourth of July weekend, when many people who weren't local residents — meaning they may have had less knowledge of the flash flooding risks — were present. Although Trump's cuts did affect staffing at the two weather service offices in charge of the affected area, an agency spokesperson told Snopes via email that both offices were fully staffed at the time of the floods. At 5:15 a.m. July 4, 2025, the gauge recording the water level on the Guadalupe River just upstream of Kerrville, Texas, measured its height at 1.82 feet above the standard reference value. An hour and a half later, at 6:45 a.m., the gauge recorded the river's height at 34.29 feet. Earlier that night, the skies had opened up and did not relent. The flash flooding that resulted from the deluge killed at least 106 people in Kerr County as of July 14, and at least 26 more in nearby counties, according to The Texas Tribune. In the wake of the catastrophic floods, Texas officials and people online began theorizing on why the storm and its floods were so deadly in this case. One theory shared on social media sites such as TikTok, Facebook, and X blamed U.S. President Donald Trump's administration for the deaths. According to these posts, the Department of Government Efficiency initiative championed by former Trump ally and tech billionaire Elon Musk implemented massive spending cuts at the National Weather Service, allegedly leaving already underfunded and understaffed forecasters struggling to keep up. Snopes found that the case was similar to that of a tornado in Somerset, Kentucky, that killed 19 people in May 2025. That is, the local weather service offices issued timely watches and warnings in advance of the disaster, but the Trump administration's cuts have left the weather service as a whole, including both Texas offices in charge of forecasting the affected area, understaffed. National Weather Service facts The weather service maintains 122 offices around the country dedicated solely to weather prediction, and it has 13 different River Forecast Centers, which provide local offices "river and flood forecasts and warnings as well as basic hydrologic information." The area affected by the Texas flooding is covered by the San Angelo and Austin/San Antonio weather service offices and the West Gulf RFC in Fort Worth. National Weather Service spokesperson Erica Grow Cei told Snopes via email that those offices "had extra personnel on duty during the catastrophic flooding event in Texas's Hill Country during the July 4 holiday weekend." The name "flash flood" gives away the danger at hand — "flash" can refer to both the incredible speed at which the water rises and the flood's sudden onset after excessive rainfall. In order to predict a flash flood, meteorologists must first accurately predict where heavy rain will fall and compare it with the "flash flood guidance," an "estimate of the amount of rainfall required over a given area during a given duration to cause small streams to flood," issued by the appropriate River Forecast Center. In this case, the West Gulf RFC maintains the following guidelines for the area most heavily affected by the floods: The archived excessive rainfall outlook forecasts issued at least twice a day by the weather service in the days leading up to the flooding labeled the area first at a "marginal" risk (at least a 5% chance), then at a "slight" risk (at least a 15% chance) for flash flooding. July 3 weather forecasts The precision required to predict where in a storm it will rain the heaviest makes predicting flash floods very difficult. Greg Waller, a service coordination hydrologist at the West Gulf RFC, told The Texas Tribune the area's terrain "makes it so precipitation forecasts off by just 20 miles could affect entirely different river basins." Accordingly, the San Angelo office's afternoon forecast on July 3 said predicting the day's weather was "complicated." It noted the potential for a band of "torrential" rainfall that could lead to flash flooding, but, according to the forecast, the weather "features are so weak and the interaction so complicated, if and where this band develops remains uncertain." The Austin/San Antonio weather office's afternoon forecast on July 3 also predicted heavier rain. The 1:38 p.m. bulletin noted "an environment presently conducive to heavy rain, supporting 1 to 2 inch per hour rain rates," approaching the flash flood guidelines. It continued: Models remain in disagreement over the placement of the heaviest rain totals, though the greatest rainfall potential this afternoon into tonight is over the Highway 90 corridor, southern Edwards Plateau and Hill Country. Rainfall totals of 1 to 3 inches appear likely, but locally higher amounts upwards of 5 to 7 inches could materialize if slow-moving storms begin to cluster. Given the heavy rainfall potential, some flooding is possible. A Flood Watch is now in effect through 7 AM Friday morning for the southern Edwards Plateau and western Hill Country, where the intersection of higher forecast rainfall amounts and rainfall from the past few days is most evident. While the greatest concentration of modeled precipitation is in the aforementioned areas, the highest rain amounts could shift depending on where storms aggregate, and expansion towards the I-35 corridor is possible later this evening into the overnight as the trough moves gradually east. Flood watches and warnings The weather service has three stages of alerts for most environmental dangers. The afternoon forecasts from both San Angelo and Austin/San Antonio, 12 hours in advance, issued a flood watch for the area. That's the designation of lowest concern "issued when conditions are favorable for flooding. It does not mean flooding will occur, but it is possible," according to the weather service. The next level, a warning, is issued when "a flash flood is imminent or occurring." Warnings trigger emergency alerts on TVs, radios and cellphones. The first flash flood warning came in for the Kerrville area at 1:14 a.m. At 4:03 a.m, the warning was upgraded to the most serious alert, an emergency — a life-threatening situation issued when, as Austin/San Antonio weather service meteorologist Bob Fogarty told The Texas Tribune, "someone has told us we need to get people out of here immediately or people are going to die." Cei told Snopes that for flash floods, the National Weather Service is generally able to give residents "3 hours or more of what we call 'lead time', which is the time in between the warning being issued and the event occurring." In this case, that lead time on the initial warning was about accurate. The warning was issued at 1:14, and Cei said the first reports of flooding happened at 4:35 a.m., after the upgrade to an emergency. In other words, the forecasting wasn't the problem. Staffing and communications The problem, as with many other deadly natural disasters, was communicating the danger to residents. That problem was likely exacerbated by the 4th of July holiday drawing in out-of-towners unfamiliar with flash flooding risks and absolutely exacerbated by the fact that the warning and subsequent flood occurred in the middle of the night in an area that, according to The Texas Tribune, does not have a robust emergency communication system. The nonprofit newsroom reported that state lawmakers rejected a bill to spend $500 million on improving such systems across the state in 2024 over concerns it would cost too much. Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly (in Texas, county judges are responsible for emergency management) said in the story that county residents rejected installing a flood siren system, like those used for tornadoes, for similar reasons. It's possible that cuts to the weather service workforce may have exacerbated the communication problems, but it's unclear to what extent. Cei told Snopes the offices were appropriately staffed during the disaster. The New York Times reported that the Austin/San Antonio office has been without a warning coordination meteorologist since April 30, although NBC News reported that Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the union that represents NWS employees, said the office has an employee acting in that role. That position, which Cei said exists at all 122 weather offices around the nation, works with local officials to plan for emergencies, including how to warn affected residents and help them evacuate if needed. The individual reportedly accepted the Trump administration's early retirement plan, offered as part of DOGE's initiative to gut the federal workforce. The Austin/San Antonio weather office's official page lists six vacancies and 21 active staff members. The San Angelo page does not list vacancies, but The Texas Tribune reported it has four vacancies out of 23 total positions. Cei said the weather service continues to move staffers around on temporary and permanent assignments to fill the roles at its offices "with the greatest operational need." "Additionally, a targeted number of permanent, mission-critical field positions will soon be advertised under an exception to the Department-wide hiring freeze to further stabilize frontline operations," she added. According to The New York Times, more than 600 workers at the weather service had left due to the Trump administration's policies as of June 2. Fahy told the paper the agency had been approved to add 126 new hires to address the understaffing. "Catastrophic Floods Cause Deaths In Central Texas - Videos from The Weather Channel." The Weather Channel, Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. Cobler, Paul. "In Texas Region Prone to Catastrophic Floods, Questions Grow about Lack of Warning." The Texas Tribune, 5 Jul. 2025, D'Antonio, Kathleen Magramo, Karina Tsui, Diego Mendoza, Alaa Elassar, Rebekah Riess, Hanna Park, Lauren Mascarenhas, Chris Boyette, Maureen Chowdhury, Danya Gainor, Amanda Musa, Michael Williams, Isabelle. "July 6, 2025 - News on Deadly Texas Floods." CNN, 6 Jul. 2025, Deliver, Texas Counties. "County Judge & County Commissioners." Texas Counties Deliver, Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. Flavelle, Christopher. "As Floods Hit, Key Roles Were Vacant at Weather Service Offices in Texas." The New York Times, 5 Jul. 2025, Guadalupe Rv at Kerrville, TX. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. Izzo, Jack. "Trump Admin Cut Weather Service Staff in Kentucky, Where Tornadoes Killed 19. But There's More to the Story." Snopes, 20 May 2025, Jiménez, Jesus, Margarita Birnbaum, et al. "Officials Feared Flood Risk to Youth Camps but Rejected Warning System." The New York Times, 6 Jul. 2025, Jiménez, Jesus, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, et al. "Texas Flood Death Toll Tops 100 With More Rain to Fall." The New York Times, 7 Jul. 2025. Jones, Judson. "After Staff Cuts, the National Weather Service Is Hiring Again." The New York Times, 2 Jun. 2025, Langford, By Sneha Dey, Alejandro Serrano, Jayme Lozano Carver, Eleanor Klibanoff and Terri. "Texas Floods' Death Toll Climbs as Authorities Focus on Recovering Victims' Bodies." The Texas Tribune, 7 Jul. 2025, Lanza, Matt. "Making Sense of the Weather That Led to a Horrible Texas Flooding Tragedy, plus Tropical Storm Chantal." The Eyewall, 5 Jul. 2025, Martinez, By Alejandra. "Staff Vacancies Hit Texas Weather Offices as They Brace for a Busy Hurricane Season." The Texas Tribune, 9 Jun. 2025, "National Weather Service Defends Its Flood Warnings amid Fresh Scrutiny of Trump Staff Cuts." NBC News, 8 Jul. 2025, "Officials Push Away Questions about Lack of Widespread Warnings before Deadly Texas Floods." AP News, 8 Jul. 2025, Ramos, By Terri Langford and Carlos Nogueras. "Texas Lawmakers Failed to Pass a Bill to Improve Local Disaster Warning Systems This Year." The Texas Tribune, 6 Jul. 2025, River Forecast Centers | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. Serrano, Alejandro. "White House Defends National Forecasting Agency amid Questions about Warnings, Response to Texas Floods." The Texas Tribune, 7 Jul. 2025, Service, NOAA's National Weather. WPC Excessive Rainfall Forecast Archive. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. US Department of Commerce, NOAA. About Us. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. ---. Flash Flood Guidance. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. ---. Flood and Flash Flood Definitions. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. ---. Flood Warning VS. Watch. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. ---. Hydrology Terms and Definitions. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. ---. NWS San Angelo Office Information. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025. ---. Observed Rainfall. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025.
CNET
15-07-2025
- CNET
Don't Miss Critical Emergency Alerts. Check Your Phone Settings Now
After the devastating Texas flooding earlier this month and with hurricane season now underway, it's more urgent than ever to make sure your phone can alert you -- loudly and clearly -- when danger is approaching. Emergency alerts are only effective if people receive them in time and recognize their urgency. Yet, many Texas residents reported receiving flood warnings too late or not at all, underscoring gaps in public alerting systems. Whether you live in a hurricane-prone area, a tornado alley or just want to stay prepared, following the steps below will ensure your phone is properly set up to deliver emergency warnings that can cut through silent mode, wake you up and possibly save your life during an emergency. Read also: Tornadoes, Floods, Wildfires, Intruders: 4 Ways Your Phone Can Help in an Emergency 1. Turn on Wireless Emergency Alerts On iPhones: CNET Go to Settings > Notifications > Government Alerts. Make sure Public Safety Alerts, Emergency Alerts and Always Play Sound are turned on. The "Always Play Sound" option is crucial. This ensures alerts will sound even when your phone is on silent or Do Not Disturb mode. On Android devices: Go to Settings > Safety & Emergency > Wireless Emergency Alerts (location may vary slightly depending on your phone model). Turn on Allow Alerts, and make sure both Extreme Threats and Severe Threats are enabled. These alerts use a distinct, loud tone and vibration pattern to get your attention -- even in the middle of the night. 2. Enable location services for accuracy Emergency alerts are often geo-targeted. If your phone doesn't know your location, it may not receive a relevant warning. For iPhones: Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Weather. Set it to Always Allow and enable Precise Location. For Android devices: Check that your weather or emergency apps have location permissions enabled. Enable "Use Precise Location" if your phone supports it. Without location services, you may miss localized alerts, or frustratingly, receive alerts for areas you're not in. 3. Supplement with weather apps and local alert services While government alerts are vital, they're not the only way to stay informed. Redundancy is key to staying safe in case of an emergency weather event. Install apps like Storm Shield, NOAA Weather Radar Live or the American Red Cross Emergency App. These can provide push notifications or voice alerts that often come faster than WEA alerts. Many of them will override silent mode as well. Also, be sure to sign up for your local city or county emergency alert system, which may offer targeted text messages, phone calls or emails, too. Having multiple systems in place ensures you get the message even if one alert fails or is missed. 4. Use a NOAA weather radio for backup Technology fails. Cell towers go down. Power gets knocked out. That's why the National Weather Service recommends keeping a battery-powered NOAA Weather Radio on hand. A weather radio never relies on cell service and can be a literal lifesaver, especially at night or during power outages. It's best practice to look for models with loud alerts, multiple power sources (battery, solar, crank) and SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) to program for your location. Reliable options include radios from Midland and Raynic, which are widely available online. 5. Test your system regularly Just like a smoke detector, your alert system needs maintenance. Here are a few ways to maintain your system: Periodically check that WEA alerts are still enabled. Ensure your apps are updated and functional. Verify that your phone's volume and alert settings haven't changed after system updates. Test your NOAA radio and replace batteries as needed. Proactive checks can prevent false security and help you act quickly when a real threat arises. 6. Customize alerts and encourage smart use To ensure alerts stand out and are taken seriously: Customize the tone or vibration pattern for weather alerts or alerting apps. Don't ignore alerts or disable them after receiving a non-emergency or misclassified message. Encourage family members to do the same, especially older relatives who may not be tech-savvy. Some experts suggest alert tones should be more distinct between different alert types (like Amber Alerts versus weather alerts) to reduce confusion and improve responsiveness. Why emergency alerts matter now The recent flooding in Texas highlighted a sobering truth -- that even modern alert systems aren't perfect. People reported receiving warnings too late, after water had already risen, or mistaking flood alerts for other alerts due to similar tones. In hurricane-prone or flood-prone regions, this kind of delay can mean the difference between safely evacuating and getting caught in life-threatening conditions. With extreme weather events becoming more common and intense due to climate change, making sure your phone is properly set up to receive and respond to emergency alerts is a small but essential step in protecting yourself and your family. Here are some additional resources:
The Guardian
14-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Texas way: why the most disaster-prone US state is so allergic to preparing for disasters
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, has had plenty of consoling words to offer following the tragic flash floods in the Hill Country that have killed more than 120 people, including 27 girls and counsellors at the stricken Camp Mystic. 'Our hearts grieve for this community and surrounding areas,' he wrote on social media. 'May God bring comfort to every family affected.' Amid such refrains, Abbott's response so far has been notably lacking in one regard: any assurance that Texas will tackle the problems that contributed to the calamity in Kerr county over the Fourth of July weekend, when the Guadalupe River rose like a torrent 26ft in 45 minutes. Accosted by reporters, the governor has indicated he will allow debate in the Texas legislature on the state's flood warning systems, but has given no guarantees on the outcome. Texas lawmakers came painfully close to introducing a statewide initiative to improve emergency alerts just a few months ago. The bill, HB 13, would have set up a network of outdoor sirens of the sort that were fatally lacking in the Hill Country, but the plan was killed in the state senate where members griped about its cost. To observers of what might be called the 'Texas way' – the singular devotion of its political leaders to rugged individualism and their equally passionate disdain for government action – there is a familiarity to all this. Take the massive winter storm Uri that struck Texas in 2021, which brought the state's notoriously eccentric power grid to a standstill, leaving almost 5 million people without heat and more than 200 dead. After that catastrophe the state did make limited efforts to prepare power generators for further extreme weather, allowing Abbott to boast that 'everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid in Texas'. Yet four years later, the state's main grid operator, Ercot, is still warning that a repeat Uri would carry with it an 80% likelihood of rolling blackouts. The same pattern of relative governmental inaction stretches back to 2008, when Hurricane Ike battered the Texan coast. It only narrowly bypassed Houston, then home to 2 million people, avoiding a catastrophe of monumental proportions. In the wake of the storm, there were calls for the construction of a barrier across Galveston Bay to protect the city from future storm surge. Seventeen years on, 'Ike Dike' remains on the drawing board. For Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, this repeating cycle of environmental disaster followed by scant preparation for future events is not coincidental. 'Texas will spend a lot of money recovering from disasters, but they'll spend very little trying to avoid the next disaster,' he said. Such an absence of forethought would be less serious were it not for Texas being, literally and metaphorically, in the eye of the storm. The state's long Gulf coastline renders it vulnerable to hurricanes and sea level rise, its southern location makes it hot and growing hotter, the west of the state is in the desert south-west region which is liable to droughts, and the Hill Country, as has been seen with such heart-wrenching results, is home to 'flash flood alley', one of the most dangerous flood-prone areas of the US. 'We have everything other than maybe avalanches,' Dessler said. 'Every other climate disaster you can think of, like wildfires – you name it, we have it.' The state's vulnerable topography is reflected in the statistics. Texas is the most disaster-prone state in the country, recording 190 extreme weather events between 1980 and 2024, each inflicting more than $1bn in damage. Now the climate crisis has begun to bear down on Texas, turning this perennially at-risk state into a calamity zone. Warmer oceans are leading to greater atmospheric moisture and hence rain dumps and flooding, rising temperatures are exacerbating droughts and wildfires, and all of it is supercharging both the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. That has combined with the state's steadily rising population, which is straining resources and putting more people in harm's way. Despite the perils, large numbers of Americans continue to pour into Texas, attracted by its zero income tax and open spaces; since 2010 it has grown by 5 million people, to 30 million. This moment begs for a political culture that can confront the challenge head on, experts say. But that is not the prevailing mood in Texas. 'Our elected representatives are not forward looking on climate issues,' Dessler said. Dessler, who specialises in climate change, traces the source of the resistance to the fossil fuel industry, which with its mega-donations to Republican politicians wields a big stick. 'It's the political power of fossil fuels, and their ability to keep everybody in line.' The official platform of the Texas Republican party is explicit. It proposes the abolition of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, supports the reclassification of carbon dioxide as a 'non-pollutant', and opposes what it calls 'environmentalism, or 'climate change' initiatives that obstruct legitimate business interests and private property use'. Abbott and other top state Republicans are openly skeptical of climate crisis science. In 2022, when Dallas was hit by colossal floods, reporters tried and failed to get the governor even to utter the words 'climate change'. 'Texas Republicans are increasingly opposed to the idea that climate change is man-made, and therefore there's nothing we can do about it,' said Calvin Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. 'They see climate issues as requiring more taxes, more regulation, more spending – and as a party of small government and deregulation they don't want to deal with it.' The combination of small government ideology and climate crisis denial has distorted the politics of the state to the extent that basic decisions that might bolster climate resilience are shunted aside. The impact is seen at all levels, from the state capital in Austin down to local neighborhoods. Almost half of Texas's 254 counties have no mitigation plan in place to lessen the blow of environmental disasters, the Texas Tribune found. Rob Kelly, a local elected official in Kerr county at the epicenter of the Hill Country floods, said that warning systems had been considered but were rejected on grounds of cost. 'Taxpayers won't pay for it,' he told the New York Times. Wes Virdell, the Republican representative whose Texas house district covers much of the devastated flooded area, voted against HB 13, the failed bill which would have set up a siren alarm system. He told the Texas Tribune three days after the tragedy that his experience of such grief and suffering had shaken his confidence in his decision. 'I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now.'
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Texas way: why the most disaster-prone US state is so allergic to preparing for disasters
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, has had plenty of consoling words to offer following the tragic flash floods in the Hill Country that have killed more than 120 people, including 27 girls and counsellors at the stricken Camp Mystic. 'Our hearts grieve for this community and surrounding areas,' he wrote on social media. 'May God bring comfort to every family affected.' Amid such refrains, Abbott's response so far has been notably lacking in one regard: any assurance that Texas will tackle the problems that contributed to the calamity in Kerr county over the Fourth of July weekend, when the Guadalupe River rose like a torrent 26ft in 45 minutes. Accosted by reporters, the governor has indicated he will allow debate in the Texas legislature on the state's flood warning systems, but has given no guarantees on the outcome. Texas lawmakers came painfully close to introducing a statewide initiative to improve emergency alerts just a few months ago. The bill, HB 13, would have set up a network of outdoor sirens of the sort that were fatally lacking in the Hill Country, but the plan was killed in the state senate where members griped about its cost. To observers of what might be called the 'Texas way' – the singular devotion of its political leaders to rugged individualism and their equally passionate disdain for government action – there is a familiarity to all this. Take the massive winter storm Uri that struck Texas in 2021, which brought the state's notoriously eccentric power grid to a standstill, leaving almost 5 million people without heat and more than 200 dead. After that catastrophe the state did make limited efforts to prepare power generators for further extreme weather, allowing Abbott to boast that 'everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid in Texas'. Yet four years later, the state's main grid operator, Ercot, is still warning that a repeat Uri would carry with it an 80% likelihood of rolling blackouts. The same pattern of relative governmental inaction stretches back to 2008, when Hurricane Ike battered the Texan coast. It only narrowly bypassed Houston, then home to 2 million people, avoiding a catastrophe of monumental proportions. In the wake of the storm, there were calls for the construction of a barrier across Galveston Bay to protect the city from future storm surge. Seventeen years on, 'Ike Dike' remains on the drawing board. For Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, this repeating cycle of environmental disaster followed by scant preparation for future events is not coincidental. 'Texas will spend a lot of money recovering from disasters, but they'll spend very little trying to avoid the next disaster,' he said. Such an absence of forethought would be less serious were it not for Texas being, literally and metaphorically, in the eye of the storm. The state's long Gulf coastline renders it vulnerable to hurricanes and sea level rise, its southern location makes it hot and growing hotter, the west of the state is in the desert south-west region which is liable to droughts, and the Hill Country, as has been seen with such heart-wrenching results, is home to 'flash flood alley', one of the most dangerous flood-prone areas of the US. 'We have everything other than maybe avalanches,' Dessler said. 'Every other climate disaster you can think of, like wildfires – you name it, we have it.' The state's vulnerable topography is reflected in the statistics. Texas is the most disaster-prone state in the country, recording 190 extreme weather events between 1980 and 2024, each inflicting more than $1bn in damage. Now the climate crisis has begun to bear down on Texas, turning this perennially at-risk state into a calamity zone. Warmer oceans are leading to greater atmospheric moisture and hence rain dumps and flooding, rising temperatures are exacerbating droughts and wildfires, and all of it is supercharging both the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. That has combined with the state's steadily rising population, which is straining resources and putting more people in harm's way. Despite the perils, large numbers of Americans continue to pour into Texas, attracted by its zero income tax and open spaces; since 2010 it has grown by 5 million people, to 30 million. This moment begs for a political culture that can confront the challenge head on, experts say. But that is not the prevailing mood in Texas. 'Our elected representatives are not forward looking on climate issues,' Dessler said. Dessler, who specialises in climate change, traces the source of the resistance to the fossil fuel industry, which with its mega-donations to Republican politicians wields a big stick. 'It's the political power of fossil fuels, and their ability to keep everybody in line.' The official platform of the Texas Republican party is explicit. It proposes the abolition of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, supports the reclassification of carbon dioxide as a 'non-pollutant', and opposes what it calls 'environmentalism, or 'climate change' initiatives that obstruct legitimate business interests and private property use'. Abbott and other top state Republicans are openly skeptical of climate crisis science. In 2022, when Dallas was hit by colossal floods, reporters tried and failed to get the governor even to utter the words 'climate change'. 'Texas Republicans are increasingly opposed to the idea that climate change is man-made, and therefore there's nothing we can do about it,' said Calvin Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. 'They see climate issues as requiring more taxes, more regulation, more spending – and as a party of small government and deregulation they don't want to deal with it.' The combination of small government ideology and climate crisis denial has distorted the politics of the state to the extent that basic decisions that might bolster climate resilience are shunted aside. The impact is seen at all levels, from the state capital in Austin down to local neighborhoods. Almost half of Texas's 254 counties have no mitigation plan in place to lessen the blow of environmental disasters, the Texas Tribune found. Rob Kelly, a local elected official in Kerr county at the epicenter of the Hill Country floods, said that warning systems had been considered but were rejected on grounds of cost. 'Taxpayers won't pay for it,' he told the New York Times. Wes Virdell, the Republican representative whose Texas house district covers much of the devastated flooded area, voted against HB 13, the failed bill which would have set up a siren alarm system. He told the Texas Tribune three days after the tragedy that his experience of such grief and suffering had shaken his confidence in his decision. 'I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now.'
