Texas flood forecasts were issued overnight and split hours later in Kerr County

After Months of rain fell in central Texas Within just a few hours on Friday, July 4, which led to disastrous floods, some local officials said that the National Weather Service’s forecasts were insufficient.

Now the agency is talking As questions continue If the warnings could have been more effective.

Local officials have also been reviewed in the media for their response; And headlines have marked staffing managers At the National Weather Service (NWS) in the middle of the Trump administration’s cuts on certain federal government functions.

“National Weather Service is heartbreaking with the tragic loss of life in Kerr County,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spokesman Kim Doster in a statement shared with people.

As of Sunday, July 6, more than 50 people have died so far, including 28 adults and 15 children, after the devastating lightning flows, per NBC NewsThe CNN and Washington Post. The total death is constantly increasing.

Doster said NWS began to prepare and warn Texans in the area of ​​the floods to come the day before and issued emergency goods several hours in advance.

“On July 3, the NWS Office in Austin/San Antonio, TX conducted forecast meetings for emergency management in the morning and issued a flood bell in the early afternoon,” said Doster. “Warnings for Flash Floods were also issued on the night of July 3, and early in the morning of July 4, which provided preliminary lead times of more than three hours before Flash overwhelming conditions occurred.”

At a Friday press conferenceHead of the Texas Division of Emergency Management W. Nim Kidd told reporters that before the devastating floods, NWS had apparently underestimated the rainfall that the affected areas would later receive.

“The amount of rain that fell in this specific place was never in any of the agency’s forecasts, Kidd said partly. “Yet … We have resources that have surrounded this area since yesterday. When the rain fell and the calls came in, we immediately jumped into action.”

According to NOAA, the warnings started on Thursday, July 3, with the National Water Center Flood Hazard prospects indicating “Flash flood potential” in Kerrville, Texas and surrounding areas.

At 13:18 local time, NWS Austin/San Antonio issued a flood bell until Friday morning.

However, as noted by Kidd, the forecast was for less rain than later fell in the region.

The early warnings warned of as much as 5 to 7 inches of rain, less than half the 15-inch rain that came down in parts of central Texas, CNN reported.

The affected area is very vulnerable to floods of flash, and the most crucial warnings also arrived overnight, the worst time to get emergency warnings to sleeping residents.

The first Flash surplus warning was issued on Thursday at. 23:41 Local time for Bandera County, according to Noaa.

Later, the first warnings for “life-threatening flash reversals” were issued-which triggers emergency warning for mobile phones, if users have not disabled them-for Bandera and Kerr county during the early hours on Friday, at 1:14, Noaa said.

Kerr County Sheriff’s Office sent the first report on floods at low -water transitions about three hours after that, CNN reported.

A Flash Flood Non -Issued for the Guadalupe river – which abundance, leading to much of death and destruction – At 05:34 on Friday, according to Noaa.

And while some Texas officials have pointed their fingers at NWS, local authorities and authorities were more delayed in issuing warnings, according to NBC Affiliate Kxan.

Kerrville police department made its First post Around 05:16 on Friday, hours after the NWS warnings, Kxan reported.

The department kept NWS Austin/San Antonio’s Flood Alert warning of a “life -threatening event” and instructed all “near the Guadalupe river must move to higher ground now.”

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During a news conference on Friday that confirmed several initial fatal accidents, Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s highest official, insisted that they “did not know that this flood would come,” according to the Kxan.

He noted that the locals had met hard weather in the past but was caught by these rain.

He also said that the county does not have a warning system in place for floods, according to CNN.

“This is the most dangerous River Valley in the United States, and we handle floods regularly – when it rains we get water,” the judge said. “We had no reason to believe that this would be something similar to what has happened here, no one.”