Bryan Zepp Jamieson
July 6th, 2025
First, my heart goes out to the friends and family of all those who perished in the horrible flash flood along the Guadalupe River in Texas yesterday. That so many were young children only adds to the grief that we all feel.
In two hours, the river flow rose from about 500 cubic feet per second to over 100,000, a staggering increase. Even in the flood-prone Texas hills, this was extraordinary.
Even as they continue to search for twenty-seven missing young girls, the finger-pointing and blaming has also reached flood stage levels. Some of it, course, is idiotic on the face of it. Yes, the flood and resultant tragedy really did happen. No, cloud seeding wasn’t involved. And if you think God did it to punish people who bother you, you need to get a new god. That one’s worthless.
But the more I read about this event, the less blame there seems to be to be meted out. Let’s start with the camp: yes, it was in an area that was prone to flooding. Indeed, in the century that the camp had been there, it had flooded several times, although resulting only in minor property damage and no loss of life.
A lot of people have been blaming the National Weather Service, citing either lack of competence or staff shortages. A local report indicates that the NWS did do the sort of forecasting and warning that could be reasonably expected of it.
According to KXAN in Kerr County:
“[T]he NWS provided additional details on its notification timeline for the Kerr County flood, including:
- The National Water Center Flood Hazard Outlook issued on Thursday morning indicated an expansion of flash flood potential to include Kerrville and surrounding areas.
- A flood watch was issued by the NWS Austin/San Antonio office at 1:18 p.m. on Thursday, in effect through Friday morning.
- The Weather Prediction Center issued three Mesoscale Precipitation Discussions for the excessive rainfall event as early as 6:10 p.m. Thursday indicating the potential for flash flooding.
- The National Water Center Area Hydrologic Discussion #144 at 6:22 p.m. on Thursday messaged locally considerable flood wording for areas north and west of San Antonio, including Kerrville.
- At 1:14 a.m. Friday, a flash flood warning with a considerable tag (which denotes high-damage threats and will automatically trigger Wireless Emergency Alerts on enabled mobile devices and over NOAA Weather Radio) was issued for Kerr County.
- The flash flood warning was upgraded to a flash flood emergency for southcentral Kerr County as early as 4:03 a.m. Friday.
- The 5:00 a.m. National Water Center Area Hydrologic Discussion #146 on Friday included concern for widespread considerable flooding through the day. The Flood Hazard Outlook was also upgraded to considerable and catastrophic.
- A flash flood emergency was issued for the Guadalupe River at 5:34 a.m.”
KXAN also reported “For instance, directly under Vesper at the local NWS office is a key position – warning coordination meteorologist (WCM) – that has remained vacant since April. The role was most recently held by longtime employee Paul Yura, who took an early retirement package offered to agency workers as the administration worked to reduce the budget and personnel number at the NWS and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.” They noted that there were 5 other vacancies in the 21-person staff, including the Senior Hydrologist who took early retirement. The hydrologist is the person you want to speak to when you want to know how MUCH it’s going to rain.
It’s impossible to say how much the absence of those two positions factored into seeing the danger and warning against it, but they did get the word out and in a timely manner.
There’s hardly a place on Earth that is immune to natural disaster. I live in a place that many consider idyllic, but wildfire is a constant worry, ten foot snowstorms are an occasional problem, it reached 109F a year ago today, oh, and did I mention the volcano? No place is completely immune.
Living in hilly country, I know how difficult specific forecasting can be. Microclimates are a major bugger factor in any forecast, and my county has more climate zones than Canada. All of Canada. One time I couldn’t get in to my office, eight miles away and at the same altitude, puzzling clients who couldn’t figure out why three inches of snow could be a serious problem. Only it was five feet here, and the highway was still closed. Supercell storms are tricky as well: on flat ground, one spot may remain bone dry while a mile away they get three inches of rain in ten minutes.
I can’t speak to the timeliness of local emergency response authorities, but I will note there wasn’t much time, and I doubt a single one of them thought, “Oh, let’s let a bunch of seven-year-old girls drown. It will look great on the town’s tourism flyers!”
So quit blaming, people. This is just one of those fucking awful things that happen, and all the preparation in the world can’t insure you’ll be safe. As the saying goes, “Nature always bats last.”
That said, a warning: The ongoing depletion of scientific, response and forecast facilities is going to whip around and bite us on the ass. We’ll miss a Cat 5 hurricane, assuming it’s still just a tropical storm and not have the facilities to spot the bombogenesis or the last minute veer that smashes a major city. Second, the climate is changing, and at an accelerating rate, and ‘once-in-a-century’ events are going to happen with increasing frequency and with increasing severity. Storms, including snow storms, will get worse. Temperatures will fluctuate more wildly, especially on the high end. Many massive weather-related disasters await.
And in places like Texas, where people hate gummint red tape, usually motivated by profit, people will build where they shouldn’t, in areas more prone to flood, fire, earthquake or tornadoes than others.
These things will happen, many will die, and if we want to cast blame, we will need to start by looking in the mirror first.
And remember—Nature always bats last.
