Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the government response and the National Weather Service in the wake of the tragic flooding in Texas that has left 32 people dead, including 14 children.
“When President Trump took office…he said he wanted to fix, and is currently upgrading the technology. And the National Weather Service has indicated that with that and NOAA, that we needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years, and that is the reforms that are ongoing,” Noem said.
The president’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget, which the administration is already abiding by, does make cuts and even closes some weather research labs that are vital to forecast improvement. The Department of Government Efficiency, formerly led by Elon Musk, has also cut hundreds of employees at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the NWS.
Asked about the impact of those cuts during a press conference Saturday, Noem continued to defend the government and the president, saying that she will bring “concerns back to the federal government.”
“I do carry your concerns back to the federal government, and to President Trump, and we will do all we can to fix those kind of things that that may have felt like a failure to you and to your community members, but we know that everybody wants more warning time, and that’s why we’re working to upgrade the technologies have been neglected by far too long,” Noem said.
Still, this storm was extremely unpredictable and truly unprecedented, the water rising very high very quickly.
As CNN has previously reported, the NWS issued a flood watch early Thursday afternoon that highlighted Kerr County as a place at high risk of flash flooding through the overnight. A flash flood warning was issued for Kerr County as early as around 1 a.m. CT on Friday. A more dire flash flood emergency warning was then issued for Kerr County at 4:03 a.m. CT, followed by another one for Kerrville at 5:34 a.m. CT.
Correction: This post has been updated to reflect that Trump’s fiscal year budget is what affects the National Weather Service.
