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The Texas Flooding Tragedy: Could It Have Been Avoided?
- actionfromafar 1y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/TexasPolitics/comments/1ltnjf8/we_have_floods_all_the_time_and_small_town https://www.reddit.com/r/TexasPolitics/comments/1ltnjf8/we_h...
- vintagedave 1y agoThis is a lot for someone to wade through, especially non-American. I dislike those HN posts with AI content, but I did ask an AI to summarise and explain (culturally and geographically) what I was reading. Maybe it will help others. https://chatgpt.com/share/686cfd32-f578-800e-997b-1fbee9c185e3 https://chatgpt.com/share/686cfd32-f578-800e-997b-1fbee9c185...
- VMG 1y agoI found the summary valuable.
- actionfromafar 1y ago"People from Houston" is code for liberals for those who aren't familiar.
- vintagedave 1y agoI wasn't. I thought Austin was 'liberal' city?
- happymellon 1y agoReading this just reminds me that you need to be involved in local politics if you want change. They voted against building an early warning system because, as one person put it the money coming from FEMA was: > Resident 2: And I'm here to ask this Court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House. These are the gibbering idiots that will represent you. Biden wasn't even the most "Communist Government" of the previous 10 years. Not entirely sure (as an outsider) what makes him Communist outside of not throwing Sieg Hiels when he was elected.
- andrewl 1y agoFor a lot of these people the term Communist is basically a synonym for sick or evil. I have seen very extreme people using Communist and homosexual interchangeably as terms for what they consider immorality. "They're homosexual, communists trying to destroy America." "It's a Jewish, homosexual agenda." "What about Senator John Smith's wife?" "She's a homosexual, too."
- consumer451 1y agoWow, that is incredibly infuriating. Truly politics above all else. The political brainwashing there seems to be entirely complete. How would one even begin to undo that level of programming?
- metalman 1y agoNo.These types of things are unavoidable. The full risk profile of our planet is immpossible to determine. Should some great portion of the risk profile be determined, it will cover essentialy everywhere. Even reducing it to stuff with a fractional percentage of a disaster per year will be forbiding. And there is absolutly no way to impliment a country wide action and response network that does not end up running everything through the all powerfull department of saftey, which is politicaly and practicaly immpossible. bottom land is always, flat, near water, productive, with many other resources on the hills and in the river, and then occasionaly, a trap Just telling people not to live on fucking flood plains, goes nowhere......it is a perenial recuring problem that is so common and ancient that it has been recognised by archiologists, that humans have exploited the resources in river valleys, built there settlements, and then denuded all of the vegitation, and then blam, a flood, and there settlement gets instantly burried, bad for then, awsome for archiologists who find all there stuff, in water logged soil, interesting organic artifacts are often in "perfect" condition.
- blackbear_ 1y ago> these types of things are unavoidable The floodings or the tragedies? > The full risk profile of our planet is impossible to determine Was this really necessary to avoid this specific tragedy?
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago> The full risk profile of our planet is impossible to determine This is a classic 'unless we can have a perfect solution to the problem, we shouldn't do anything all' argument. It is usually applied to problems where the solutions involve helping non-rich people.
- VMG 1y agoNirvana fallacy
- watwut 1y agoIt was avoidable and in fact, whole countries manage to avoid it. It took series of bad intentional decisions for this to happen the way it did. And fun fact is that people who made those bad decisions first falsely blamed others, congratulated themselves on being awesome. And now that they want money from FEMA, they still want to destroy it. And they still want to cut weather prediction which they blamed despite being correct.
- dangus 1y agoThis article is juggling two topics that essentially aren’t related. The first topic is whether people will listen to weather warnings and change behavior in response to them in the first place. In that sense, it seems like a direct and urgent evacuation order should have happened, but I do still find the timeline rather short. Hindsight is 20/20 on that. The second topic is the author’s opinion that the left-leaning section of media isn’t doing their due diligence. Let’s be real here, the author of the article is using a cherry-picked event that happens to allegedly not be a result of climate change to try and discredit the general idea of climate change. I don’t think the author intended to discredit climate change as a concept but that’s how the audience will read it. Sure, the New York Times got it wrong in this specific case and at least partially jumped to a conclusion, but it is established observed scientific fact that human caused climate change is causing and going to cause more extreme weather patterns moving forward. It is also established fact that DOGE made cuts to the NWS and had to re-hire to stabilize the department as recently as last month. [1] Furthermore, the Trump administration intends to make deep cuts to the NOAA within its 2026 budget proposal. [2] So while this specific event may not have been affected by budget cuts, we don’t know that for sure yet. Opposition Democrats are asking for investigations into that very question. And even if NWS cuts didn’t affect this event, it’s still entirely fair for the political discussion to question the merit of making cuts during the same timeline as a preventable tragedy. At some point the administration must own the optics it generates for itself. If it didn’t want those optics it would commit to fully funding the NOAA and NWS, but because this administration has taken action to cut staff and funding, they do have to own the optics even if the optics aren’t always perfectly in line with the truth of the cause and effect. That’s just how politics work. In other words, if I cut funding to the road department or even merely propose funding cuts and the next day my constituent hits a pothole, they’re going to blame me even if my actions didn’t directly create that pothole. And that blame is politically justified and warranted, because my political stance is that we are spending too much on road maintenance, when clearly that’s not the case. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/national-weather-service-hiring-spree-doge-cuts-2080291 https://www.newsweek.com/national-weather-service-hiring-spr... [2] https://www.npr.org/2025/04/11/nx-s1-5361366/major-budget-cuts-proposed-for-the-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration https://www.npr.org/2025/04/11/nx-s1-5361366/major-budget-cu...
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- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- conartist6 1y agoWow I'm glad that one graph settled all of climate science such that it's now morally indefensible to think anything other than what the author thinks
- jmclnx 1y agoI doubt this sad event could have been avoided, looking back, yes things could have been done. But based upon how funding is chosen and applied and who people vote for, things would have to been done differently for the last 40+ years. This could be looked at as a result for bad choices our elected pols made over decades.
- jjulius 1y ago>This could be looked at as a result for bad choices our elected pols made over decades. It's not just the elected pols, it's the people who voted for the elected pols, too.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y agoI wrestle with this. Are voters responsible for what their elected officials do? What about if you didn't vote? If they are responsible then do they deserve to suffer for those poor decisions?
- watwut 1y agoIf you vote for people based on them defunding or preventing precautionary measures and then your elected officials defund or prevent precautionary measures, then yes. If the party says "I will cause harm" and you go "I like that because people I dislike will be harmed", then again, yes you are responsible.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jjulius 1y ago>Are voters responsible for what their elected officials do? If someone tells you what they're about and you vote them in, yes. If someone shows you what they're about when in office and you re-elect them, double yes. >What about if you didn't vote? Fun idea. If you didn't vote, you're not a voter I suppose, and it's not your fault. But if you would've preferred a different outcome that could've been achieved by the alternative candidate and you still opted to abstain, then perhaps you're responsible to a degree. >If they are responsible then do they deserve to suffer for those poor decisions? I certainly wouldn't argue that anyone "deserves to suffer" for poor decisions, but it's true that actions have consequences. Shouldering blame, perhaps, might be a better way of looking at it, but I don't suggest that in a mean way.
- Reubachi 1y agoWhy is this on hacker news...? An editorial opinion blog about a climatic disaster in a region of US? Even typing out this comment feels dirty as it's against hn commenting rules. However...this is 50 percent of threads nowadays.
- MisterTea 1y agoClimate is science and peoples blogged opinions are posted here all the time.
- willguest 1y ago> There is NO EVIDENCE that the central Texas floods are the result of climate change. This isn't how climate science or causality works in relation to climate change. The climate is a chaotic, complex sysem that does not have a single, identifiable nexus by which we can "prove" things happen. Climate scientists know this and, instead of trying to demonstrate irrefutable proof, point to a better need for monitoring and warning systems, of exactly the type mentioned in this article. It is unfortunate that the author felt the need to lean into this argument, as is it precisely this kind of perspective that leads people to become suspicious of monitoring and warning systems (by generally rejecting scientific argumentation) - the exact problem that the author claims led to avoidable deaths. The whole approach is quite confusing to me - why identify the issue and then act to reinforce the issue?
- bluGill 1y ago[flagged]
- willguest 1y agoYou are right that the trend within the area does not point towards a greater risk of flooding. You are right to point out that we should only make claims based on data. You are, again, right to say that climate models do nothing to predict increased flooding in Texas. I was not saying that climate models would have predicted this. What I think you have missed is that the climate is a global system and that there is a substantial amount of data to indicate that a shifting climate leads to a greater frequency of events that fall outside of local trends. This doesn't prove that the flooding event was a result of that (though some people may likely argue that point). My point was that we need to pay close attention to monitoring and warning systems, that the article says exactly this, and that a wholesale rejection of findings from climate science is unhelpful because it is counterproductive to this goal.
- bluGill 1y ago> that a wholesale rejection of findings from climate science is unhelpful because it is counterproductive to this goal. I agree. Thus claiming a single isolated local event is the result of climate change without strong evidence (which in a chaotic system is usually impossible to collect) is counter productive because there is no data to back it up and in turn it make climate change look like fools who keep yelling about things that are false. Which is why anyone who cares about climate change should refute every attempt to blame local conditions on climate change. We can state there is a trend, but we can rarely state that any specific situation wouldn't have happened without climate change.
- oldpersonintx2 1y ago[dead]
- stego-tech 1y agoAuthor uses a bunch of maps and charts to support their own narrative, one which all but ignores the reality they get at in the fourth paragraph: > Furthermore, weather model forecasts indicated the potential for a major precipitation event over this historically flood-prone region during the prior days. So the answer is yes. Yes, it could have been entirely avoided had the landowners built in such a way that respected the land’s tendency to flood. Yes, it could have been avoided if landowners took warnings seriously, paid attention to past flood events, if the state had put flooding mitigation measures on a river or area known for flash flooding, or if literally anyone had observed that putting dormitories at or near river level was a generally awful idea from a safety perspective. The fact people died in one of the most predictable types of disasters out there, yet are still trying to weasel around blame or fault, is beyond shameful, and something we don’t need Op-Eds about so much as we need more people calling it what for it is: A wholly preventable tragedy.
- showmexyz 1y ago[flagged]
- locopati 1y ago[flagged]
- hagbard_c 1y agoAn answer which fits both "sides" with each side claiming the other side is the one doing damage.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- sofixa 1y agoOnly if you ignore reality and redefine science with an absurdly narrow definition (mostly focused on trans folks) and ignore everything else. One side claims absolutely ironclad proven wrong things like "ectopic pregnancies can just be moved and saved", "vaccines cause autism", but because they have a narrow interpretation of sex and gender, they think that allows them to claim "SCIENCE, BITCH". No, just no.
- mandmandam 1y agoCorona conclusively proved that Democrats are every bit as capable of scientism as Republicans. People - even leading scientists - who questioned natural origin, mandatory lockdowns, school closures, vaccine effectiveness, or any of a dozen other narratives were demonized and attacked in the name of science. "Do your own research" became a phrase of mockery, while "trust 'the' science" was used as a thought terminating cliché. And neither party are really taking climate science seriously, it's just that one pays lip service a bit more.
- watwut 1y agoThis is just not true. School closures worked well for preventing spread. Vaccines actually solved the covid issue. Lockdowns did worked, actually. And no, there is no "both sides" on climate change. Republicans are actively trying to make it happen.
- drweevil 1y agoThe blame games on the climate and NOAA budgeting, Biden/Trump to blame etc. are just a smoke screen. The area is called Flash Flood Alley for a reason. The shallow soil, hilly topography, and local climate means that flash flooding is not an uncommon or unforeseeable event. So if local and state officials are serious about saving lives, there is one solution that they have the power to implement: zoning. Prohibit building anywhere within the high-water mark of a stream. Prohibit building anywhere water runs off (In Texas, they say, nothing is more dangerous than a dry creek bed). So if you are a local or state level official, this is what is under your control. The problem tho is that unlike the hypotheticals, taking a stand on this would require action, and/or taking responsibility.
- msgodel 1y agoPart of me feels like the state should prevent people from building in places like this but we already do so much of that people end up just living in RVs and parking them in places like this which is worse. I wish I had better ideas.
- hazmazlaz 1y agoThe state requires flood insurance for property that is in a defined flood area, and that insurance is sometimes either quite expensive or in some cases just not available at all.
- sofixa 1y ago[flagged]
- evil-olive 1y agofor anyone unfamiliar with Cliff Mass, he's a meteorologist here in the Seattle area, and a professor at UW, who has pivoted almost [0] entirely to this sort of "soft" climate change denial. quite predictably, every time there's a major weather event in the news, he will chime in to give reasons why he thinks it shouldn't be blamed on climate change: > 2018: Northwest Wildfires: Are We Seeing a "New Normal" Due to Climate Change or The "Old Normal"? [1] > 2021: Is the Texas Cold Wave Caused By Global Warming? [2] > 2021: Was Global Warming The Cause of the Great Northwest Heatwave? Science Says No. [3] > 2022: Misinformation about Sea Level Rise [4] > 2025: Why the LA Wildfires Have Little to do With Long-Term Drought or Climate Change [5] > 2025: Seattle Times Climate Lab Misinforms about Climate Change, Sea-Level Rise, and Seattle Flooding [6] the overall takeaway across all his reporting seems to be that everyone but him is over-exaggerating the effects of climate change. and his "no connection to climate change" message often gets repeated beyond his blog, for example [7]: > Mass also emphasized that the floods had no connection to climate change. > “The climate change connection is non-existent. There is no trend in heavier precipitation in this region. There is no upward trend in floods,” he explained. 0: when he's not comparing the George Floyd protests in Seattle to Kristallnacht (https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article244800747.html https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article244800747.h...) 1: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2018/08/northwest-wildfires-are-we-seeing-new.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2018/08/northwest-wildfires-a... 2: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/02/is-texas-cold-wave-caused-by-global.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/02/is-texas-cold-wave-ca... 3: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/was-global-warming-cause-of-great.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/was-global-warming-ca... 4: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2022/03/misinformation-about-sea-level-rise.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2022/03/misinformation-about-... 5: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/why-la-wildfires-have-little-to-with.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/why-la-wildfires-have... 6: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/06/seattle-times-climate-lab-misinforms.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/06/seattle-times-climate... 7: https://mynorthwest.com/john-curley/texas-floods-cliff-mass/4107663 https://mynorthwest.com/john-curley/texas-floods-cliff-mass/...
- orwin 1y ago> when he's not comparing the George Floyd protests in Seattle to Kristallnacht Deeply, deeply pathetic. He is either so uninformed he shouldn't talk about it (I mean, I understand talking out of your ass when you're in your twenties, but the older you get, the more pathetic it becomes) or he knows and still does the comparison, which is pathetic in a different way.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoIt's what always happens in Texas. People see cheap areas to build and recreate in without doing any historical research about risks. Local governments are also often inept and reactive because they're small town hillbillies who don't believe in climate change either and perhaps aren't even full-time public administrators. It's 97.5 for riverine flooding on the FEMA all causes risk map tool (until DOGE defunds that). Build and camp on high ground in high drainage density areas, create permanent reminders in the form of flood gauges to maintain awareness, and refund ATX NWS for the 2 senior flood prediction forecasters who were pushed out. And practiced preparedness plans and require insurance in AE flood zones for all those who live in those areas. Flash Flood Alley exists from Medina county to the south to Cooke and Grayson counties in the north. Uvalde had 22" fall in 3 hours in 1935. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Flood_Alley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Flood_Alley https://www.cityofdenton.com/ImageRepository/Document?documentId=6316 https://www.cityofdenton.com/ImageRepository/Document?docume... Edit: I live on high ground in FEMA zone X within a mile / 2 km of the Guadalupe river.