The National Weather Service warned of “life-threatening flooding” along the river in a series of alerts in the early morning hours. But questions remain about how many people they reached, whether
critical vacancies at the forecast offices could have affected warning dissemination, and if so-called warning fatigue had been growing among residents in a region described as one of the most dangerous in the country for flash flooding.
The two Texas NWS offices most closely involved in forecasting and warning about the flooding on the Guadalupe River — Austin-San Antonio and San Angelo — are missing some key staff members, but still issued a slew of watches and warnings about the flood danger.
The question is whether the warnings reached who they needed to reach.
Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the NWS employees’ union, told CNN that while he believes the offices had “adequate staffing and resources,” the Austin-San Antonio office is missing a warning coordination meteorologist — a role that serves as a crucial, direct link between forecasters and emergency managers.
The first warning for “life-threatening flash flooding” for Kerrville came at 1:14 a.m., and was marked specifically to trigger the Emergency Alert System. It would have sounded the alarm on cell phones in the warned area, assuming those phones had service, and their users hadn’t turned off EAS weather alerts.
The NOAA official defended the National Weather Service forecasts, and said the disaster ultimately resulted from too much rain in too short of time in one of the most vulnerable spots in the country for flash flooding, and in the overnight hours — the worst time of day to get warnings to people in harm’s way.
The [Trump 2026 request] budget seeks to eliminate all of NOAA’s weather and climate research labs along with institutes jointly run with universities around the country. The entire research division of NOAA would be eliminated under the proposal, which is subject to congressional approval.
One of the NOAA labs slated to be shut down is the National Severe Storms Lab in Norman, Oklahoma, which works to improve flash flood forecasting among other hazards from severe thunderstorms.