President Donald Trump said he plans to visit the Texas region where flash floods have claimed at least 82 lives, including dozens of children from a summer camp, with a potential trip to the area coming as soon as Friday.
The president told reporters traveling with him over the weekend that he’d “probably” go there on Friday when asked during a brief media availability before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington from his New Jersey golf club.
“We wanted to leave a little time. I would have done it today, but we'd just be in their way, probably Friday,” he said.
The freak flooding event occurred late Friday and early Saturday, after torrential rain caused the Guadalupe River to rise rapidly. The force of the fast-rising waters washed out homes and swept away vehicles. It also destroyed Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp situated on the banks of the river.
At Camp Mystic, officials confirmed that at least 27 campers and staff had died in the flooding.
The devastating weather event has prompted questions over whether massive cuts to the National Weather Service caused any delay in notifying residents of the flash floods. Over the first months of Trump’s second term, significant numbers of NWS and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration workers have been terminated or have taken voluntary “deferred resignation” offers spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency, the putative cost-cutting effort formerly headed by Elon Musk.
On Friday, Texas Emergency Management boss W. Nim Kidd said at a press conference that the service, which is part of the Department of Commerce, failed to accurately predict how much rain the region had been set to receive that night.
“The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,” he said.
Rob Kelly, the Kerr County, Texas County Judge — the head local government official and not a judicial officer — said “no one knew this kind of flood was coming at the same press conference.
“We have floods all the time,” Kelly said. “We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here. None whatsoever.”
NWS officials triggered an alert of “life-threatening flash flooding” early on Friday by way of the Emergency Alert System. This would have set off alerts on mobile phones in the region.
But some Democrats say there should be a probe into whether the DOGE cuts to the NWS prevented the service from coordinating with local officials.
For his part, Trump downplayed the significance of the cuts to the NWS response and attempted to blame his predecessor before backtracking.
“You look at that situation that was really a Biden setup. That was not our setup, but I wouldn't blame Biden for it either,” he said. “I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe, and it's just so horrible for all.”
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