Texas Flood 2025: Smarter Tools Needed To Save Lives

0:00 A few places in the US have undergone extreme flooding. Kerr County, Texas, and New Mexico, Reduso from July 4th to July 8th, have had flash flooding. Many people have died, people are still missing. And conversations are happening, what happened? Were people alerted? How did those alerts go out? How were they received if they were received? And how are people building infrastructure around rivers where there's been flooding in the past? I wanted to make sure that you as the audience for the How to Protect the Ocean podcast understood some of the conversations that are going on. There's a lot going on in the news. A lot of people are making it very political because of the cuts that happened over the last couple months in the US federally.

0:45 And I wanted to kind of sift through all that, right? Really sift through the BS to say, what actually happened? Did the cuts get, affect the messaging system? Did the cuts affect the ability for the message to get out there? Or was it just a fact that this was a very bad circumstance caused by more moisture in the air? And a confluence of storms and clouds with moisture and just bad circumstances? Or is it all of the above? To the bottom of that, I wanted to get some answers. And Dave Jones, the CEO of Storm Center has come on the podcast before to talk about storms and alert systems and weather. And he's a meteorologist for a very, very long time.

1:26 He's a good friend of the podcast. And he graciously accepted to come on the podcast and talk about how the messaging system went out, how it could be better done in the future and what needs to be done so that we can alert more people faster and they can get out. And they can have all the information for them, plus the feedback systems that happen and what needs to happen in the future. Before we go on with the podcast, you know, I want to be sensitive to the fact that people have had their lives just, you know, it's been awful for people. It's been a huge tragedy. I want to acknowledge that. The reason why I'm putting this podcast out now is because as the Central Texas and Kerr County floods were happening in the river there, another flood happened in New Mexico.

2:10 So these floods are happening. We're at a time of year where there's a lot of moisture in the air because of humidity and it's the summer. So I want to make sure that people, if they can have the ability to get the right, know whether radios or whatever they need, they will have it and that they'll be on alert and they understand the impacts of these dangerous situations. So hence why I'm putting it out now is to be cognizant of that and to help people in the near future. So here's the episode. Let's start the show. Everybody, welcome back to another episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.

2:54 On today's episode, it's a bit of a somber note. We are talking about the flash floods that happened in Kerr County in Texas, as well as in New Mexico. People have lost their lives. People are still missing. The rescue efforts are ongoing. I want to have Dave Jones on to talk about what went on during the storm. How are people alerted in these areas that are more vulnerable to flash floods and what can we do about it in the future? And for those communities that are in a similar situation that haven't had floods yet, but might have them in the future, what they can do and how they can better prepare themselves in the future so that this doesn't happen in their county, in their town. So I want to have Dave Jones on to discuss this.

3:37 He's been on the podcast before. He's been a meteorologist for a long, long time. He's the CEO of Storm Center right now, which provides extra coverage of the weather to his clients, but also as a YouTube channel, which I'll link in the show notes where you can get updated live updates a lot of the times on hurricanes, on storms and so forth. And you can better protect yourself and better be alerted. So he helps amplify the messages. He doesn't put up the messages, but he helps amplify the messages coming up from the National Weather Service and NOAA. He does a damn good job at it. So he was gracious enough to take time away from the work that he's doing to help educate myself, as well as everybody here that's listening to this podcast and watching this podcast.

4:19 In order to better protect themselves wherever you live. You know, I live here in Canada, watching this from Canada is awful. We've seen this happen in our country, but to watch it anywhere around the world and see people in pain and have to undergo this tragedy, a tragedy is just awful. And, you know, our hearts go out to everybody and the families who are going through this. But I wanted to make sure that we had the education here so that we can protect ourselves in the future. So without further ado, here is Dave Jones talking about the flash floods that happened in Texas and New Mexico, how we can better prepare ourselves and how the system works and how it can work even better in the future. Enjoy and I'll talk to you after. Hey, Dave, welcome back to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

5:00 Are you ready to talk about some flooding that's happening in the US right now? Unfortunately, I'm ready. Yeah, it's it's you know, when I when I want to when I contacted you to come on the podcast, I was like, he's going to be busy. He's going to be tired, you know, just not only mentally and physically, but emotionally. And I mean, there are some big tragedies happening in Texas, in New Mexico. There are over 120 people that have confirmed that have died in these flash floods in Texas. There's there's about four individuals that are missing, three people killed, including two children in New Mexico. Horrendous, horrendous flooding, horrendous tragedy.

5:40 And of course, people are still missing. And this is and this is what we wanted to avoid. We always want to avoid this type of stuff we talk. And in this as as everything is developing and as still people are trying to be found and rescuers are doing their best and and and braving the elements to get out there in very difficult situations or very dangerous situations to rescue and find some of these missing people. You know, there's some blame and a lot of stuff being thrown back and forth. And unfortunately, a lot of it's political, you know, a lot of doge cuts that we talked about on the last podcast, you know, from NOAA, the National Weather Service, what we were afraid of. But it seems like a lot of political stuff is like, let's blame one side, let's blame the other side.

6:24 I want to strip away that Dave today. And I want to kind of just talk about the process of what is supposed to happen. And if that happened during this, like the early warning systems, making sure people were safe or they knew about these types of storms and these types of floods, how these floods occurred. And maybe we'll start off with that, Dave. Can you just talk, because, you know, you've got you've got the knowledge on this way more than I do. Can you just let the audience know, like, what happened in the first place? How did these floods happen? Well, I mean, you know, it's a great question. And we always look back. Of course, we can see things developing in the future, but we can't tell, you know, days and days and days ahead of time, how much rain is going to fall in a certain watershed or over a certain town.

7:12 That is really an elusive thing as far as forecasting goes. But we can see the conditions coming together that will result in flooding somewhere. And that's what happened, Andrew, over the last, you know, several days, even before July 4th and the terrible flood happened. We had a lot of moisture that was in the air. And typically there's, you know, there's a give and take for moisture and dry air over Texas. And we had a landfalling tropical storm in Mexico several days before that. That was kind of, you know, rained out in Mexico.

7:52 But that circulation stayed there and it brought with it when it moved over Texas, even more moisture. And so, you know, you and I might notice it as boy, it's really humid out today. Yeah, got a lot more humid than yesterday. It doesn't mean that that remnants of that system was bringing any rain itself or bringing any thunderstorms, but it was bringing the moisture. And at the same time, there was a circulation around a high pressure system that was off the southeast coast of the United States that was bringing in more moisture from the Gulf.

8:32 And that happens very frequently in Texas. So you have those two things that are coming together. And then you had a little disturbance in the atmosphere that was leading to the development of thunderstorms in South Central Texas. And when you don't have a lot of steering currents, but you have a lot of moisture and you get thunderstorms to develop, you get thunderstorms that develop and don't move very quickly. There is no real push to get them out of the way. And so when those thunderstorms develop, they tap into that very thick layer of tropical moisture.

9:13 It's continuing to be fed by moisture coming in off of the Gulf around the circulation around a high pressure system. And those thunderstorms just kind of sit there. And that's what happened over Kerr County in Texas and just north of Kerr County. These thunderstorms formed and they just kept reforming. We call it training when all move over the same place at the same time. And that is the recipe for flash flooding. So when you think about that, you think about that moisture and the storms going and all that stuff, you think, well, what about absorption?

9:54 Can't the land absorb that rain coming down? And the hill country of South Central Texas is very much thin soil and a lot of rock. And it's it's very hard there. And so they had been in a drought for a long period of time. So you have very hard soil. You have not very thick soil for absorbing any kind of rain and, you know, nothing's going to absorb 12 to 15 to perhaps 20 inches of rain over a several hour period.

10:35 That rain has to go somewhere and it drains right down into the watershed and into the local river. In this case, the Guadalupe River, which surged more than 30 feet as unreal. All that rain fell. Now, you know, we we talk about storms that happen like this and you know, you mentioned how this just seemed to be this time as coincidence in a way where all these systems are kind of converging in one place. You have over an area where you have, you know, a lot of rock. And so the absorption of the soil and thin soil, not a lot of absorption is going to happen.

11:16 This seems to be just a case of bad luck. But we know we talk about when we do. I've done this in the past when I did private consulting. We talk about 100 year storms, which are really bad storms, 50 year storms, 10 year storms and all these different types of storms. And, you know, engineers and planners, they build and they plan for these types of storms to happen every so often. So these hundred year storms, these 10 year storms for a storm like this, I know it might be early to say, do we know what? What kind of category these storms have? Like, has this happened before in these areas where similar consequences or similar results? They have. And in Kerr County and along the Guadalupe River, they've had several major floods over the course of the last hundred years.

12:06 And, you know, I hear in the media, I hear other people saying, oh, my gosh, this was a one in a thousand year event. Well, I've always been an advocate to say, let's throw that out the window. Right. Let's stop talking about one in a thousand year event. Let's talk a lot, not talk about one in a hundred year event because we are living in a different paradigm as far as the atmosphere is concerned. It is basically turbocharged with heat and moisture. And so we can't look at past events and say, oh, this is not going to happen again.

12:47 Anybody that says that this flood that just happened isn't going to happen for another two to five hundred years is not accurate. And we're going to see more of these kind of floods happening not just in the United States, but in many countries around the world because we have that much more moisture in the atmosphere. And so, yes, they've had floods there. Many of the structures that were washed away were in flood zones. Some areas, including the Mystic Cabin retreat area was in an extreme flood zone.

13:28 Who knows how they were able to build there. And they also apparently had an emergency plan and had an inspection two days before this happened and passed that inspection. So I don't know what the inspection was for. Right. But it's certainly opening up a lot of questions to what the people do, especially if they're taking money and taking and housing people and having activities in a dangerous area when it could flood.

14:08 What are the plans that were in place? I'd love to see those emergency plans and I'd love to see what is the history. I'm starting to get information from several colleagues around what is the information in the past as to why they didn't have warning systems in place in that area. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. When we look at the coastal areas all around the world, they're always updating tsunami warnings. They're also updating coastal warnings, coastal hazards, sea surges and so forth. And you'd expect the same thing to happen, especially when you when you just what you just mentioned is they had an inspection and stuff.

14:53 And I feel as though, as you mentioned earlier, how it's a different game than it was even 30 years ago, even 10 years ago, the atmosphere has changed. And so I think that's a good thing. Using the thousand year storms, hundred year storms, 10 year storms may not be appropriate at this point because there's going to there. We know they're going to be more frequent and the atmosphere in itself, as you as you described a lot in this podcast episode is it's it's thick and it's ready. So and we're seeing a lot different and I I said this a couple of years ago when here in Ontario, we had flash flooding and I said climate change is going to expose the vulnerabilities of cities that haven't done the necessary adaptations and plans.

15:40 And this is not to because I don't want to blame anybody, you know, especially what's going on now is people are still being rescued. No, no, that's not what's going on right now. But this is going to change. You know, there's a lot of people that are really cognizant of that. But unfortunately, when looking at people like cities and towns and villages that are dry right now, you know, that are watching this, this is the lesson that they have to take and being like we do inspections, we do routes and I think are these routes. We look at the floodplains, you know, we look at our people. Should people be in there? If they're in this area and they're allowed to be in this area, do they have the necessary equipment and ability to get out?

16:24 You know, there's a lot of stuff that can go on in an emergency, as you know. And how many hours did it rise from five or seven feet to 37 feet? Yeah, estimates are between one and two hours. That's not a lot of time to get to get out of the dodge, especially to recognize. Like I've seen some of the videos, Dave, and you know, you worry that what's true, what's not. But, you know, it's not what you think in terms of the rise, you know, you would almost think that somebody's looking at it and it's just rising up, rising up, rising up. It didn't really happen that way, right? It was a gosh, like coming around the corner, you just see this, this wave in a river, which you're just like, how does this happen?

17:09 And it's coming and rushing at you. It's not just rising this way. It's coming for you, you know, in that in that kind of manner, which is devastating and scary altogether. And so it's, you know, when you think about it and that rise, you think just straight up, but it's coming at you and up and that and it's coming out of big at a pretty fast speed. Yeah. And when you, you know, Andrew, when you think about that water coming down, let's just say it's moving at seven miles per hour, which is which is pretty fast. Yeah. For water. It exerts the same pressure on a person as a category five hurricane. And then when you make it 10, 20, 30 feet high, it's off the charts.

18:01 Nothing can withstand the power of that much water coming down. And when you think about a thunderstorm, think about a hilly area, the topography, all this rain coming down along the river. And when you think about it, you know, all that water is running down along in those hills. All that water is running down towards the lowest spot. And where it meets is where these rivers are. That's why rivers are there. And when they all come together, all that water rushing over all those hills down all those hills. And when you think about it, you know, how it's going to rise in that level.

18:43 Unreal. Now. So we now we know what happened in terms of the storm and and what it did. Let's talk warning systems. Let's talk how normally how are people warned about these types of storms and and what is the process that happens from what you see because you kind of see a little bit behind the scenes. And so you know, you have a lot of people in the environment at this point. You know, you you have your own. You have you have storms that are communications. That's your CEO. That is what you that's what you do. You provide information to people online, like through YouTube. And you also have your own clients where you provide that and provide more analysis and so forth. But for people who are in a situation like in, you know, Central Texas and Kerr County, how were they getting their updates and how is it normally supposed to go?

19:35 And I have a question and one that's going to be analyzed for a while. And hopefully quick solutions will come up. Most areas like Kerr County or in rural areas around the country have a couple of ways of getting warnings from the National Weather Service. And the National Weather Service, first of all, is the official and authoritative voice for issuing watches and warnings. So I can't stand up as the CEO of Storm Center Communications and say I'm issuing a flash flood warning for this town. Right. Right. I can't do that. Right.

20:16 What we do is we immediately pass on those warnings and watches and advisories from the National Weather Service. And so there are there are two main ways that they can get that information. One is through the wireless emergency alert system. It's called we are here in the United States where the National Weather Service issues a warning. And you your phone will go on. You get that emergency message that pops up when you'll get that emergency message that pops up if you haven't turned it off on your phone. And if you have a signal and you have you have connectivity.

21:10 Yeah. The other way which you can get those warnings is through NOAA Weather Radio. NOAA Weather Radio is a standalone radio that has AMF and bands. As a matter of fact, I actually have one. It's right here. This is the one I think you were showing the other day on your social media. I saw this. Yeah. So so this is what it looks like. I don't know if you can see it. Yeah. If you just move it over just a little bit to your right, I believe. There you go. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. I just unplug it. I don't have batteries in this one, but I'll put the antenna down. This is the NOAA Weather Radio. And you can program it for the area in which you live. You know, you go through a menu and then you find out what what section you're in, what state, what county and then what sub region you're in.

22:02 And this radio is constantly monitoring through radio signals when the Weather Service issues an alert, whether it's a watch or a warning. And there are lights here right here. It says warning over here. It says watch and those lights stay lit while that's that is in effect. And then all you have to do when you get an alert is you hit this button and then the National Weather Service computerized voice comes across and says National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for Kerr County in Texas for the Guadalupe River. It's rising rapidly and then they give instructions. Interesting. Okay.

22:46 So what we know is that in some areas along the Guadalupe River, the cell signal is terrible. So they don't have great connectivity. But the other thing that I do know is that NOAA Weather Radio completely covers Kerr County. So if everyone along the river had a no weather radio, they would have had the radios go off and alert them. Now that's one part of the equation getting the alert. The second part of the equation is understanding the alert. So what was communicated through no weather radio is another thing to look at.

23:36 And we know because it's the same information that's sent through the Internet to all of our systems. You know, I was seeing those warnings coming in and you know, I could read them and it's exactly what no weather radio was saying. But then the other challenges was anybody monitoring a no weather radio when they had if they had a no weather radio and did they know what to do when they heard about that flash flood warning because I can certainly tell you that the flood warnings issued do not specifically identify all the camps and RV camp that are on the ground along the river.

24:23 Right. Right. So maybe people are listening to Oh, the mystic camp. They didn't mention that. I don't know. Yeah, because they didn't mention the specific argument could be so many. There could be so many. Yeah, you have to have situational awareness for what a warning means and how it applies to where you are and where you're going to be spending time. Right. And and so the the the other thing that I think that's really important is that the other way in which you can get warnings is you know, through other Internet connected devices. Right. I mean, for example, we developed a technology called geo collaborate, which allows you to collaborate across different platforms.

25:08 If there was a warning issued, then that area would light up, you know, and then you click on it and then you see what the warning is. That's not the most proactive way to get a warning. And the provision to lipid scheme and theeffect and the awareness that everybody has on Earth. And word ofPath and to get you to check the warning out the other day, take alternative control. And that theasse messages that they cables may tell you that they have. If it's like, we're going to make the messages on dimensional security room chorus spiritual or organizations and email. These are the kind of questions that we need to ask.

25:50 And, and you know, I mean, some people have said to me, you know, why are you looking at what, what needs to happen now and all that stuff? They're still looking for victims. And I said, you know what? I, from a meteorologist, from a meteorologist perspective that who does not live in Texas, we're all grieving, right? We're all grieving. Even up here in Canada. And, and that's right. People around the world are grieving. And we're all looking at what can we do to help? And we can't get down there and dig under trees and try to move cars. And there are a lot of people down there doing that right now. So the way in which we can do that is to think about not letting this happen again.

26:36 And what can we do? What? How can we contribute to warning systems, understanding more, creating better products, you know, and it really does in many cases come down to people believing the warning. Right. I mean, we even saw this. We even saw this with Hurricane Katrina where people stayed even, you know, when they were told to evacuate, you know, they're always going to be people who ignore the warnings, ignore the evacuations. They don't heed the dangers. Right. Right. Right. And, and if you hear that warning and you just turn it off because you get a lot of warnings that never mean anything, that's something that we have to look at as meteorologists as the National Weather Service.

27:33 What is it that they can do differently to make this one seem above and beyond? Yes. And make it a little bit more urgent. Yeah, a little bit more urgent. And that's why the Weather Service came up with flash flood emergency. Right. Okay. Flash flood warnings, flash flood warning for here, flash flood warning for there. But when there's a flash flood emergency, their hope is that people will hear the word emergency and listen closer to where that impacts and then take action. And that's exactly what a flash flood emergency means. Yeah. And indeed, a flash flood emergency was issued. Gotcha.

28:21 Now, when we know one thing to those two is to remark, you know, as we discuss what can be done in the future. I also want to kind of like we're talking we're focusing right now on Texas, but, you know, not long after maybe like three or four days after on July 8, we saw a flash flood in New Mexico. And, you know, you know, people, unfortunately, people perished. Some individuals are still missing. So this is why like it could happen. We're in this. We're in a situation right now. We're in a time of year where in certain areas where we're more vulnerable than others. So even people who are understanding what's happening over in Texas, over in New Mexico, they're in somewhere else.

29:04 They may be like, maybe we should go get a NOA radio, you know, or figure out how to get that. Maybe we should start looking more on our town or village or our city's website and find out where the evacuation routes are. Or even talk to our council person or government representative of like, what do we do in this emergency? What is actually an emergency that we should be really looking out for? And I think it's important to that. And that's why I want to cover it in this episode because you just never know when it's going to hit, especially in a summer where we're getting humidity all across North America, where the rains are going to start to come. We've been having drought conditions. And when those rains come, they come hard and it could be it could be very dangerous.

29:51 And the situation with these with these radios is the first time I've heard of these radios that were still available. Is this given out by by the local governments or or like the government initiatives or are these just purchased at like your radio shack or Circuit City or Best Buy or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. You could. That's a great question. And you can purchase these. You can get on, you know, any online retailer that sells this kind of stuff and order them. OK. In many cases, state or county governments will buy a whole big lot of them. OK. OK. Especially in areas that you really need them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember speaking with a friend of mine and colleague who is the spokesperson for Midland Radio, which is a manufacturer of no weather radios, said that in some cases, areas or counties or towns who decided. And I want to talk about sirens as well. Right.

30:57 Who decided not to install sirens or to take down their sirens and use that budget to buy no weather radios and give them to their OK. OK. Their citizens. So it wasn't just the fact that they're just taking it down because they don't want to use them anymore. They're taking them down, but replacing them with something probably a little bit more with more information like these no radios. More information and a radio signal reaches a lot further than a siren. True. And, you know, many studies have happened where, you know, sirens have been put in places and unfortunately they're not made to penetrate your house. Right.

31:37 So you may not hear a siren. You may be watching TV. You may be having your headphones on. You may be sleeping and you don't hear the sirens. Now, people who live close to the sirens are going to hear them. But there have been instances around the country where towns have invested in these sirens. And, you know, you're talking anywhere between 100 and $500,000 a year. You know, you have to pay for maintenance and, you know, keeping the sirens. You know, keeping them up, installing them, you know, all that kind of stuff. What else can you do with that money that might give everybody an alert in their own home and know whether radio is certainly an option? Yeah.

32:22 What's interesting, too, is that you think about radios. You know, when I grew up, radio was a was a still pretty big thing. You listen to it in your car. You could listen to them at home. You know, there was no iPhones or MP3s or Internet even when I, you know, in the 80s when I was a kid. And so radios were a pretty big thing. When my parents were growing up, that's what they listened to. That was their entertainment. So everything was listened over the radio. We have a lot of different technologies nowadays in our homes, phones, wireless internet, you know, TVs and so forth. And those can go down. Power outages can really go. The radio frequencies from these radios really are powerful. Do you think that even though it's so powerful, people don't think they're as advanced because they're, you know, from a futuristic standpoint, they look like they're old technology and some people may not rely on them as much.

33:23 Do you think is it do you think there's has has that ever come across your conversations with the maybe lack of uptake from from some communities? Yeah, I really haven't heard that. You know, the fact that it's a radio people might not be interested in using it. They'd rather, you know, have some AI bot blanket their phone or something, you know, right. And the problem is that in many areas, particularly very rural areas, there may not be cellular signals. And if you don't have a cellular signal, then you're basically carrying a brick around in your pocket. That's not going to tell you anything. And the no weather radio does penetrate much more of the geography and people can get it.

34:15 Now, I do think that it's really an awareness thing where people don't know about no weather radio. It's been around for more than 50 years. The it's being threatened by cuts budget cuts. You know, if the National Weather Service continues to take budget cuts, they've been protecting no weather radio for now. But pretty soon, you know, if they keep getting cut, that's going to be something that they can't afford to maintain. So then this so this and then when you mean by that, sorry to interrupt when you when you mean by that, it's not the people who manufacture the actual radios.

34:58 It's a signal that goes out to the radios to maintain that awareness. That's right. Because because they used to have like when no weather radio first started, they installed all these antennas, transmission antennas, yeah, around the country for to broadcast the signals. And then that got really expensive to maintain. So they started leasing space off of existing radio towers and towers that that exist out there. Well, I mean, that's like rent. It keeps going up. And so they're struggling with increased costs to maintain the transmitter and to keep it on the tower that they they have it on now. Because when they issue from each forecast office, when they issue the warning and they that automatically activates the signal that sets the no weather radios off. Right.

35:55 So the weather service doesn't make the no weather radios, but they provide the content that's going to save your life. Right. Which is if the most important, right, is you've got the device, they want to get you the information to go to that device and get it. I want to kind of just talk a little bit about some of the stuff that's been said over the last week or so in terms of what may have happened, what may not have happened. It sounds just from our conversation that alerts went out. But there could have been a lot of ways that people didn't get alerts, lack of cell service, lack of the technology like the radio that would have it power outages. So, you know, again, lack of ability to get that that data to them or those alerts to people.

36:40 We talk about cuts. We talk about the cuts that were coming, the cuts that have happened to the National Weather Service to NOAA over the last couple of months has been very quick. And I know things, you know, things move slowly in government. A lot of the times we know National Weather Service budget's been cut. And I think that's a great question of alerts not going out due to whatever reason, whether they were cuts, whether it was like a mistake, whether or is that an investigation that that's got to happen after where we can get full answers? Yeah, no, I mean, and that's that's a that's a popular question, too. Yeah. Did did the cuts impact the issuance of the warning? Right now, there doesn't seem to be a direct correlation between cuts and the warning went out late.

37:35 Right. The National Weather Service Office in New Braunfels in San Antonio, they had extra meteorologists on staff than they normally would. Okay. Because of the possibility or the likelihood of flooding happening. But where I do think it could have made a difference. And, you know, it can't be proven right now. And that is that their warning coordination meteorologist every office has what they call a WCM a warning coordination meteorologist and their job. One of their jobs is to be the liaison between the emergency managers and the National Weather Service towns and the National Weather Service and any other organizations that, you know, have an interest in getting warning information.

38:33 And so these warning coordination meteorologists are just like every other employee. They were offered the early buyouts to retire as a as a point of force reduction mandated, you know, across the government. And the warning coordination meteorologist took an early retirement about eight months ago and they have not been replaced. And so, you know, my as a meteorologist, I'm thinking, well, that warning coordination meteorologist between eight months ago and now could have been visiting all those places telling them about the importance of the flood warnings.

39:21 Telling them the importance of, hey, we can flood really quickly. Be ready. We're going to issue these alerts. Would he have done that? I don't know. But the job of the WCM is to be that liaison and to make sure the emergency management community understands how the process works. The other thing I don't know is the people that this warning coordination meteorologist was had such great relationships with. Did any of them change in the last eight months? And if any of those changed in the last eight months, were they getting any instruction for what those warnings mean and how should they act? Should they hear it?

40:05 What kind of connectivity back to the weather service? Because there is a channel. There's a feedback channel. It's called NWS Chat. Right. Where the emergency managers and media can be in a direct chat with meteorologists at the weather service. Right. You know, what kind of activity was going on there? That's more to issue even more warnings to the public to even like help boost the information getting out. Is that it? Well, I think more up to date warnings were about not issuing more warnings. But what do you do when you receive this warning? Ah, OK. Gotcha. So so more helpful tips and stuff. Yeah, there's a there's a flood flash flood emergency.

40:49 We're issuing that should have made every emergency manager and every police officer get up and go down to that riverbank to try to get out. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They know that, you know, so there's an education behind that as well. And I just wanted to mention, too, that and I haven't been able to confirm it, but I've seen it in some media reports. And I know that those specific media get multiple. They have to get multiple confirmations before they report it. And that is, is that Kerr County had the option or an opportunity to install a siren system along the Guadalupe River. Where this flood happened back in 2016 or 2017 and they refused to do it. Why? I don't know. I didn't see the study that was done to say it's not worth it or whatever. I have heard officials say that installing an alert system is expensive.

41:54 And so that just leads you to answer that question. Well, what's expensive and at what price? Yeah, well, it was a priority here. Something is more expensive. And what did you buy with that money that could have been that could have put in an alerting system. So I'm sure I will guarantee it 1000% that there's going to be a lot of pressure to get some sort of alerting system. I personally think throughout the country that this flood will lead to some sort of major change in the way that flood warnings are issued and consumed. And the question is going to be how long will that take? And, you know, I mean, Andrew, we're talking about this flood.

42:49 It happened less than a week ago or a week ago actually today. And six months down the road, will anybody be thinking of flash flooding? Well, and you're right. And I think it's important. This is, we had this, like I mentioned, we had flash flooding, not as bad obviously, but it was pretty bad. But nobody followed up. I had it in my neighborhood in Pittsburgh. I had it in my neighborhood and certain parts of my neighborhood. And I followed up with the people happened twice in in in a year, less than a year. And then because there weren't any fatalities, thank God, and knock on whether it doesn't happen.

43:31 People's places, properties got damaged and and it happened twice. So they had to put in two insurance claims now that people are concerned that over time, like those insurance is going to go up or not covered. And and no, but nobody followed up with the region, with the city government. They were just worried about their own, you know, insurance costs. And just to your to your point of in six months from now, is this going to be kind of washed aside and no pun intended, of course. And people aren't just are just going to forget about it. Assuming that it's going to be dealt with, you know, that the people that they voted into power to say, Hey, you know what, we need to we need to deal with this, we need to put in this iron system, because obviously, it would have helped.

44:16 We didn't do it the first time. This is our chance to do it. But people, I feel that they need to follow up. They need to continue, especially if you're in an area that's vulnerable and you may or may not be able to move out of that area or you want to continue to stay in that area. I feel like you almost have to have like put committees together, citizen committees to make sure that that that's followed up. It's so important to do that. And I think, you know, in Kerr County, Texas, I don't think they'll ever forget when you get outside of Texas and around the country, there are probably. you know, Kerr County, Texas tomorrow.

45:00 And will people see this as a reason to make them move faster in getting alert systems or understanding what's available, putting things in place, getting meteorologists in to talk to them about what's going on in the world. And I think that's something that we're going to have to do to make sure that we have the right resources to be able to take the risk and what their risk tolerance is, because communities could come together and say, you know what? We want to. And this is something they don't do today, but could be in the future where communities work together to say, okay, this is our risk tolerance.

45:44 Instead of the government coming in saying we're going to issue a warning because we think this is what it should be. Yeah. If you get more community involvement and buy in from people as to what you're trying to do, I think you'll get more longevity in people thinking about it and feeling more comfortable with the risk that that they're undertaking. I agree. I agree completely. That feedback mechanism is so important because that's what makes a community. That's not just don't just let government make all the decisions, but be involved in the government and be involved with what happens around your town city.

46:24 Obviously, you know, not not trying to blame on anybody in this situation. This is devastating. You know, our hearts go out to all the people affected who have lost their loved ones and are still looking for those. It must be a horrible situation. We don't want to see this situation happen again ever, you know, and to protect that we know the ways I think this also speaks to a couple of things. One that we need to invest in these monetarily as well funding wise into these systems. They're not cheap for a lot of times, but they are effective when they're in. They can save a lot of people's lives. So I think that's that's important. I think also the fact that, you know, we we pretty much went through this this episode without really talking about climate change too much.

47:14 And we didn't have to because flooding is enough. Like we know the risks of flooding. We know it's being it's made worse by climate change, but people see this and this is a danger and like an extreme danger to people immediately. And this needs to be fixed. And so there's a lot of things that we can do in the short term and in the long term to ensure that we can predict these things a little bit faster just from a you know, where it doesn't just sneak up on us and also making sure that we have connectivity so that people can get alerts and all the different ways of getting alerts. You know, as far as I'm concerned, like if you're in one of those areas, everybody should be given a radio, you know, like that should come to the house or apartment or anything, right?

47:57 I agree. And you know, another important thing is is because we're in a new paradigm and you're right. We don't have to talk about climate change. All we have to talk about is there's more moisture in the atmosphere. And yes, the atmosphere is warmer. So you're adding more ingredients to create floods in many more locations. And we also want to make sure that people understand we are in that new paradigm. So forecasts of flash flooding are going to be more numerous. We're going to talk about that a little bit more and that that we need the research, right?

48:43 We need research in science to understand how the atmosphere is transforming and how fast it's transforming because that one in one thousand year flood that everybody's talking about may become a one in 10 year flood at that magnitude. But then 10 years from now, it may become a one in two year flood. Yeah. And so if that happens, that has to change everyone's planning for community development, urbanization, planning, storm drain size.

49:24 What kind of what kind of modifications are cities and towns going to need to to manage that kind of rainfall? Absolutely. You said it perfectly. I think it's funding needs to go in that and that can be costly, but it's necessary. And I think a lot of times it gets passed up and it's deemed unnecessary for whatever reason, whether it's political, whether it's it's budgetary. But you're right. We do need to understand our system more. We are in an ever changing world more than ever. And we need to we need to have a better understanding of how we can adapt to it and change it. So that hopefully that's why research needs to be funded.

50:11 Absolutely. Absolutely. David, I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I know you're busy. I appreciate all the work you do and all the work your colleagues do and appreciate you coming here and giving information to our audience, you know, sifting through all the stuff on the news and being able to provide us with ways people get alerts as well as ways they can get alerts and how they can get in the future if they need it. So if everybody can go out and get your NOAA watch radio, go out and get it because it's very important to do so. I'll put it if I can find some links. I'll put a link if you can if you can purchase it online or something. So again, Dave, thank you so much. We really do appreciate it. Great. Thank you, Andrew. Thanks for having me. No problem.

50:54 Thank you, Dave, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast and providing us all that information. A lot of the stuff I didn't know about and I thought it was really interesting to find out, you know, after all this gets sorted investigations happen, people get to mourn their loss, people get to understand what happened and what they can do in the future. I hope that there are critical and constructive conversations from a government level and community levels with their governments in order to better protect themselves. Forget the political side of everything. Forget the two sides to every political aisle. Forget the climate change political aspect. Let's protect people. Let's make sure that we can be safe in our own communities, you know, whether in the US, whether you're in Canada, whether you're in Europe, whether you're in the US, whether you're in Canada, whether you're in Europe.

51:38 It doesn't matter. We want to make sure that we're protected and governments and communities need to come together to be able to ensure that these are protected. This has nothing to do with political affiliations. This has to do with protecting people, with protecting children. You know, 27 children were killed because they were at a camp that were on the Guadalupe River and that is unacceptable. That cannot happen again. And we need to protect the people. And that is unacceptable. That cannot happen again. And we need to better prepare for these types of storms, not only from just a receiving and providing alerts, but also the infrastructure of where things can be built, where things can go in the future. And I think that's really important discussions to have in the future, even in my community up here in Canada, in Burlington, Ontario.

52:26 So I want to thank you everybody for joining us today. I'd love to hear your feedback and leave a comment on the YouTube channel if you're watching this on YouTube, or if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app, you can hit me up on my website, speakupforblue.com forward slash contact, leave me an email. If you have any questions for myself or Dave, I'll pass it on to him. It goes right to my personal email, or you can hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. It's at how to protect the ocean. Just DM me. I want to thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the true North strong and free. Have a good day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.