Topline
Texas officials provided search and rescue updates Friday on a flash flood that has killed at least 24 people and left some 25 others missing, blaming National Weather Service forecasts for not predicting “the amount of rain that we saw” after facing federal budget and staffing cuts, according to W. Nim Kidd, director of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
Flooding caused by a flash flood at the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas.
Key Facts
Rescue teams are continuing to search for a group of around 25 people who were attending an all-girls Christian summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River.
Texas authorities confirmed at least 24 people were dead as of Friday night, noting around 237 people were rescued or evacuated that same day.
Kerr County judge Rob Kelly provided a similar statement to Kidd’s on Friday, when he was asked why camps along the Guadalupe were not evacuated, telling reporters, “I can’t answer that, I don’t know,” before saying the county had “no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here.”
The NWS issued a flash flood watch Thursday afternoon that noted Kerr County, where much of the flooding began early Friday morning, was a particularly vulnerable area.
The NWS was one of several federal agencies targeted by the controversial cost-cutting efforts of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, and has recently laid off nearly 600 employees—around the same amount of staffers it lost in the 15 previous years, the Texas Tribune reported.
Forbes has reached out to the NWS for comment.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/07/05/24-dead-in-texas-flood-as-state-officials-blame-forecasts-from-national-weather-service/