The recent flash flood tragedy in central Texas resulted in seeing the best and the worst of American society.
The best has been an outpouring of sympathy, caring, and support for the flood victims, their families, and the survivors. There have been countless reports of selfless rescue and recovery efforts by first responders and volunteers, some from well beyond the immediate flooded area.
The worst has been numerous messages on social media and other media platforms, e.g., a newspaper editorial cartoon that were vile, hateful, and some of which were vulgar.
Many of them chose to blame Trump supporters or policy decisions of the Trump administration for this tragedy.
Far too many did not include expressions of sadness or sympathy for the deaths of innocent children and adults, or compassion for the lifelong impact on all the flooding survivors.
The level of vitriol in these messages is so offensive, I will not repeat any of them in this column.
The only thing they have in common is they are devoid of any sense of decency and civility.
Somewhat surprising has been dismay and even outrage expressed from unexpected sources over these vile messages.
Nina Turner is a former national co-chair for the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign.
She recently said, “It takes a serious lack of humanity to see children to be in a politicized discussion and respond something like lines of “that’s what they [voters in Texas] voted for.”
Turner’s closing one word comment says it all — “Shameful.”
John Favreau and Tommy Vietor are co – hosts on the left of center, Pod Save America.
Both worked for Barack Obama prior to and during his presidential administration.
Both have condemned social media posts that blame local Texans and the Trump administration for all who died as a result of the recent floods.
Favreau has said, “I think the really gross stuff was, I saw some people be, like, ‘Well, Texas, you voted for Trump, and this is what you get. ‘”
Favreau has also challenged suggestions that staffing levels at the National Weather Service (NWS) in Texas had anything to do with the tragedy. Favreau has said, “It seems like the National Weather Service, like I said, did send out a timely warning, it just didn’t get to people. And that’s, you know, not the Trump administration saying that independent meteorologists and experts have all said this.”
Vietor has said that while questions about the effect of NWS cuts could be “an important question going forward, I could have done without the, like, instant, you know, leap to blame name-your-political-opponent for this tragedy on Twitter.”
The “blame your political opponent” campaign on this tragedy is already well underway.
Shortly after news broke on the flooding, Senator Chuck Schumer demanded the Commerce Department’s Inspector General investigate vacancies at National Weather Service offices and whether the purported vacancies resulted in a higher death toll in in Texas.
Schumer has suggested that proposed but yet-to-be-implemented Trump budget cuts resulted in unfilled NWS positions in Texas were to blame. Senator Chris Dodd has said likewise.
Schumer has proclaimed, “The American people deserve answers.”
Yes, we do, but not from you two or anyone who has wants to advance a political agenda from this tragedy.
We deserve answers only if the following investigative guidelines are agreed to, in advance of, and are strictly adhered to during every phase of any investigation.
At a minimum, the investigation must not focus on assigning blame for what happened or did not happen with regard to timely and effective flash flood alerts.
The laser like focus must be on what can be done going forward to help ensure it never happens again.
Differing opinions must be welcome and considered provided they follow the timeless observation of former U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who once said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.”
We also need to accept that we never have and never will live in a risk-free world.
We can only anticipate risks and take prudent steps to try to avoid them or deal with them if and when necessary. Accidents can never be totally avoided despite planning and best intentions.
Going forward, we desperately need a renewed universal commitment that when tragedies do strike, to make sure social media posts and other public reactions reflect common decency and respect for each and every person impacted in any way by that tragedy.
This is especially vital in dealing with those who hold different political party affiliations or different views on a wide range of public policy issues.
We must do so if we have any hope of reversing the steadily declining levels of decency and civility in our society.
David Reel is a public affairs and public relations consultant who live in Easton.
Michael Davis says
The tragic deaths of so many people was avoidable. Data exists that could have been used to predict it, tools exist that could have been used to give advance warning, and processes existed to initiate actions to evacuate people from dangerous areas. Choices were by people in the past that could have prevented it or at least reduced the likelihood of so many innocent people dying.
There is no way to learn from this, to prevent it from happening again in future, without looking into responsibility and accountability. This is not schoolyard kids blaming each other, as Mr. Reel seems to imply in his desire for a blameless assessment. Determining responsibly is an extremely important aspect of a good investigation.
Danna Murden says
We live in Kerrville Texas in the winter in a motor home and have for the past 13 years. We know the topography just like here. The girls camp is about 15 miles from us, there is a boys camp a little farther out than the girls camp. Thank GOD nothing happened there. Most of the river unless it has a damn it is 2 to 4 feet deep and I would guess up stream of the dams it is about 500 feet wide. There are lots of places where the river is barely 12 feet wide just gurgling over rocks and the roads we drive are just inches above it. We live right on the Guadalupe over 20+ feet above it. There are cluster of 8 cabins next to us on the river, when I saw pictures of them with the water up to the windows I can’t begin to tell you how ill I felt knowing so much is river level like there. Beside the immense flooding it took down enormous old Cypress trees that as they floated down the river they were also destroying everything in their path. No one would ever imagine the river rising that high much less in that short of period of time. The hill country builds enormous culverts to help with the flow of water for when it rains as the water does not soak into ROCK. For anyone to go on about the alert system is totally ignorant of the area and what took place. Just think of the water rising here in that amount of time what would we do. The alerts did go out in a timely fashion but with all the hills cellular service is worse than it is here and with sirens blaring the hills hinder them and most important the river rose so fast. So many lives have been lost and so many others destroyed not counting the homes, businesses, bridges, roads the list is endless.We are beyond devastated and constantly praying and I ask of anyone who believes in a higher power to please pray also.
Deirdre LaMotte says
What high minded clap trap. There is not one person who I know of who is not absolutely gutted by the innocent
deaths last week in Texas. I do not think, as a mother, I could survive losing a loved one, particularly a child
who died in a cabin by a raging river in the darkness of night.
And who in their right mind would not question the fact that these children’s cabins were in “the worst flash flooding zone in the United States”? And who who not question the Kerr County decision makers a few years ago who turned down using Federal funds: As one influential local stated in the commissioners hearing: I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” this resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money. And that money would have be used for emergency sirens and other updated warning systems. And who would not be appalled that FEMA did not arrive until Monday because the money used by Kristi Noem had been spent trying to deport millions of undocumented immigrants who are workers.
She blew through the budget, cutting FEMA out. On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.
That evening, however, Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies, and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter.
The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.
Yes, the Trump Administration is complicit in the suffering and anyone who says otherwise has facts that are
hitting a nerve with them.
Danna Murden says
This letter needs to be fact checked, I did and none of the statements are factual.
Deirdre LaMotte says
From The New York Times:
According to The Times, this dramatically hampered the ability of the agency to respond to calls from survivors in the following days:
On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.
That evening, however, Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies, and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter.
The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.
Calling is one of the primary ways that flood victims apply for aid from the disaster relief agency. But Noem would wait until July 10—five days later—to renew the contracts of the people who took those phone calls
Jim Wilkins says
Yet another republican take on a real tragedy that suffered from the irresponsible behavior of the current administration. When are we going to stop listening to the excuses coming from the right wing wrongdoers and their felonious head of state? Does Mr Reel reely believe the bs that he’s feeding us or does it just make good political hay? In Reel’s view we should just accept the idea that all the cuts to the federal workforce will have no effect on American people’s lives? Does Reel reely believe that all the cuts that Trump has made to scientific research and inquiry won’t have a direct effect on our ability to understand, plan and react to weather events like what occurred in central Texas? Maybe he doesn’t get it. But the Republican party as a whole doesn’t get it either. Science is a critically important part of our society and Republican attacks on science will do real damage. Whether it’s this tragedy or the next one that’s arguably caused by Republican-denied climate change we will all be paying the price.
Trudy Wonder says
A Texas official said “there wasn’t a lot of time” to alert camps of the flood risk. But AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist said warnings gave “plenty of time to evacuate people to higher ground.”
“The question is, Why did that not happen?” he said.
Source: ProPublica. https://propub.li/4nS3gwK
Mickey Terrone says
https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=704853722342038
I’m sure Trump’s thoughts and prayers are with the millions of Ukranian families who have been getting murdered by his friend Vladimir. When you see the smirk on his face making a joke out of the nursing home attack, I just hope every Republican voter appreciates the kind of human scum they voted for. And not far behind Trump are the alleged “Christian” ministers who laughed out loud at the prayer luncheon at the White House.
I hope people like Mr. Reel are proud to point out that two Democrats failed to acknowledge their sadness about the Kerrville Texas deaths with that standard Republican trope, usually saved to Republicans’ statements of alleged grief after yet another school shooting caused by their failure to act on legislation aimed at curbing gun violence. Meanwhile, Trump’s horrendous disregard for human lives goes on unabated and supported by his devout alleged Christian supporters.