As search and rescue operations continue in the aftermath of the deadly Independence Day flood in Kerrville, Texas, local officials are bearing the brunt of activist news reporters who appear hell bent on politicizing the tragedy. With little to no evidence provided, one story in the Texas Tribune suggests that local officials may have stood idle for more than three hours instead of acting to save lives.
The heartless headline of the report, which appeared in the Texas Tribune on Tuesday, reads, “Weather warnings gave officials a 3 hour, 21 minute window to save lives in Kerr County. What happened then remains unclear.” The carefully worded headline crafted by a Texas Tribune climate reporter would lead a reader to believe the accompanying story would tell the tale of how lazy or inept officials in Kerr County may have sat idly by as the deadly flash flood swept people away.
The story in the Texas Tribune asks more questions than it answers about what officials did or did not do, or if they received or did not receive National Weather Service warnings. “But if any local officials got those warnings, and if so, whether they activated in any meaningful way in that 3 hours and 21 minutes remains a black box,” the story reads. The writer is referring to the time between the issuance of a flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m. on July 4th and the first reports of actual flooding at some low-water crossings in the county.
The alerts from officials were issued in the early morning hours of July 4, a time when most people along the river were asleep. Many had likely turned their cell phones off or set their ringtones to vibrate. Many ignored or did not hear text alerts that came well before sunrise that fateful morning.
The report alleges that the Texas Tribune’s requests for interviews sent to Kerr County officials remain unanswered and that officials at the public press conferences are not addressing the efforts they took when the flood event transitioned from possible to imminent. In describing the refusal to provide answers to the questions most concerning to the Texas Tribune, the reporter writes, “At those press conferences, Kerrville’s city manager has repeatedly said they are focused on search and rescue, rather than answer questions about their response.
The Texas Tribune reporter irrationally implies that questions about precise actions taken during a 3-hour time frame by authorities in the small town are more pressing than the need to inform the public about ongoing efforts to locate and rescue missing children, residents, visitors, and campers.
Despite the journalistic stone-throwing by the Texas Tribune, as Breitbart Texas directly observed, city and county officials have remained professional and have been eager to provide updates on rescue and recovery efforts to the public.
The answer to how a flash flood could turn deadly along the Guadalupe River can be found in historical documents analyzing the long history of floods in the Texas Hill Country. More than a quarter century ago, in October 1998, the Guadalupe River Basin experienced flooding that broke existing records at the time and reached or exceeded the “500-year” flood projections in some areas of the Hill Country.
A report published by the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority in cooperation with FEMA in 1999 titled “Staying Safe-A Guide for Flooding in the Guadalupe River Basin” details the events from the October 1998 flood and cites specific reasons more people did not die as a result of the historic flooding.
The contributors of the 1998 flood report attributed the low death toll to the time of day the flooding occurred. People received daytime flood alerts and evacuated low-lying areas as instructed. In the report, the authors were cognizant of what might have happened if the flood had occurred at night, saying, “The 1998 flood resulted in a total of twelve deaths in the Guadalupe Basin. If a flood of this size and intensity had occurred in the middle of the night instead of during the day, the death toll would have been higher.”
One can infer from this conclusion in the report that a flood of equal magnitude occurring in the middle of the night, on a busy national holiday when thousands flock to the Texas Hill Country, such as July 4th, would have been even deadlier.
At a time when victims, families, first responders, and public officials are forced to deal with the trauma of the devastating Independence Day weekend floods, attacks on officials and response crews are both heartless and irrational. The Texas Tribune is just one media outlet that appears to have an agenda in reporting this tragic story.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Before his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyClarkBBTX.
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