Tragic. Texas; The Disaster That Never Should Have Happened.
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The Tragedy That Never Should Have Happened.
The Guadeloupe River
July 6, 2025
It saddens and angers me that while Trump was signing his big ugly bill cutting funding for FEMA and NOAA, the Guadeloupe River in the limestone rich hill country of Texas was rising 26 feet in 45 minutes. While he was savoring his win, innocent young girls were being swept downstream, being pummeled by debris, and if they were lucky, clinging to trees to save their lives.
The question has to be asked why there were two dozen camps, several camping sites, and trailer parks in the floodplain of the river known for its deadly history of flash floods.
Why did this happen in a state that experienced one of the worst natural disasters in history when over 5,000 people were killed by the Galveston Hurricane where citizens had no warning and many of the drowned victims were eaten by sharks in the Gulf of Mexico, renamed the Gulf of America in one of our President’s more, silly shit directives.
I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that instead of specially trained FEMA workers rescuing people, it was Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly leading local cops, firemen and border patrol agents, trained in handcuffing and arresting people, doing the work.
Instead of having restrictions on having camps and buildings on floodplains prone to flashfloods. Texas has passed legislation that prohibits the discussion of global warming, flood plains and climate change.
Judge Kelly famously said “Nobody saw this coming…it’s going to be a long time before we can rebuild.” Really? You have two dozen children’s camps sitting in a floodplain prone to deadly flash floods the most recent in 1987 that killed ten people.
You have a president who has just fired 5,000 specially trained weather experts, and 800 specially trained FEMA workers because he thinks climate change is a hoax and that states should pay for their own rescue efforts in the event of a natural disaster.
What’s wrong with this picture? Look at the aftermath of the Guadeloupe River flash floods.
To avoid disasters requires significant leadership, planning, and preperation. All communities and organizations will be wise to begin the process now if they want to be sustainable.