The two disasters are separated by 99 years. One, a post-rainfall avalanche that resulted in the death of 9 godly people in Franconia Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The second a post-rainfall flood that resulted in a still increasing number of people in Flash Flood Alley in the Texas Hill country including many young girls attending a Christian summer camp.
CRAWFORD NOTCH
Crawford Notch, a deep valley in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, unexpectedly became famous in 1826 when nine lives were lost in a catastrophic avalanche nearby. These godly people were not supposed to die. When the storm occurred and the avalanche headed for the Willey home, the residents apparently sought to seek safety by abandoning the house for what they thought would be a safer location in a sturdier structure. We know the abandonment was sudden because the Bible in the house was found open. Of course, we cannot know for sure what the people were thinking since they all died. We do know that the house was the safe spot as the avalanche went around it on both sides leaving it an island of safety amidst the surrounding doom. We also know that the place of refuge sought by the Willeys did not escape the torrent and ended up being their death place. The safe haven they thought they had fled to instead had placed them in the very path of the disaster.
The tragedy of these godly people fleeing for safety only to be struck down instead drew such luminaries as Thomas Cole, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Webster, and Henry David Thoreau. To understand how such an event could have occurred challenged the leading thinkers and artists of the time. Time marches on and today the disaster is but a footnote in American history that even the scholars ignore, but in its time it was an unfathomable tragedy certainly to the northern elite.
TEXAS HILL COUNTRY
There is not an exact parallel between what happened in 1826 in Franconia Notch and the Texas Hill Country in 2025. Still there are enough lessons to be learned from both events. Part of the shock from the flood in the present is the presence of summer camps, particularly a Christian girl’s camp that catered to the well-to-do. Three generations of descendants of President Lyndon Johnson camped at Camp Mystic. Former First Lady Laura Bush once had been a counselor there. Disasters like this one are not supposed to happen. When you send your kids to school you expect that they will return home alive. Same for summer camp.
One big difference between the events of 1826 and 2025 is the role of the government, local state, and federal. What is the significance for the future given the actions governments have already taken or are in the process of taking?
1. Federal research into climate change has been gutted. That does not mean that such research would have precisely pinpointed the flooding which occurred in Texas. But the more such research highlights the instability and magnitude of the disasters to come, the more likely we are to actually do something to mitigate the impact. Climate change is making extreme rainfall events more frequent and severe. Time is compressed and emergency managers have less and less time to make life and death decisions. As a general rule one doesn’t buy beachfront property on Third Street. What do you think happened to First and Second Streets? Same for Flash Flood Alley.
2. The National Weather Service has been gutted. A workforce of 4000 people has been reduced to approximately 3400 so far. As we recall from the famous image of Musk with a chainsaw, there was no intelligent thought behind the reductions. Attempts to ameliorate the situation are currently underway with the hiring of 126 people. The freeze on travel expense also complicates the efforts of staff to meet on location with state and local officials.
The office responsible for some of the hardest hit areas was short a senior hydrologist, staff forecaster, and meteorologist. There were vacancies in the nearby office as well. Part of the shortage was due to people taking early retirement in the cutbacks sponsored by the federal government. This includes Paul Yura, who held the critical position of the warning coordination meteorologist who took an unplanned leave of absence on April 30. This is a pivotal position in an emergency. The individual was not replaced. What a cost saving! The Trump Muskacre strikes again.
3. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is scheduled to be mothballed with responsibilities turned over to the states or other parts of the federal government. Obviously the states are not ready to take on this unfunded mandate. They don’t have the money or people or infrastructure to take on these responsibilities. This year FEMA has lost over 20% of its permanent staff. These include the most experienced, field ready responders. As for the temporary employees, there is after all a hurricane season along with wildfires, those contracts will end soon.
Contracts at call centers ended July 5 without being renewed. The numbers tell the story of the increase calls due to the flood and the decrease response ratio due to the reductions in staff.
July 5 calls: 3027 with 99.7% response
July 6 calls: 2363 with 35.8% response
July 7 calls: 16,419 with 15.8% response.
Date search and rescue teams deployed: July 7.
Unfortunately the problem the problems with FEMA extend right to the top. The president consistently refers to the flood as an unavoidable act of nature. Or “a hundred year catastrophe” the likes of which he has never seen before. Right now even as I write this post resiliency plans for lower Manhattan are underway to prevent a recurrence of Sandy. I see the related construction; one of the members of the Lower Manhattan Historical Association who lives in the area attends the public meetings. Somehow Trump knows about 9/11 but not Sandy (2012).
FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security? The head of that department is more concerned with her wardrobe and Foxhub appearances than actually managing disasters about which she knows nothing. Kristi Noem said “We are going to eliminate FEMA.” Acting Director Cameron Hamilton had been pushed out in May when he testified to Congress that the agency was vital to communities in their greatest time of need. David Richardson, who has led FEMA since declared in June that he was not aware that the country even has a hurricane season. He has no experience in emergency management; nor has he been visible despite the tradition of the FEMA manager meeting at the site with local officials.
Now Noem personally has to sign off on all expenses over$100,000, undoubtedly to cut down on waste, fraud, and inefficiency. That paltry amount does not go far plus she might get writer’s cramp and need an auto-signature device to keep up with the requests. It may also be related to the bankrupting of the agency to support ICE. As to how she has cut through the paperwork of the old FEMA and streamlined it, it would be interesting if she could specify exactly what she did in an organization she knows nothing about. Of course, if you ask, then according to our President:
Only a bad person would ask a question like that. To be honest with you, I don’t know who you are [a local reporter], but only a very evil person would ask a question like that [on behalf of local families and the lack of warning alerts].
For Representative Chip “Cut More, Cut More, Cut More” Roy, the flood would be his worst nightmare except he has to praise Trump and he has to support cutbacks.
A presidential pattern may be developing here:
Chainsaw the actual workers with no intelligent thought behind the actions
Fire people who dare to speak the truth
Hire incompetents who will be inept in their jobs and fail at the moment of truth
Provide 100% support to the inept and incompetent but loyal people you selected and declare as evil or bad anyone who questions it.
And it is only the beginning of July before the big hurricanes occur.
It is not as if flooding was an unknown event in the Texas Hill Country. Kerr County had debated the need for a more extensive warning system along the Guadalupe River aka Flash Flood Alley. Little to nothing was done. For a county of 50,000 people with a budget of $67 million, it is no surprise that it could not handle the necessary work without outside assistance. The same applies to other rural counties throughout the state if not the country. The state has a backlog of $54 BILLION in flood management projects. But while that number keeps growing the state approved $51 BILLION in property tax cuts.
4. Health Care – Let us not forget the pending cuts to Medicaid and the potential closure of small rural hospitals. Something to look forward to.
The more and more disasters occur, the less and less the federal government is or will be able to cope. Trump Disaster 25.1 is the first of many. At the very moment we expect the federal government to be there to rescue us and help us, is the very moment that it is being gutted. The Texas Hill Country flood exposes the shortcoming of leadership on multiple levels. It forces one to follow threads and connect dots to see the full picture of the price Americans are paying for ineptitude and incompetence. Good thing the MAGA base only cares about Epstein and not about flood control. At least the invasion of Los Angeles is going well.
Information for the blog is from:
Health care; “’Tears my Heart to Pieces’: North Carolina Braces for Medicaid Cuts” Eduardo Medina, NYT July 7, 2025 print
“As Floodwaters Struck, Key Roles We Unfilled at Local Weather Offices,” Christopher Flavelle, NYT July 7, 2025 print.
Camp’s Agony Is Felt Deeply across Texas,” Ruth Graham and Edgar Sandoval, front page NYT July 7, 2025 print.
“We Are Not Prepared to Face the Next Disaster,” MaryAnn Tierney, op-ed, NYT July 8, 2025 print’
“County in Texas Rejected System for Flood Alerts,” Jesus Jiménez, Margarita Birningham, Danny Hakim, Mike Baker, front page, NYT, July 8 2025 print
“In Flooded Texas, Questions Emerge about FEMA’s Role and Future,” Maxine Joselow, NYT July 10 2025 print
“Researchers Go on Unpaid Leave as Climate Funds Area Cut,” Rebecca Dzombak, NYT July 10, 2025, print.
“As the Texas Floodwaters Rose, One Key Voice was Silent,” Zeynep Tuferci, op-ed NYT July 10, 2025 print
“Trump Visit Sites of Texas Flooding as Administration Is Facing Scrutiny,” Shawn McCresh, NYT July 12, 2025 print.
“After Emergency, Trump Changes Tune on Need for FEMA,” Luke Broadwater and Shawn McCresh, NYT July 12, 2025, print.
FEMA Did Not Answer Thousands of Flood Survivors’ Calls for Aid,” Maxine Joselow, NYT July 13, 2025 print.
