Texas officials blame Trump for storm deaths, Brunswick Beacon

Brunswick Beacon, 07.10.25

While Trump danced on a White House balcony, “catastrophic” flooding left over 80 dead and dozens missing, including 10 girls from a Texas summer camp. Officials blamed faulty National Weather Service (NWS) forecasting. Trump gutted the NWS to fund his tax giveaway to the rich. NWS offices responsible for the region lost their senior hydrologist, staff forecaster, meteorologist-in-charge, science officer and warning coordination meteorologist, who works with local emergency managers to plan for floods, warn residents and help them evacuate.

Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd said, “Everybody got the forecast from NWS. They did not predict the amount of rain we saw.” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said, "We didn't know this flood was coming.”

In April, tornadoes and floods killed 24 people in the South and Midwest. In May, storms killed 32 people in Kentucky and Missouri. Tornadoes and torrential rains created a nightmare scenario for emergency managers who desperately needed precise weather information to warn people to avoid areas likely to flood. Tragically, staffing shortages at Jackson, Kentucky’s NWS office left no on-duty forecaster to provide that information during the overnight shift when storms were deadliest. 

NWS lost over 600 staffers to Trump’s cuts, which, it admitted, “degraded operations” because fewer staffers were available to generate forecasts. For the first time, local NWS forecasting offices were forced to stop round-the-clock operations. 

Last year, Hurricane Helene’s historic flooding was accurately predicted. Still, 108 North Carolinians perished. This year, NC can’t count on a warning. Florida’s veteran meteorologist John Morales told viewers that Trump’s cuts and “sledgehammer attack on science” have forecasters “flying blind” into what they project will be an intense hurricane season. 

In May, every living former NWS director signed an open letter warning of their “worst nightmare,” that Trump’s NWS cuts will cause “needless loss of life.” Sadly, that nightmare has become reality in Texas Hill Country, where the death toll keeps rising. NC could be next.

Robert Bannerman

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