Devastating Texas Floods Leave State and Federal Officials Pointing Fingers at Each Other

“In classic Washington D.C. fashion, everybody wants to politicize everything,” Texas Rep. Chip Roy said amidst a blame game over disaster preparedness.

Texas flood aftermath
Officials comb through the banks of the Guadalupe River in the aftermath of the flooding. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) Julio Cortez/AP

The deadly floods that ripped through Kerr County, Texas, early Friday morning have left state and federal officials blaming each other and asking why so few people evacuated even as the National Weather Service issued increasingly dire alerts.

In the immediate aftermath, state emergency officials placed blame on the short-staffed NWS, whose forecast the day before did not definitively state that record-breaking rains were going to fall that night.

But in the days since, meteorologists, former NWS leaders, and emergency management experts all told NOTUS that it’s not the NWS that deserves the brunt of the blame but rather the lack of an adequate early warning system.