Here in Austin it seemed like such a pleasant July 4 afternoon. Rain was coming down, not in a threatening way, but in a very welcome and comforting way — keeping the Texas heat at bay in the middle of summer. It was very relaxing. Then I checked the news. A devastating tragedy in Texas was, once again, the top national and local story.
Eight and nine year old girls spending the July 4 weekend at a beloved summer camp, were washed away in the middle of the night — from cabins in a floodplain less than 500 feet from the Guadalupe River. Nearby, entire cabins, homes and RVs were uprooted and pulled down the river. People on the edge of the rising waters watched helplessly as terrified occupants of cars, RVs, cabins and houses floated by in terror, some screaming, many on the way to their deaths. Campers along the river were also swept away. Whole families were carried off down the surging river. Of those, in some families the flood killed every member. In other cases the torrent ripped families asunder, with some surviving and others disappearing into the raging deluge. The casualty numbers were swelled by groups of family and friends gathered along the Guadalupe for the holiday weekend. As this story goes to press the death toll in Kerr County is 107 — including 70 adults and 37 children. The total for Texas was 135 people.
The level of tragedy is almost unbelievable while, upon reflection, in some ways entirely predictable. By predictable I mean that deadly floods are nothing new on the Guadalupe, although there is some truth to claims that this one was beyond what people in the area had ever seen before. Nonetheless, when children are packed into cabins in a floodplain, only a few hundred feet from the river, with no warning system, and lots of people, of all ages, are packed in along the river, then it seems predictable that tragedy will eventually strike.
I realize that the approach I’m taking here risks veering into what Governor Greg Abbott considers the province of “losers,” that is placing blame. I am, of course, referring to a widely publicized encounter Abbott had with a unnamed reporter who asked him “who is to blame here?” Abbott replied by saying the reporter had made “the word choice of losers.”
It may surprise some, but I am partially sympathetic to the governor reacting angrily to this question — although I think labeling the reporter a “loser” based on one question went way too far. There are too many reporters, however, especially national reporters, who show up at a tragedy — often with little knowledge of the locale or relevant subject matter — and try to get a scoop by quickly placing blame; or, as is more often the case, join a herd in casting blame. In my view, such reporting doesn’t tend to provide much of value the rest of the time either. I don’t know if the reporter who asked the question fits into this category, but saying “who’s to blame” was at the very least un-artful, and also reflective of too much of the journalism profession.
Also, looking more closely at the question, the reporter was asking the governor to name people or entities who he thinks are to blame for this tragedy, at a press conference. That kind of thing is more the style of the current president of the United States and was pretty much unheard of until recently. Thankfully Abbott didn’t take that approach.
On the other hand the reporter might have been fishing for Abbott to say, ‘I take responsibility. The buck stops here.’ If that is what the reporter was going for then I apologize for what I’ve said so far. I mean that would be such a sweet, but naïve approach. Also, if that’s the reporter meant, I think it proves he is from out of state. No Texan who has been paying the slightest bit of attention would expect Greg Abbott to say anything like that.
I’m also basing my belief that the reporter is from out of Texas on the way Abbott kept talking about the people of Texas, as if he was trying to explain Texas to someone from out-of-state.
So, I have some empathy for Governor Abbott on his encounter with this reporter, but it only goes so far. First of all, members of the media have a responsibility to scrutinize the performance of government and of many private interests, like campground operators. The media also has a responsibility to investigate the causes of a disaster, to look at anything that might’ve prevented it, and to report whether politicians could have taken steps that might have prevented or lessened the tragedy. Many members of the Texas and national media have been carrying out those responsibilities since July 4.
More specifically to Abbott, and based on my experience and my review of that episode, it looks like his response was something the governor had already cooked up and the reporter just provided him the opportunity to put it out there. One clue is that Abbott whipped out his phone and very quickly found a letter that he wanted to read.
The letter was a paean to Texans coming together after a tragedy occurs, referring in particular to first responders and other people in the field still searching for the missing. First responders, and all the people engaged in the recovery effort, deserve every bit of respect, praise and gratitude that we can muster. Their heroic actions however do not mean that Abbott and other officials should be spared having to answer tough questions. In Abbott’s formulation, there is a heavy insinuation that it does.
Worst of all was Abbott’s attempt to use football metaphors. As Austin Congressman Lloyd Doggett said, “this is not a game.” Others pointed to flaws in Abbott’s analogies. I will just add a couple of things here. One, Abbott mixed his metaphor by talking about games and seasons simultaneously. When he did talk specifically about a game, he said “Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who is to blame. The championship teams are the ones that say, ‘Don’t worry about it, man, we got this.’ We’re going to make sure that we go score again, and we’re going to win this game.”
Worst of all was Abbott’s attempt to use football metaphors.
Well, sorry governor, there is not going to be a come-from- behind victory in this game. It’s already lost.
Let’s hope that Abbott is not planning on claiming any action taken at the special session of the legislature as a come-from-behind victory. I hope he doesn’t mean, ‘Sure, 107 people were killed in the first half, but we can still come back and win this thing.’
Please. There’s no way to put this one in the win column.
Did Ideology Do It?
Now it’s time to examine how governance and government policy may have contributed to this disaster. In doing so I’m going to try to avoid anything that seems like placing blame on any individuals or even specific agencies. Instead I’m going to examine the role of something at work here that is bigger than any individual. And that is ideology.
Specifically, I’m talking about Republican anti-government, anti-tax, anti-regulation ideology. These are all key planks of national Republican ideology since at least Ronald Reagan. Such sentiments have always been strong in Texas and have grown continually stronger during the last 30 years of Republican rule. I offer for discussion that this ideological devotion is the root cause of our recent calamity.
I know some are about to click off this article, but please bear with me. For one thing I regularly criticize what I see as the extreme left wing ideology of a supermajority of the Austin City Council and the damage it has done to Austin. Also, I have not been shy about critiquing the far left ideology — as well the competence — of the Travis County District Attorney. But, none of those people had anything to do with the disaster in Kerr County.
By the way, I also realize that people died in flooding in Travis County. The causes of the deaths in Travis County need to be further explored. But the scale of the tragedy in Travis County does not compare to what happened in Kerr County on July 4.
Also, I realize that the Trump administration owes the country facts and answers about whether their budget and job cuts affected the performance of the National Weather Service (NWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). The administration’s response so far has been very similar to Abbott’s, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters, “Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning.”
Hopefully we can count on media and elected officials to continue probing these issues.
Here, however, we will focus on state and local government because this is very clearly a failure of state and local governance.
Roll The Film
Now, let’s return briefly to Abbott’s football metaphor. As Dan Solomon pointed out in Texas Monthly, football teams from high school up to the NFL film their games, then review the films, and look at what went right, what went wrong and how they can do better next time.
In reviewing the film (so to speak) of what happened in Kerr County, the specific thing that could have saved lives, and possibly prevented the tragedy from reaching the scale that it did, would have been some sort of flood early warning system. That could be sirens or some other system that might have been devised locally with the possible assistance of the state.
The specific thing that could have saved lives, and possibly prevented the tragedy from reaching the scale that it did, would have been some sort of flood early warning system.
But, both county and state officials refused to pay for such a system. That is in large part because, as Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly explained last week, “Taxpayers won’t pay for it.”
The Guadalupe River has flooded many times and more than once caused deadly disasters. As recently as 1987, ten teenage campers on a church bus trying to flee a flood at one of the camps near Comfort were washed away and killed. It was a May 2015 flood on the Blanco River in Wimberley (in Hays County), however, that led to Kerr County Commissioners most recently considering a warning system. The Wimberley flood killed 13 people. After the flood Wimberley created and implemented a flood early warning system.
Jonathan Letz, a longtime Kerr County Commissioner visited Wimberley, to study their warning system. He came back suggesting a similar plan for Kerr County. Letz, who retired from the Commissioners Court in 2024, had served since 1996. According to a recent report from the New York Times (and also reporting in the Houston Chronicle), after Letz returned from Wimberley “county commissioners hired a local engineer, who came up with a plan. They identified grant money and worked with a grant writer to make an application to the Texas Department of Emergency Management for federal money from the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, according to county meeting minutes from January 2017. The cost: about $976,000.”
According to the Times, “The plan would have added 10 gauges to measure rising water at river crossings and created a system for warnings to be shared with the sheriff, emergency managers and the public, according to a description shared at the meeting.” Some people in the area had earlier objected that sirens would disturb the peaceful quiet along the Guadalupe. It is not clear if this particular plan included sirens, but it was an early warning system designed by professionals in the field in cooperation with elected officials.
As the Times continues, “The state denied the application in 2017, the county commissioners said, according to meeting minutes.”
Hopes among Kerr County Commissioners were soon raised again, as the Times continues: “after Hurricane Harvey hit, Mr. Abbott said the state would do more to fund local government efforts to deal with flooding [is anyone noticing a pattern].” After that, continues the Times, “Kerr County officials were again hopeful. They reapplied to the Texas Department of Emergency Management in 2018.” That application was never approved.
Kerr County Commissioners, all Republicans throughout this saga, could have voted for Kerr County to pay for the system, without state help. For instance the population of Kerr County in 2017 was 51,883. So, a $976,000 system would have cost $18.81 per capita. That could have almost certainly been spread out over several years, with a little interest. If that was still too costly, they could have tried to do something in partnership with the multiple camps that host thousands of kids each year; and with other tourist businesses. If that too was impossible they could have come up with some other word of mouth system and water level vigilance. Clearly, they didn’t do any of this, or anything like it.
The population of Kerr County in 2017 was 51,883. So, a $976,000 early warning system would have cost $18.81 per capita.
So from the state of Texas to the Kerr County Commissioners Court to, evidently, an overwhelming number of voters in Kerr County an early warning system had no chance. At all turns, the proposed system ran up against the iron grip of the anti-regulation, anti-tax, anti-government ideology that dominates in Texas. In this case the taxes seem to have been the main problem.
Flood Response added to special legislative agenda – after the flood
Now, after the disaster, the state is ready to act, in a special session that was already scheduled to begin July 21. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the state’s second-in-command, said on Monday July 7 that “there should have been sirens here.” He also told Fox News, “The state needs to step up and pay for these. Had we had sirens along this area, up and down — the same type of sirens that they have in Israel when there’s an attack coming that would have blown very loudly, it’s possible that that would have saved some of these lives.” It’s to Patrick’s credit that he wants to get this done now and and that he at least passively admitted some state responsibility. But, even with his immense powers, he didn’t get anything done before the tragedy.
As far as I know, Abbott hasn’t come anywhere near accepting any responsibility, but he has added disaster planning and early warning systems to the special session charge.
Abbott didn’t commit to a specific solution but in an interview with Austin’s Fox 7 he offered some perspective on what he doubts would work. He also revealed more than he probably intended about his failure to take any action to alert people when the Guadalupe is about to flood. “I’ll tell you one thing that doesn’t work, is as a guy who’s been here for 20 years, to this great region every summer. I know that cell phone service is spotty at best, nonexistent most frequently, and so alerts that typically would come over a cell phone or things like that probably didn’t make it. What everybody can agree upon is there has to be a better way.”
So Abbott wants everyone to know that he comes down to the Guadalupe all the time, for the last 20 years. As a consequence, he knows that cell phone coverage is spotty and flood alerts probably aren’t going to make it to most people.
Clearly, Abbott believed long before July 4, 2025 that cell phone warnings would not be enough to protect people from floods roaring down the Guadalupe. And he had to know that the Guadalupe was subject to major floods. But evidently the governor wasn’t concerned enough about potential flooding or loss of life to do anything about it.
I’m not a big fan of of these two guys, but I don’t think for a minute that either Patrick or Abbott wanted anything like this to ever happen. But, I think the ideology that they propagate throughout the state and use to keep themselves in power played a direct role in this immense and devastating loss of life happening on their watch.
First in a series, coming up: more on the Republican ideological grip plus how Austin’s Fire Chief got sucked into the flood blame game.
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