And Now, Texas Is Dying, Too
Storms in Texas killed dozens of people last night because of insufficient reports from the gutted National Weather Service
Trigger warning: Distressing footage and news
Camp Mystic, near a town called Hunt, deep in the heart of Texas, is a Christian summer camp that traditionally watches over about 750 young girls each summer. It describes itself as a Christian-oriented camp where kids can experience a “wholesome atmosphere in which they can develop outstanding personal qualities and self-esteem.”1 It’s a place local parents trust. It’s been around for a hundred years.
Twenty of those kids are now missing in a catastrophic flood along the Guadalupe River that has already killed at least 24 people, according to local news reports.
This is an unimaginably painful tragedy. It’s hard to even write about. I can’t imagine living through it as a parent. It was, most likely, also an avoidable one:
“The original forecast we received on Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6” of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8” of rain in the hill country. The amount of rain that fell in these locations was never in any of their forecasts. Everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service. They did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.”2
More than ten inches fell in the hardest hit areas.
The person who reported the rainfall predictions is a Texas official speaking at a news conference last night. It’s a statement he’ll probably regret for the rest of his days as a government employee when Herr ICEenfuhrer stormtroopers discover his sacrilege this morning.
I lived in that general area for years. Weather reporting has always been phenomenal in a place where storms can slam into you with little notice, as thunderheads, triggered by an intensely hot atmosphere, quickly spawn overhead. So the official’s reporting of the weather service’s failures must have felt like instinct. Where, he must have wondered, were the usual reliable warnings?
Today, the stormtroopers, uninterested in the tragedy and aided by the misanthropic Texas governor, will descend upon the poor guy and muzzle him faster than a police dog who finds drugs in Kristi Noem’s purse. Reports about National Weather Service failures will disappear from the news as the ministers of propaganda move in.
This, despite news like this:
Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said it would phase out data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, which has collected weather data for military operations for more than 50 years.
“Due to recent service changes, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) will discontinue ingest, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025,” the original notice said.
“This service change and termination will be permanent,” it added.3
Science nerds point out that the services the Navy provided were critical factors in the weather service’s ability to provide enhanced predictive reporting. But recent reports on the initial wave of tornadoes in the South suggest that the Weather Service has already degraded. The usual warnings were either insufficient or entirely lacking during April’s deadly storms.4
The NOAA, which was severely impacted by the recent Trump budget cuts, is now run by political appointee Laura Grimm (appointed by Commerce Secretary and Trump sycophant Howard Lutnick), because its previous administrator, Nancy Hann, was booted during those initial DOGE attacks that many people have already forgotten about.5, 6
This means that NOAA’s biggest cheerleader is a bigger cheerleader for Trump than she is for the American people or helpless summer camp kids in Texas.
When the regime’s shock troops wake up today, they’ll go into overdrive to shut down officials in Texas who dare to blame the savage results of these floods on cutbacks in the National Weather Service.
So will Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who will look for creative ways to avoid accountability, and probably succeed, just as he did when the Texas electrical grid collapsed a few years ago, leaving people to die in sweltering heat. Just as he does every year, when hurricanes slam into Houston and rip apart unregulated refineries and leave toxic waste littered across Houston neighborhoods.
Just as he did when dozens of young children were slaughtered in Uvalde.
Because nothing matters more to Texans than their march toward Gilead, Abbott and Republicans will get a free pass for this tragedy. Some of them will even find a way to blame Biden.
This makes Texans an easy mark. It makes it easy to say, “They deserve this.”
But they don’t. I lived in Texas for several years. I can’t explain the politics. I’ve never been able to, because the people I knew were some of the friendliest, kindest people on earth.
This is Texas:
When I pulled up to my new home in north suburban Austin many years ago, my next door neighbor, a Louisiana Cajun, was slaughtering a wild boar in his driveway. What a sight to see for this Chicago boy who is used to seeing tricycles in suburban driveways instead of some crazy man slaughtering an animal.
A day later, the doorbell rang. He had a stupid smile on his face and said, “Welcome, neighbor. My wife about killed me for prepping the meat in the driveway, but the backyard ain’t in no condition right now for that, so here I am.”
He presented me with a platterful of the tastiest, most non-vegan morsels I’ve ever eaten in my life. I later learned he was the “street mayor” who watched over the neighborhood. I can still remember seeing him sitting on top of his roof, monitoring a wildfire consuming a nearby apartment complex.
When we lefties say we welcome, no, demand cultural diversity, we need to include people like my former neighbor, or we’re hypocrites (my neighbor was a hardcore Democrat, for what it’s worth).
If we want to defeat our “enemy,” we need to remember that the people who are suffering from these floods are our friends. We need to find a way to help folks like those who have just lost their children realize that we have a common enemy. We need to change the red rural maps to blue with empathy as the results of the Republican Death Bill begin to descend upon our fellow citizens.
Can you imagine sitting at home wondering where your little girl is right now?
Would you truly wish that on anyone?
Of course you can’t.
Let’s reach out with empathy. Let’s let them know that their failures as political creatures do not consign them to a life of misery.
Wars are about hearts and minds. To win this war, we must begin at the heart.
Notes
The headline for this essay is lifted from an article I wrote about Florida last August:
Texas heroes:
The Texas National Guard made 237 rescues and evacuations from the floods, using helicopters and rescue swimmers, said Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer, the commander of the guard at a news conference.7
Footnotes
“Camp Mystic for Girls.” 2024. Camp Mystic for Girls. 2024. https://www.campmystic.com/.
Filipkowski, Ron. 2025. “Texas Officials Blame Agency Gutted by Trump for Results of Deadly Storm.” Meidasplus.com. Meidas+. July 5, 2025. https://www.meidasplus.com/p/texas-officials-blame-agency-gutted.
Frazin, Rachel, and The Hill. 2025. “NOAA to Discontinue Some Weather Data, but Delays Cutoff.” KLAS. July 2025. https://www.8newsnow.com/news/national-news/noaa-to-discontinue-some-weather-data-but-delays-cutoff/.
Bush, Evan, Maggie Vespa, and Samira Puskar. 2025. “Meteorologists Say NWS Cuts Degraded Forecasts during Recent Storms.” NBC News. April 22, 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/meteorologists-say-nws-cuts-degraded-forecasts-recent-storms-rcna202386.
Freedman, Andrew. 2025. “Scoop: Acting NOAA Head Removed, Chief of Staff in Charge, Sources Say.” Axios. April 2025. https://www.axios.com/2025/04/01/acting-noaa-administrator-changes.
Sandoval, Edgar, Ruth Graham, Ernesto Londoño, Aimee Ortiz, John Yoon, Erin McCann, Rylee Kirk, et al. 2025. “Death Toll in Texas Flood Rises to at Least 24, with as Many as 25 Missing.” The New York Times, July 4, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07/04/us/texas-floods-guadalupe-river?unlocked_article_code=1.UE8.QyGM.rCxTbEHS6rwj&smid=url-share.
To be clear, there is no PROOF that NWS' understaffing led to loss of life. But this was a warning shot of things to come as the NWS and NOAA have been stripped down to the bare bones. This warning is not really up for debate. I make no apologies for "politicizing" this tragedy. That's the only chance, and it's not a very good chance, of preventing more. Maybe if enough people demand it, the regime will rehire some of the people they've fired, and we can all move on to the next human relief agency they've gutted.
There are so many things wrong here, we can’t forget that deregulation allowed a children’s camp to be built in a flood plain. Flood plain laws are there to prevent idiots from having to explain to parents why their children are dead.