Disasters Natural and Human-Made

Spectator

According to our president, it “has never happened before” and “nobody could have seen it coming.” He was talking about the recent horrific flash floods in Texas’ Hill Country. He was wrong on both counts.

There is a reason this part of Texas is called “flash flood alley,” and it isn’t because these events are rare or mysterious. The Guadalupe River has experienced 10 major flood events just since 1937, including a flash flood in 1978 that killed 33.

And some people did see it coming well in advance. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a Flash Flood Watch shortly after 1:00 the afternoon of July 3, more than 12 hours before flooding began, and they issued increasingly strident alerts as the event unfolded. But too few were paying attention and even fewer were prepared.

Kerr County and the city of Kerrville took the brunt of the disaster. They had the opportunity to create warning systems at various times after various floods but always said the plans were too expensive. The state of Texas also had the chance to create an alert system for the entire flood-prone hill country but, once again, found the price tag—$500 million out of a $338 billion budget—too much. (This is the same legislature that has been deferring the creation of a system to protect Houston and its two million residents from storm surges for 17 years.)

The arguments against alert systems are always the same: too expensive, too ineffective in an area of hills and valleys, too annoying, too many false alarms, too startling for livestock, and on and on. Now, with 130 confirmed dead and 161 still missing as this is being written, officials are “reconsidering” those past decisions.

There is an example they might follow not far away. Little Comfort, Texas, population nearly 2,300, is about 18 miles downriver from Kerrville. After the flash flood of 1978 killed 15 Comfort residents, they decided to do something beyond just talking and planning. They cobbled together about $60,000—it might have been “a little more” according to Fire Chief Daniel Morales—and erected two tall poles topped with very loud sirens audible for three miles in every direction. They practiced and rehearsed so Comfort residents learned what to expect.

It’s not as if Comfort was spared this flash flood. The Guadalupe reached a record-setting 27 feet as it crashed through Comfort, devastating large portions of the community and washing away businesses and homes. But Chief Morales and others monitored the Guadalupe the old-fashioned way, by listening to NWS warnings and watching the river themselves. They activated the sirens, the rehearsals worked, Comfort evacuated, and not a single life was lost.

There will now be recriminations and accusations and likely lawsuits aplenty. We’re told that since we’re still looking for the missing and burying the dead, this isn’t the time to review what might have helped. Actually, it’s the best time. Maybe with the horror fresh on their minds, Texans, who experience more natural disasters than any other state, will actually do something to prepare themselves for the next disaster, which is surely right around the corner.

Meanwhile, we’re witnessing a gloriously self-inflicted disaster of sorts unfold in Washington.

Remember how MAGA world was all atwitter about some alleged Jeffrey Epstein client list full of names who had partied with underage young women on his private island? And that he made his money by blackmailing those folks? And once he was arrested the truth would come out about this cannibalistic pedophile ring? But then he was murdered to conceal all?

Trump himself said “all will be exposed,” and his current FBI director and his chief deputy were among the loudest voices demanding full transparency of the “Epstein files.” The current attorney general even said the client list “is sitting on my desk” and she would review it at the president’s order. (She now says she was just referring to the file, not a client list, but the context of the question she answered was list-specific.)

Meanwhile, Trump and his minions had been denigrating the FBI and its leadership for years without let-up. They were, we were told ad nauseam, part of the “deep state” and not to be believed, especially after they investigated the thugs who tried to take over the capitol on Jan. 6.

Now, the FBI says there is no evidence of an Epstein client list (if one existed naming Democrats, we’d have already heard about it, and if one existed naming Trump, it was destroyed long ago), no evidence of blackmail, and no evidence his death was anything but suicide.

Having been trained to love conspiracies and disbelieve the FBI, MAGA world now sees yet another cover-up. What a surprise.

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