Two major climate disasters of 2025 – Texas floods that killed more than 100 people and a wildfire in LA in January caused 30 deaths and wiped out more than 15,000 homes and businesses, highlighting the struggle officials face to prepare them fully for extreme weather conditions.
In both cases, the National Weather Service provided clear warnings of potentially life-threatening weather events. In Los Angeles, warnings were given days before an extraordinary wind to 100 mph, but blamed areas already suffering from record-breaking falls. Even in Texas, more than a day before catastrophic floods hit Kerr County, state officials on July 2 repeated a weather department warning that by the end of July 4th, “heavy rain is expected that could cause flash floods across the country.”
However, for a variety of reasons, these warnings were not ruled out with the greatest urgency of various local agencies.
In Los Angeles, despite warnings of “life-threatening, destructive” winds, Los Angeles officials have decided not to deploy hundreds of firefighters ahead of the devastating wildfire, investigations have found. Mayor Karen Bass was abroad in Ghana when the catastrophic Palisade wildfires killed 12 people on January 7th.
According to time reviews of records, radiolog and interviews, even if another wildfire was underway in another area of Altadena, the person responsible for Altadena failed to issue an emergency evacuation order in the western part of the unconsolidated area. Of the 18 people who died in the Eton fire, 17 were in Western Altadena.
Since then, they have called for a sweep of reforms to investigate how Los Angeles County is preparing for disasters and what went wrong.
California has endured a series of deadly fires, floods and landslides. Some of them could withstand increased development in areas that are exacerbated by climate change and are prone to fire. Amidst the fire that destroyed Santa Barbara County and burned in Wine Land and Paradise, residents complained that they were unable to get alerts to the imminent danger. State and local officials said they made improvements, but the continued evacuation issues between the Pallisard and Eaton fires in Southern California earlier this year indicate that a serious gap still exists.
Several of the same soul explorations continue in the wake of the Texas tragedy.
A massive, rapid rise in floods in Texas on July 4th should spur officials to change their mindset about warning people when extreme weather is forecast, experts say.
In addition to the warning issued on July 2nd, weather agents repeated the warning of a possible disaster along the Guadalupe River 14 hours before floods surged around Carville in Texas’s Kerr County.
National Weather Services Briefing documents issued Thursday afternoon for local officials and news reporters warned of flood monitoring in Kerr County, Texas. Devastating flooding hit the area between 3:45am and 4:45am on Friday.
(National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio Office)
However, local officials’ responses indicated that some people were not fully aware of the dangers of flooding. Carly told reporters that Rob Kelly, the highest elected official in Kerr County, “I’m relieved, no one knew that this kind of flooding was coming.”
A review of the Washington Post wireless emergency data found that Kerr County did not issue its own Amber alert style warning to the phone until two days after the deadliest day of the flood.
These responses provide a flawed understanding of available warnings and historical data suggesting there is a risk.
Not only did the floods crash into a wide strip of Texas known as the “blink waterways,” but the Guadalupe River was previously a tragic location. Ten teenagers died in July 1987 after a surge in near the campsite. Despite warnings from law enforcement officials not to move vehicles through floods, the camp decided to evacuate the camper van through flooded areas, and the last bus and van in the camp caravan were stuck in the flood. Four adults and 39 teenagers were wiped out according to the weather service.
And the Guadalupe River was one of Texas’ four rivers due to historic floods in December 1991 and January 1992.
On Thursday, the Austin/San Antonio National Weather Service office issued flood monitoring for Kerr County more than 14 hours before floods surged between 3:45am and 4:45am on Thursday, according to flood data.
“Local torrential rains can cause flash floods in parts of southern Texas,” the weather department said Thursday afternoon, demanding immediate broadcasts of emergency flood clocks. “Excessive runoff can lead to flooding of the river.”
And then, in danger to some people’s minds after flash floods killed 13 people in nearby San Antonio in June, local media have repeated the state’s warnings about possible flooding.
A spokesman for the Texas Emergency Management Agency said on a television broadcast on Thursday. “It’s really important to be careful about the weather.”
A slide from the National Weather Service briefing document to local officials on Thursday afternoon defines a flood watch that says it is “flood possible.”
(National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio Office)
However, news accounts show that local officials were unaware of the risk within an hour of a catastrophic flood. The Associated Press cited Dalton Rice, manager of the city of Kerrville.
This has been more than two hours since the Austin/San Antonio National Weather Service office issued a Flash Food Warning to Central Carr County at 1:14am, with radar warnings that thunderstorms are creating heavy rain and warnings about “life-threatening flash floods.” Weather services have called for the activation of emergency warning systems.
News accounts showed Camp Mystic camper vans (27 campers and counselors were killed in the flood) were arrested in surprise that girls, ages 7 and 8, in need of rescue, were found in pajamas.
“We’ve seen a lot of people who have been working hard to get into,” said Alex Taldi, a recent retired warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in San Diego. “The only way to prevent people from dying or getting injured is that you have to close the area. You will have to evacuate,” he says, and does it before the rain begins.
Tardy said he understands it’s difficult to send his kids home just before July 4th. “I told hundreds of kids, “I’m sorry, it’s July 4th. The event has been cancelled. We’ll have to go home. “It’s not easy,” Tardy says. “In most cases, in most cases…even if heavy rain is expected, it’s not a major thing in most cases.”
However, parents, camp organizers and officials should note that many camps are located in areas where flooding is prone to rivers.
If camp owners do not move these campsites, camp organizers and local officials should consider how difficult it is to evacuate a camp with hundreds of children if warnings are heard after 1am and a few days or just after 1am, as there are times and days to warn of possible flooding. Areas where floods collide are particularly dangerous with flash floods, meaning rain will fall on the hills. In other words, floods move fast.
“All of these campsites are built in drainage channels in the valley and rivers. They are built at low ground,” Tardy said. “We always tell people, if you go on a hike, if you are expecting a thunderstorm, you might be better off having a Plan B or you might want to cancel your trip.
The key question is how local officials responded to the weather department’s warning.
“They blow it away and say, ‘We always have a flood clock’? ” said the lateness.
“If I was the emergency manager and it was Southern California and the monsoon was building on top of San Gabriels or Big Bear, if I had a flood clock, there were people along the Santa Ana River and so on.
Given that Southern California is mostly sunny in the summer, it may be a simple call and a more difficult decision along the Guadalupe River in Texas, where thunderstorms are more common. But Tardy said that perhaps local officials could consult with the local weather services office to improve thresholds that could encourage campsites to close along the edge of the river.
People at other campsites also died in the flood. In 2010, 20 people died after the Little Missouri River flooded and flooded most of Arkansas’ Albert Pike Creation area.
At a press conference, Carville city manager Rice said the decision to call evacuation is “a delicate balance. Evacuation allows you to try and pull out buses, cars, or vehicles, as there is a risk of throwing them into low waters. He added:
Others should note that it is the job of these civil servants to make these calls.
“It’s a nightmare for every parent,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said at a press conference Monday. “If we can go back and do it again, we will evacuate the people in the most vulnerable areas, the young children in the cabins that are close to the water – we will remove them and take them to the highlands.”
Local emergency management staff across the country are keeping up as climate change brings more extreme and deadly weather.
In 2023, Hawaii officials were caught off guard despite the history of dangerous wind storms in Maui, where parts of the island are at high risk of wildfires, and a pre-war warning from the National Weather Service about the risk of fire weather.
According to the After Action Report, the Weather Bureau spoke to firefighters on August 3 about “critical fire weather conditions,” while the Maui emergency manager spoke on August 6 about “serious fires and harmful wind threats.”
But Maui’s best emergency manager was not on the island on August 8th, when the deadliest US wildfires of the century began.
Santa Barbara County remains plagued by the question of what could have been done ahead of the 2018 vicious landslide that killed 23 people in Montecito. This is a situation where inconsistent evacuation information and the failure to send Amber Alert Style Breaking News to your phone until the mud was flowing.
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