Questions are piling up about whether a region nicknamed "Flash Flood Alley" should have done more to prepare for Friday's deluge, such as evacuating local summer camps.
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice declined to answer those questions at a press conference?on Sunday, saying the "rain hit at the most inopportune time and right in the most inopportune areas."
Some Texas officials have suggested that the National Weather Service (NWS) didn't?adequately warn them?of the extent of the danger, which the federal agency denies.
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According to?NPR's timeline, the Texas Division of Emergency Management activated emergency response resources as early as Wednesday. On Thursday, it posted on social media and informed local officials about the risk of potential flooding.
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Separately, the NWS' Austin/San Antonio office issued a flood watch for multiple counties, which it upgraded to a flood warning just after midnight on Friday and expanded in the early morning hours.
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By 4:06 a.m, with river levels rising quickly, it warned of an ongoing "very dangerous flash flooding event." The official social media pages of the City of Kerrville's Police Department and Kerr County sheriff didn't post about the emergency until after 6 a.m.
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Meteorologists?told NPR?that it is extremely tricky to predict what a complex weather system will do and then convince people to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Some critics have questioned whether those efforts were further hampered by the Trump administration's cuts to the federal workforce, which cost the NWS nearly 600 workers earlier this year (some were rehired after backlash).
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Trump denied that on Sunday. "I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe, and it's just so horrible to watch," Trump said.
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https://www.npr.org/2025/07/07/nx-s1-5459761/texas-flooding-deaths-rescues-camp-mystic
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