Takeaways from Texas — Weather Radios Save Lives

James Spann, a meteorologist with around 1.4 million followers on Facebook, has some takeaways from the flash flood in Texas which has claimed the lives of over 50 people, including some children who were at a Christian church camp.

A lot of left-wing news sites blamed President Donald Trump’s recent DOGE cuts on the National Weather Service. However, in fact, the NWS was on top of the flood, which struck late Thursday night and early Friday morning.

Mr. Spann notes that there were five people staffing the local NWS office that night instead of the usual two. He also notes:

—At 12:41 am local time, a flash flood watch for Kerr County (TX) that mentioned potential life-threatening conditions. A watch had also been issued earlier that afternoon.

—At 1:14 am, a warning was issued for Kerr County.

—At 5:34 am, a flash flood emergency was issued for Kerr County and the Guadalupe River.

—Similar flooding events along the Guadalupe River occurred in 1998, 1987, 1978, 1935, and 1921.

Since Alpha Media abruptly laid off all its live radio broadcasters in Missouri, including at KAAN, there is no radio station that we know of that monitors the weather all night and comes on the air in the event of severe weather. Worth County Textcaster will alert cell phone customers in the event of severe weather, and each town in Worth County has a storm siren that can be activated in the event of severe weather.

Mr. Spann said that the takeaway from the flash flooding in Texas was the importance of having an NOAA weather radio, which alerts people 24/7 in the event of severe weather. He noted that cell service was spotty in Guadalupe. However, an NOAA weather radio is not dependent on cell phone service to work.

A weather radio costs anywhere from $14 to $50 online.

Mr. Spann also noted the problem of false positives; many times, flash flood warnings and tornado warnings are issued that don’t materialize. However, emergency services people have always acted with the mentality that it’s better to be safe than sorry.