ICYMI: Rescue And Recovery Efforts Continue In Texas

0:07You're listening to the 1A Podcast. I'm Jen White, and this is In Case You Missed It, where we bring you some of the week's most important conversations you might have missed. In the early hours of Friday morning, central Texas near San Antonio was hit by what officials are calling a 100-year flood. Heavy downpours caused a deadly 30-plus foot surge on the Guadalupe River and catastrophic flash flooding. At least 105 people were killed and dozens remain missing. Search and rescue operations continue as the forecast is finally mostly clearing up after days of rain and ongoing flood risks. Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring spoke at a press conference yesterday.

0:47I need to tell my community and those families who are waiting this will be a rough week. Primary search continues and we remain hopeful every foot, every mile, every bend of the river. Meteorologist Sarah Spivey joins us after the break. She covers the region for KSAT News in San Antonio. And this story is still developing, so for all the latest, be sure to visit npr.org or tune into your local member station. Stay with us. We've got a lot to get into.

1:24Sarah, welcome to the program. Hi, Jen. Thank you for having me. We also want to hear from you. If you were affected by these devastating floods, please tell us your story. Our email is 1A at wamu.org. Sarah, what are you hearing and seeing in your community as search and rescue operations enter their fifth day? Jen, this is the most horrible weather event in our lifetimes here in San Antonio and across the hill country. As you mentioned, over 100 people are dead. 28 of those are children from a Christian camp that was just trying to enjoy the July 4th holiday. weekend. On the other hand, more than 800 people have been rescued because of the monumental efforts of our first responders and our normal regular community members, boots on the ground, going out, helping people as they clung to trees, as they were thirsty, scared, unaware of what happened as this wall of water rushed toward them.

2:28So this is by far one of the most devastating weather events I've ever seen in my meteorology career. However, it's also one of the most heartwarming events because people are coming together as a community. So the floods took place on Friday. Flood watches were in place in your region again on Monday. What rainfall have you seen in the days since Friday? Well, in the days since Friday, particularly on the 5th of July, the day after these horrible floods. There was additional flooding north of the Guadalupe River where the initial horrible event happened, where unfortunately more people died nearer to the Austin area.

3:16And also that additional rain caused a slowing down in some cases of recovery and rescue efforts and made it all the more difficult to get to the people who needed help or simply needed to be recovered. However, as you mentioned earlier in the program, the forecast is looking a little drier in the days to come, which is all the news we've wanted to hear. You said this is the worst weather event you've seen in your career as a meteorologist. How common are heavy downpours in your area of Texas? They are very common. We are known as Flash Flood Alley, Just like there's Tornado Alley in North Texas up to Oklahoma, Kansas in the Central Plains.

3:59This area is known as Flash Flood Alley because of the terrain and because of the fact that we do have so much gulf moisture here. So in the hills, it's called a hill country for a reason. There are a lot of hills there. When you get all of this rainfall in these hills, there is nowhere for that rain to go but into the rivers. and oftentimes like what happened with this event, we'll get a ton of gulf moisture. And so these storms can just keep on fueling themselves. And because this happened at night, there was really nothing to help kick this low pressure system out of the way. It just parked itself in the worst location possible at the headwaters of the Guadalupe River at the worst time possible at night when people are sleeping, and at the worst time of year possible, on the 4th of July, when people make traditions of camping along the Guadalupe River and of spending time with their family on the riverbanks.

5:05Now, you mentioned, Sarah, that this happened in the early hours of Friday. The National Weather Service issued a series of flash flood warnings, followed by a rare flash flood emergency, and that signals immediate and life-threatening conditions. But as you said, most people were sleeping and there were no alarms along the river to wake them up. The missed warnings is bringing renewed attention to this years-long push for a more comprehensive flood monitoring and warning system in the region, which is the most flash flood prone in the country. So as we look back on this disaster, what do we know about how well citizens were warned and whether the tragedy could have been better predicted?

5:44That's a good question there. And that is the crux of the issue, right? There were adequate warnings and watches from our National Weather Service office in New Braunfels in Austin that is in charge of this area. Those warnings did get issued. The question is, did people receive them and did people heed them? This is an area of the Hill Country that has very low cell service at times. And how do you get your warnings at home? We've all heard the warnings on our cell phones, the loud warnings that come on. Some people silence them because they'd rather not hear them or because they hear too many of them.

6:24And so cell service was probably an issue, one of the reasons why they didn't get that. The biggest thing, if I could communicate to people, is if you find yourself camping or in a remote location, you should purchase a weather radio, a NOAA weather radio. because regardless of cell service, those warnings and watches will be issued to you. And that's one way that we can be proactive and try to prevent these tragedies in the future. Another suggestion that's been made, as you alluded to, is that the infrastructure changes and the fact that there could be more sirens along these rivers for the future.

7:06But sirens, they do take maintenance. They take being proactive, making sure they're working, and also making sure you listen to them, too, if you hear them. We never think that a natural disaster is going to happen to us. It's not something that we usually think about. And so we need to be as prepared as possible for the next flood event. Well, on Sunday, President Trump responded to a question about whether meteorologists fired from the National Weather Service need to be rehired in light of the floods. I wouldn't know that. I really wouldn't. I would think not. This was the thing that happened in seconds.

7:45Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it. Very talented people in there, and they didn't see it. It's, I guess they said, once in a hundred years, they've never seen anything like this. So I wouldn't, I mean, people are trying to blame the school. They're trying to blame the camp. They're trying to blame, it's just a horrible thing. But no, I wouldn't say that now. Sarah, the National Weather Service lost nearly 600 workers earlier this year. This is work you rely on as a meteorologist that the reporting in WS does, but do we know how or if federal workforce cutbacks affected the warning system during the flooding in Texas?

8:23Yeah, Jen, I think this is a case of two things can be correct at the same time, all right? National Weather Service NOAA cuts will be horrible for the future of our weather. I think there's something proposed that 28 % cut to NOAA, which would dissolve research, a 39 % cut to USGS science. USGS is in charge of the streams and gauges that we rely on when it comes to flood prediction. So that can be true. These things will affect future weather predictions. We all, everybody relies on the forecast of the National Weather Service in the United States. It's the primary data where all of your weather information comes from your phone.

9:12So that can be true. And it can also be true that the National Weather Service office in Austin and San Antonio that is in charge of this flood event, that they did their job. They were well-staffed, and they did provide the watches and warnings before the flooding event actually occurred. It's one of those situations where both things can be true. We absolutely do not need any cuts to the National Weather Service. I think it works out tax dollars. It's$4 a year of your tax money, which is just a little bit more than a cent a day. Let's fund the National Weather Service, and let's also make sure that they're well-staffed.

9:50And at the same time, this one particular event I do not think can be necessarily tied to the lack of staffing across the National Weather Service as a whole. Sarah, I also have to wonder how your work as a meteorologist is becoming perhaps more challenging as we're seeing more extreme and often unexpected weather events. We're going to talk about extreme heat a little later in the show, but how is that shaping your work? It's a good question. I think as I've been in this career, there have been more and more natural disasters that I've covered recently. The thing that I like to focus on as a meteorologist, because you can get a lot of your information right from your phone, the thing that I like to think about as a broadcast meteorologist is what is the impact to you at home?

10:45and how can I help prepare people for the next deadly weather event because there will be another one. That's Sarah Spivey. She's a meteorologist at KSAT News in San Antonio. And our condolences again to your community, Sarah. Thanks for your work following this story and for speaking with us. Thank you so much. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Jen White. Thanks for listening. and we'll talk more soon. This is 1A.