Texas Gov. Greg Abbott compared those asking who was to blame for the deadly flood in Kerr County last weekend to a losing football team.
During a press conference Tuesday afternoon in which Abbott said 110 people were confirmed dead and 161 were still missing, the Republican governor took issue with a reporter’s phrasing when he asked if there would be an investigation into “who is to blame,” as there was for the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
“Know this: that’s the word choice of losers,” replied Abbott. “Let me explain one thing about Texas, and that is Texas—every square inch of our state—cares about football.“
“You could be in Hunt, Texas, Huntsville, Texas, Houston, Texas—any size community that cares about football, high school, Friday night lights, college football, or pro,” he said. “And know this: every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s 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, that we’re going to win this game.’”
The governor maintained that to “point fingers” is not something that “winners” do.
“They talk about solutions,” he said. “What Texas is all about is solutions.”
Yet with over 100 people already dead, any “solution” would require understanding what may have gone wrong to prevent it from happening again, others have pointed out.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, for instance, has called for an investigation into cuts that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) made to the National Weather Service (NWS).
While no direct evidence has linked the cuts to the disaster, a New York Times report found that some NWS forecasting jobs for the region were vacant when the storm hit last weekend.
NWS spokesperson Erica Grow Cei told the Daily Beast that the agency had extra personnel during the flooding in the Weather Forecast Offices in Austin/San Antonio and San Angelo, TX.
“Extra staff members from both offices, in addition to the West Gulf River Forecast Center, had extra personnel on the night of Thursday, July 3 into the day on Friday, July 4,” she said. “All forecasts and warnings were issued in a timely manner. Additionally, these offices were able to provide decision support services to local partners, including those in the emergency management community.”
In a separate statement, a NWS spokesperson said forecast briefings for emergency management were held the morning of July 3, and a flood watch was issued that afternoon. Also, flash flood warnings were issued that night and early July 4.
Yet Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd said at a press conference Friday that the NWS forecast was off by a lot.
“The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,” he said. “The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.”
Also of note is a NWS internal document obtained by The New York Times in April which found that the agency was beginning to offer “degraded” forecasting services.
