The ongoing travesty of lack of political leadership in Texas. The pattern of inaction is clear - Texas fails to take preventative actions to prepare for disasters. Recent low-lights:
1) 2008, Hurricane Ike hammered the Texas coastline > 100 deaths, ~ 25B in damages. No action on creating a surge barrier in Galveston Bay.
2) 2021, massive winter storm crashed the state’s eccentric power grid leaving ~5M people without heat and more than 200 dead. 4 years later, the state’s electric grid operator, Ercot, is warning another similar storm has an 80% likelihood of rolling blackouts.
3) 2025, Texas hill county floods, > 120 deaths and $Billions in damages. Texas Senate lawmakers killed a statewide initiative to improve emergency alerts with a network of outdoor sirens, a few months prior to the floods in 2025, via bill HB13.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/13/texas-disaster-weather-preparations-us #Texas #Flooding #Hurricanes #SnowStorms #EPA #NOAA #TexasHillCountry #Leadership #Disasters #Ercot #Emergency