🌊 Floods, Failures & Fired Experts: What Happened in Texas and New Mexico?
By Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita
📍July 2025 | #ClimateJustice | #ScienceMatters
“They Should Have Warned Us.”
That’s what survivors in Texas and New Mexico are saying after devastating floods swept through their towns this month. Entire communities were caught off guard. Lives were lost. Homes destroyed. Roads washed away. And now? Everyone’s pointing fingers.
But here's the raw truth: they didn’t warn people properly because the people who used to do that job—scientists, meteorologists, early warning experts—have been laid off. Fired. Replaced by silence.
🪓 What Trump’s Government Did
In his second term, Donald Trump’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) quietly gutted the very agencies that used to protect us from nature’s worst:
- NOAA lost hundreds of staff—climate scientists, meteorologists, and weather modelers.
- The National Weather Service had fewer people to interpret radar data and issue flood watches.
- Critical weather balloon launches and storm surveillance systems were paused or underfunded.
- Tsunami, earthquake, and volcano monitoring systems—yes, even those—were neglected in the name of budget cuts.
All this while the climate crisis intensifies, creating storms that move faster, dump more rain, and leave less time to prepare.
📉 Real People, Real Loss
Just weeks ago, a stalled system over Texas and New Mexico triggered flash floods that killed dozens and displaced thousands. People didn’t know it was coming. They didn’t get proper alerts. In some places, cell towers were out, NOAA weather radio was off the air, and there weren’t enough forecasters to issue real-time warnings.
This isn’t just a glitch. It’s policy failure.
👀 Who's Blaming Who?
- Local officials blame the feds.
- The feds blame local infrastructure.
- FEMA says “we’re overwhelmed.”
- DOGE says it’s just “trimming the fat.”
But the fat they cut? That was science. Communication. Protection.
Now communities are exposed—and angry.
⚠️ This Isn't Just About Floods
This affects everyone in North America:
- Volcanoes like Mount Rainier and Meager need constant monitoring.
- Earthquakes in BC, Washington, Oregon? Warnings only work if experts are in place to read the signs.
- Tornadoes, drought, wildfires… none of this will get better with fewer eyes on the sky.
💬 What Can We Do?
We must demand the reinstatement of expert teams, restore funding to NOAA, NWS, USGS, and reinvest in climate resilience. And we must call out the politicians who slashed these programs then pretended disasters were “unforeseeable.”
Because they were foreseeable.
Scientists warned us.
We just stopped listening.
Let’s remember: The cost of ignoring science isn’t just political—it’s personal. It’s the house that floods, the warning you never got, the loved one you couldn’t save.
🕊️ Rest in peace to the victims. May this wake-up call not go unheard.
—Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita
#FloodJustice #ClimateCutsKill #NoMoreSilence
