Meteorologists warned the chances of sudden floods days Before the July 4 disaster of Texas which killed at least 133. However, local officials in the hardest affected areas say they are shocked by the extent of devastation.
“I cried several times,” wrote Chris Suchan, chief meteorologist of Woai-Tv Channel 4, the affiliate of NBC in San Antonio, in a recent Facebook job. “Sometimes I was overwhelmed by the regret of forecastist that I could have made more the previous night in my meteorological report.”
Forecastists often emit alerts for possible floods, landslides and “red flag” fire warnings several times a year. Sometimes these warnings are followed by major disasters, but other times they are not.
And that led some to become complacent, rather than taking into account alerts.
Two massive disasters this year – Texas floods and Los Angeles Fire Storms – lead to some to attack the question of how to bring civil servants and the public to take care and act.
In the case of Texas, Suchan said that he was experiencing what he calls the “regret of the forecastist”.
A fire service vehicle leads on the road while serious thunderstorms cause emergency lightning flood warnings on the bank of the Guadalupe river during a research and recovery mission in Ingram, Texas, on July 13. (Jim Vondruska / Getty Images)
It is despite having presented to viewers a weather forecast showing “a signal Sudden floods located “in the afternoon of July 3 – a few hours before the disaster strikes. During the broadcast at 6 p.m. later, Suchan underlined an area “where we could see the storms develop, then train in the same area. … and it is a classic signal from Adoil Flash here in “Flash Flood Alley”. »»
Disconnecting between available warnings and public action and public taking has been observed several times over the years, inadequate preparations in California before fires or flood alerts, to the failure of certain communities to evacuate before the catastrophic tsunami who struck Japan in 2011.
Of course, there are times when alerts are taken seriously and forecastists and civil servants are in the same room. For example, advertising around Hilary Hurricane in 2023 reached a fever field while he was heading south of California. The mayor of the mayor Karen Bass was held at the information sessions with the press with The head of fire at the time Kristin Crowley And the National Weather Service. No death was reported in California, despite significant floods and heartbreaking rescues in the Coachella valley.
There are other cases where preparation has helped California in the South emerge periods of severe fire time or danger of landslide – for example through the public security power, or crews that emptied debris basins to catch the mud flowing.
The National Weather Service Office of Oxnard, which issues forecasts for Los Angeles, has also tried to get its messages more clearly. In 2019, the meteorological service issued a fire weather warning “Extreme Red Flaque who obtained a lot of attention. During the last fire season, the agency published a unprecedented Five warnings of “particularly dangerous situation” before forecasts A on January 6One day before the starting of the county devastating forest fires start.
Propane burns in the remains of a Malibu house destroyed in the fire of the palisades.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Despite the meteorological service giving briefings as soon as December 30 About the increase in the increase in the danger of fires, the bass was abroad in Ghana On January 7, when the fire that destroyed a large part of the Pacific palisades began to spread quickly. And the Los Angeles firefighters, once investigation Found, chose not to give around 1,000 firefighters available for an emergency deployment before the fire in Palisades, which finally killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 houses, companies and other structures.
Times previously reported that the day before Low Left for Ghana, his assistants received an email, on January 3, from the city emergency management service warning of “high confidence in damaged winds and high fire conditions occurring next week”. A spokesperson for the mayor said that the email did not suggest an imminent disaster.
Bass later licensee Crowley as firefighters and accused him of not having adequate the potential of a cataclysmic wind event.
A simple lesson that could be drawn from past disasters is that officials and the public must better respond to the warnings of forecasters.
An post-action report by the meteorological service of Joplin, at MO., Tornado disaster in 2011 found that most residents did not immediately go to the shelter after hearing the first warning. Among the reasons: apathy, a bias towards optimism and the feeling that sirens were activated too often in Joplin.
But the weather service at that time also said that it could do a better job to support “effective decision-making”, which would help people quickly make appropriate decisions. The agency said it should ensure that the tools are in place to easily make telephone conferences with key entities, such as sheriff offices and other emergency managers.
A Telan remembers that meteorologists in the meteorological service remember the Tornado of Joplin, which had 158 deaths – the first single tornado in the United States to lead to more than 100 deaths since 1953.
“I listened to them describing themselves marked by the disaster. They wondered if their warnings were quite early, strong enough ”, wrote In his article on Facebook. “The room was very silent through this presentation. It left me a brand, but you cannot fully understand this feeling as long as you have not felt by yourself. ”
The firefighters in a flame engine house on avenue Glenrose during the Eaton fire in Altadena on January 8.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
In Texas, flooding alerts circulated in the hours and days before the July 4 disaster. On July 2, Texas State officials, citing the meteorological service, warned This “strong precipitation with the potential to cause sudden floods” was planned during the following days. They said Swift-Water Rescue Boat Squads would be available to help flood rescue.
HAS 1:18 p.m. On July 3, the meteorological service published flood surveillance for the County of Kerr of Texas and other regions. July 4 at 1:14A flash warning was issued, thinking of the alarm for “deadly deadly floods”.
At the Mystic Camp, where at least 27 campers and advisers died, leadership was aware of the previous flooded watch, and also obtained a mobile phone alert for the lightning flood alert of meteorological service at 1:14, but they did not start to evacuate the campers in cabins near the Guadalupe river than more than an hour later, the Washington Post reported. The post reported that the waters began to get into the girls’ camp around 2 a.m. and violated at least one hut around 3 am at the Mystic camp are considered high risk of flood, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
To one Different camp Along the same river, the Presbyterian assembly of the Mo-Rélach, an installation official saw the river get up around 1 a.m. and told its boss, who followed the reports of the storms that approached, reported the Associated Press. Camp officials acted quickly to move 70 children and adults from a building near the river, and no one died. There was no warning from the local authorities, said the AP.
In an interview, Suchan said he wonders “Are there any things you could have done faster, stronger or do things differently?”
“We are looking at a massive event of victims and he weighs on my heart,” he said.
His counterpart in a local affiliate of CBS offered a similar warning before the flood. Bill Taylor, Kens-TV Channel 5 weather chief in San Antonio, showed a planned weather model showing a violent “just seated” storm for hours in the Kerr county region.
“It would be a huge flood problem if it happens”, Taylor said His viewers on July 3.
In an interview, Taylor said he did not feel guilt of how he had transmitted his forecasts, saying that he had given all the information he had about the risk of flooding. However, “going ahead, in all honesty, I even recently thought of what part of my verbiage will now change because of this disaster.”
He and other forecastists say they hope that people take things like flooding watches to move forward, especially if they live or visit low -flood zones.
“When we say” Flood Watch “in this region, I mean, you must really be careful,” said Taylor.
A persistent question is how those responsible for Kerr’s county – such as the Sheriff office and emergency officials – monitored the storm.
“If these emergency officials were sleeping that night, oh my God … they will no longer have a job,” said Alex Tardy, a former meteorologist in the meteorological service Meteorological echoA consulting company.
Alerts on possible future floods should have triggered a kind of action long before the storm – in particular given the campsite located in the region, said Tardy.
SUchan said that an appropriate alert system should be installed along the Guadalupe river. He noted that in downstream in the neighboring county of Kendall, the comfort community has sirens that were activated to warn floods on July 4, “and there was no victim.”
“I never want to see a nightmare like [this]”Said Suchan.” It’s 2025. We shouldn’t do this. ”
