In an interview, Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, said the county did not have a warning system because such systems are expensive, and local residents are resistant to new spending.
“Taxpayers won’t pay for it,” Mr. Kelly said. Asked if people might reconsider in light of the catastrophe, he said, “I don’t know.”
The National Weather Service’s San Angelo office, which is responsible for some of the areas hit hardest by Friday’s flooding, was missing a senior hydrologist, staff forecaster and meteorologist in charge [said].
That office’s warning coordination meteorologist left on April 30, after taking the early retirement package the Trump administration used to reduce the number of federal employees, according to a person with knowledge of his departure.
But the oligarchs need that money.
I heard several sound bites with officials saying, ‘No one could have predicted this’ and I keep thinking, “I betcha some groundwater geological engineer already predicted this exact disaster complete with amount of rain needed per each foot-level of river rise and with a precise measure of their margins of error.” I do NOT know that for a fact, but – having known geological engineers – it feels like the sort of thing they’d calculate out of idle curiosity (especially if they notice new development diverting groundwater in unmitigated ways).
