Well, Here's The WEA Answer

FEMA records obtained by NBC 5 Investigates show that Kerr County officials did not use FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System to send warnings with safety instructions to all mobile phones in the affected area during critical hours as the flooding began on July 4.

Researchers who have studied the cell phone warning system told NBC 5 Investigates that policies on how and when to issue critical alerts vary widely from one county to another, potentially risking delays when seconds count.
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The FEMA message archive shows that as the water began rising in Kerr County on July 4, the National Weather Service sent an IPAWS flood warning to cell phones as early as 1:14 a.m.

However, weather service forecasters cannot issue instructions on whether to evacuate or wait for rescue; those messages are up to county or city officials.

The FEMA archive showed that Kerr County did not send any wireless alerts through IPAWS on July 4, when the flooding began.

Some families said they did receive a CodeRed alert from Kerr County, which is similar to an IPAWS message. But CodeRed only reaches people who signed up for alerts.

“Most of the people I’ve talked to didn’t even know what CodeRed was,” said Kerr County resident Louis Kocurek.

Louis and Leslie Kocurek shared a screenshot of a Kerr County dispatch CodeRed message they received, saying major flooding continues. However, the Kocureks said that the message didn’t reach their phones until after 10 a.m.

MONICA MEDINA: In this particular case, the office was missing a hydrologist and a meteorologist in charge, a coordinator, the person whose very job it is to know who to call, where in the chain — if there might be a break in the chain, where to go down the chain, farther down, and make that phone call that could save lives. So, crucial people were missing because of the cuts. One took a buyout. One position was never — was never filled. So, we know that those cuts are devastating. And more are on the way. You talked about, earlier in your newscast, the fact that the State Department is now preparing for mass layoffs. Those could happen in any agency. It could happen in FEMA. It could happen at NOAA. And they’re planning for more cuts. So we are missing the people who can make the difference. AI isn’t going to save us, the models aren’t going to save us, the pieces of paper on which the forecasts are written aren’t going to save us, if we aren’t making that person-to-person connection.

It’s that last mile where things seem to have really broken down in this particular case. The Weather Service made forecasts that were — that gave people time to prepare. But the break came somewhere along that chain. And in fact, maybe we could have jumped the chain, connected some of those links, if we’d had more weather people in that local office. They are not bureaucrats sitting in Washington. That was something that the local congressman, Chip Roy, said: “Oh, we don’t need more bureaucrats in Washington.” These people in the local offices are community members. They live and work in these places all over the country.

And if people think this was a freak accident and couldn’t happen to them, they should think again. Pay attention to the weather. Pay attention to the warnings that come hours in advance. And I hope the president, when he’s there today, will see the impact of the cuts and see how devastating these storms are and how every link in the chain is vital, and, in fact, we need to strengthen that chain, not weaken it and break it.