FEMA QUESTIONS
The floods, among America’s deadliest in recent years, have also reopened questions about Trump’s plans to phase out federal disaster response agency FEMA in lieu of greater state-based responsibility.
FEMA began its response to the Texas flash floods over the weekend after Trump signed a major disaster declaration to release federal resources.
But the president has so far avoided addressing questions about its future. Noem insisted FEMA should be “eliminated” in its current form at a government review meeting on Wednesday.
Officials in Kerr County, which sits astride the Guadalupe River in an area nicknamed “Flash Flood Alley”, said at least 36 children were killed in the disaster at the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
Details have surfaced about reported delays of early alerts at a local level that could have saved lives.
Experts say forecasters did their best and sent out timely and accurate warnings despite the sudden weather change.
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said “it was between 4 or 5 (am) when I got notified” of incoming emergency calls.
ABC News reported Thursday that at 4.22am on Jul 4, a firefighter in Ingram, upstream of Kerrville, had asked the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office to alert residents of nearby Hunt to the coming flood.
The network said its affiliate KSAT obtained audio of the call, and that the first alert did not reach Kerr County’s CodeRED system for a full 90 minutes.
In some cases, it said, the warning messages did not arrive until after 10am, when hundreds of people had already been swept away.
The flooding of the Guadalupe River was particularly devastating for summer camps on its banks, including Camp Mystic, where 27 girls and counsellors died.
