lt's Flash Flood Season In Much Of the U.S. No Big Threats In Vermont - Yet

Damage from flash flooding near Hinesburg, Vermont
in July, 2024. We're now entering prime flash flood
season, and Vermonters still have some PTSD from
the floods of the last three summers. Very slight 
chance of some local flash floods Wednesday night
in Vermont, but no big threats ---yet

Summer is the season of flash floods in the United States.

Such floods can happen anytime of year, of course. But summer, with its slow moving and/or intense thunderstorms, is the prime season. 

Sunday night, a flash flood emergency was declared in and around Huntsville, Alabama, where people had to be plucked from flooded cars. Water also got into several homes. 

We're already seeing some pretty big flash floods this week.  On Monday, rain fell at a rate of up to four inches per hour around Joplin, Missouri, and some people had to be rescued from inundated cars. Fox Weather reports. Downtown Seneca, Missouri was also flooded out. 

Flash flooding was reported in Texas, too.

Overnight, severe storms prompted flash flood warnings in central Kansas, where up to 5.5 inches of rain fell and another one to two inches was expected. Parts of the southeastern U.S. and Tennessee Valley are at risk for flash floods today.  

For Wednesday night, NOAA's Weather Prediction Center added a marginal risk for flash flooding in northern New York, all but far southern Vermont and northern New Hampshire. 

The agency said very humid air and a weather disturbance cold cause some instances of local flash flooding. 

Local meteorologists and myself are not too worried about flash flooding tomorrow and tomorrow night. We could easily see some gully washer downpours, but serious flooding looks doubtful. 

Most of us will get a half inch or less of rain Wednesday through Thursday. That doesn't scream "flooding."  But, thunderstorms could dump much more than that in small, localized areas.

Still, this is Vermont, and we have a long history of flash flooding. Our steep terrain in many areas encourages water to rush out of the hills during torrential rains. Climate change has raised the stakes, as downpours in a warmer world tend to be more intense. Warmer air can hold more water. That water can get released in the right conditions. 

Those "right conditions" in Vermont led to severe, destructive and deadly summertime flash floods in 2023 and 2024. Less extensive but still severe flash floods hit parts of the Northeast Kingdom last summer.

As a result, we're all gun shy and a little bit PTSD-wracked when it comes to flash flood risks across the Green Mountain State. Tis the season to keep a close eye on weather forecasts around here, especially if it's really humid and threatening to storm. 

 

For A Change, A Company Does It Right By Employees As A Tornado Loomed

Extreme tornado damage in an industrial area of 
Mineral Wells, Texas that was hit by a tornado
late last month. One employer, Ventamatic, 
took watches and warnings seriously, so they
sent employees home ahead of the storm,
which very likely saved lives. 

 I've written in the past cases in which companies seemed indifferent to their employees as tornadoes bore down on their workplaces. 

For a change of pace, we have a case in which a company protected its employees from a tornado. 

That nobody died is a testament to great warnings from the National Weather Service, a company that enacted its emergency plan and kept a close eye on the weather.

The company in question is Ventamatic which has, or at least had, a manufacturing plant in Mineral Wells, Texas. 

 Company officials on the afternoon of April 28 first noticed a dangerous supercell storm when it was near Wichita Falls, about 80 miles northwest of Mineral Wells. 

An area of Texas, including Mineral Wells, went under a tornado watch, since the supercell was heading in the general direction of tha city. So Ventamatic officials sent all the 120 workers home, because the homes had better protection from tornadoes than the plant. 

Plus, removing the workers meant there wasn't concentration of people at risk. Sending the workers home dispersed them into a wide area.  Many workers went home to houses that were ultimately not in the path of the tornado ,and not damaged.  

Supervisors at the plant also contacted the next shift telling them to hold off on coming in until the bad weather passed. 

The tornado struck the complex as an EF-3 with winds of up to 145 mph. A total of 132 homes and businesses suffered damage.  Nine houses were a total loss and 12 others had major damage. The Ventamatic plant was decimated. 

Aerial video of the industrial complex housing Ventamatic showed leveled buildings and sheet metal strewn everywhere.  The sheet metal must have been swirling wildly in the tornado, enough to cut a person in half if they're hit. 

But there was nobody at Ventamatic to hit.  

Mineral Wells Mayor Reagan Johnson called management a "true, true lifesaver for the community. Incredible that he did that.......Just knowing even what that employer did, the forethought to do that, the awareness, what a hero,!" according to KDFW Fox 4. 

 It appears not all businesses in the manufacturing complex were sent home.  Unconfirmed reports on Facebook indicated employees at a factory called Parker Hannifin were taken by surprise by the tornado and didn't even have time to reach the safest part of the building, which was the bathrooms. 

They instead huddled in a break room, and managed to escape serious injury.

Bottom line, Ventamatic officials were weather aware, had an emergency plan that included what to do when a tornado threatens, and they followed that plan. Perfect!

That contrasts with past incidents involving workplaces and tornadoes. In December, 2021, a huge tornado rampaged through western Kentucky, approaching the town of Mayfield. Workers at Mayfield Consumer Products, a candle factory claim in a lawsuit that supervisors repeated turned down employees requests to go home and hunker down with families, which they believed to be safer than the factory building. 

Some workers left anyway. 

In the end, the powerful tornado leveled the factory, killing nine people and injuring several  more. At last report, the lawsuit had not been resolved. 

On the same night as the Mayfield tornado, another twister struck an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, killing six workers.

As I wrote in December, 2021, a few days after the tornadoes: 

"Tornado warnings for Edwardsville were issued at least 20 minutes before the tornado hit. However, Amazon managers either didn't take the warning seriously, didn't know what to do with them, or more depressingly if true, prioritized production over worker safety. "

In that same tornado outbreak an Amazon driver heard tornado warnings and sirens and wanted to head back to the warehouse or a safer place. A vehicle is pretty much the least safe place to be in a tornado. 

The driver's dispatcher radioed back, "If you decide to come back that choice is yours. But I can tell you it won't be viewed as for your own safety. The safest practice is to stay exactly where you are. If you decide to return with your packages it will be viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end with you not having a job tomorrow. The sirens are just a warning."

Yes! The sirens are a warning! Meaning get to a safe place immediately. But it's all about profits to keep Amazon's multibillionaire owner happy, isn't it?

The issue isn't just tornadoes. 

During Hurricane Helene, supervisors allegedly didn't allow workers to leave the Impact Plastics factory in Erwin, Tennessee as flood waters rose outside. They weren't allowed to leave until it was too late. 

Twelve people were swept away in the floodwaters and all but five of them died.  

Meanwhile, back in Mineral Wells, there were other success stories that prevented tornado deaths. 

Johnson, the Mineral Wells  mayor, said a teenager was home alone but had the presence of mind to hide in a closet as the tornado bore down on their house.  Probably because tornado safety is drilled into Midwestern kids' heads. 

In another case, a husband got into a closet 10 seconds before the tornado hit because his wife was relentlessly nagging him to do so. 

"She's getting a good anniversary present this year, I hope," Johnson said.  

The Most Iconic Photos Of U.S. Tornadoes And The Stories Behind The Images

This photo is regarded as the first photo
taken of a tornado. It was in April, 1884 in
Garnett, Kansas. Photo by A.A Adams

Tornado season is ramping up. Every year, we get dramatic photos and videos of the tornadoes that show their power, their terror, sometimes their horrible beauty. You just hope nobody got hurricanes in all the chaos. 

Over the years, some tornadoes create iconic images that last forever and are referenced by experts, whether geeks and others as incredibles bits of history. 

Here are some of the most iconic images of tornadoes over the years. 

FIRST PHOTOGRAPH

There are many candidates vying for the first photograph of a tornado ever taken.  Almost all of those candidates have been proven to be fakes, or so altered that they really don't depict what was going on.

But one widely recognized photo is considered the first one. It shows a long, skinny funnel extending out at an angle from a dark cloud. It looks like a tornado that's "roping out." That means the tornado is beginning to dissipate. It stretches out and gets narrow until it falls apart. 

Unlike other supposed first tornado photos, this one taken by a fruit farmer named. A.A Adams makes sense. The clouds look like they would in a "normal" tornado, not some idealized version of one. The tornado hit Garnett, Kansas on April 26, 1884. It damaged some homes and barns and supposedly carried a man and his wagon through the air, injuring him. 

This doesn't mean the danger is over. Supercell thunderstorms sometimes cycle tornadoes. One dies, and later on, a new one will develop.

I don't know if that's the case with this one. 

Worcester, Massachusetts, June 9, 1953:

The Worcester County, Massachusetts
tornado on June 9, 1953

The statistics on this tornado are incredible: 94 people were killed, 1,288 were inured. At least 4,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. The tornado was up to a mile wide and plowed through 45 miles of central Massachusetts. Debris from the tornado was thrown as far away as Cape Cod. It was easily the worst tornado in New England history. 

This was a Midwest style, highly destructive wedge tornado. It looked very much like the famous 2013 EF-5 in the Oklahoma City area, and not something that could ever happen in New England. But it did. 

The photo is striking because you see that classic Plains wedge shaped twister with an equally classic looking large New England farmhouse in the foreground. The dichotomy between the tornado and the house its incredibly striking

The photo, taken by Henry LaPrade, also shows the classic wall cloud/mesoscale supporting the tornado from above.  

As bad as Worcester tornado was, it was even the whole story.  The day before Worcester was hit, he  same storm system created an F5 tornado that devastated the northern part of Flint, Michigan and the suburb of Beecher, killing 116 people and injuring 844. A photograph of the Flint tornado is eerily similar to the Worcester tornado pictured here. 

1953 was a horrible tornado year. Earlier that spring, on May 11, another powerful tornado swept through Waco, Texas, killing 114 people

Goshen, Indiana, April 11, 1965

The double tornado image taken during the Palm Sunday
Tornado outbreak in 1965. This was in Goshen
Indiana. Photo by Paul Huffman. 

This one is from the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak on April 11, 1965. This double tornado was photographed by Paul Huffman in Goshen, Indiana. 

Huffman worked at the Elkhart Indiana Truth, the local paper. That day, he was driving down Route 33 with his wife when the saw a towering black cloud. At first they thought it was a fire.

They then realized it was a tornado. Huffman never left the house without his camera, so he pulled it out, went outside the car and starting taking pictures. Huffman kept himself steady in the intenser winds by swinging his leg around his car's bumper.

Hid photo, including the famous double tornado image  and others he took that day, are at this link. 

Judging from his other photos, I'm not 100 percent convinced he photographed two tornadoes. Intense tornadoes often have multiple vortices within them. Essentially tornadoes within tornadoes. It looks like the photo captured two intense vortices within the parent tornado. 

Huffman, however, the storm contained two distinct funnels as it went through, so I can't be sure what happened. 

This tornado moved on to blast through a mobile home park. Later that day, a second intense tornado would go through the same mobile home park.  Thirty-three people died in that mobile home park. Huffman also took heartrending photos of rescuers trying to help the injured in the immediate aftermath of the tornado, 

It was part of the large Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965, one of the worst in modern history. Around 50 tornadoes killed 271 people and injured more than 3,500.  Indiana was hardest hit, and the tornado outbreak is still the worst in Indiana history. 

Topeka, Kansas, June 8, 1966

One of Perry Riddle's photos showing people fleeing
a Topeka, Kansas F5 tornado in 1966.

Up until this time, this was the most expensive tornado on record for the U.S. The F5 twister  cut though the heart of Topeka, damaging much of downtown, including the dome of the State House. More than 800 homes were destroyed and 3,000 damaged. 

The tornado caused more than $200 million in damages, in 1966 dollars. That would be more than $2 billion in 2026 dollars. 

Seventeen people lost their lives in the process. The photo to me is iconic a it shows what appears to be a Midwestern family scrambling for shelter, with the large, black tornado looming behind them. The shadows cast by the clouds and the tornado almost turn the family into silhouettes, making the image all the more foreboding. 

The photo was taken by Perry Riddle as people ran for cover into the Countryside United Methodist Church at 3221 SW Burlingame Road. I was unable to determine whether the tornado hit the church, but the lean of the tornado funnel suggests that it missed that location. 

Riddle took numerous photos of the tornado from that church parking lot, and they are amazingly high quality, especially for 1966.  You can see the other photos in the second half of a YouTube video at this link. 

Xenia, Ohio, April 3, 1974.

Terrifying image of an F5 tornado tearing through
Xenia, Ohio in April, 1974. Image the hour inside
that black maelstrom

The massive tornado here was part of the Super Outbreak of 1974, which was the worst swarm of tornadoes in American history until the next Super Outbreak in April, 2011. 

The outbreak produced 148 tornadoes in the 13 states and Ontario, Canada.  Thirty of them were F4s or F5s, the strongest type. The outbreak caused 335 direct fatalities and injured 6,000 people.

Probably the worst tornado in the outbreak struck Xenia, a city of about 25,000 people in southwest Ohio.  This one reminds me of the Joplin, Missouri tornadoes years later, as both cut through the heart of a small city. In both cases the tornadoes reached maximum strength while cutting through the middle of the communities.  

The photo was taken by Fred Stewart, the public information director at Greene Memorial Hospital. He was also a photography buff. He took the photo through a window on the second floor stairwell at the hospital. The window looked out over the Pinecrest Gardens neighborhood of Xenia

The following information comes from the April 6 1974 edition of the Xenia Daily Gazette. 

"'It looked like it was going to come straight to the hospital,' he said. 'But then it veered off and hit Pinecrest Gardens. The air was filled with debris. I shot four frames before I headed back to the basement.'

 The photo is terrifying as you know just beyond the parking lot, in that black maw of a terrifying tornado, death and ruin is raining down on that neighborhood. 

Makes me sad every time I see the photo. 

 Fridley,  Minnesota, July 18, 1986

Screen shot of a Minnesota tornado filmed from a
traffic helicopter in 1986.

This wasn't exactly the most notable or extreme tornado. But it was the start of a media trend in which video cameras were becoming much more portable, easier to use, and allowed for more daring storm chasing. 

That day, a traffic helicopter with KARE in Minneapolis was able to follow a tornado in Brooklyn Park and Fridley, about 15 miles north of Minneapolis. It is the first known, widely distributed video of a tornado taken from the air. 

The footage was dramatic, with the tornado yanking trees out of the woods and flinging them far outside the twister. It's still one of the more dramatic tornado videos out there. Which is saying something considering we're now in the age of drones and remote videos that can really uncover some amazing tornado image. 

This particular tornado was rated an F2, and damaged a few dozen buildings. 

Andover, Kansas, April 26, 1991

Image is a little fuzzy because it's a screen grab from a 
video, but Duke Evans' video of an EF-5 tornado
in Andover, Kansas was considered the best video
up until its time of a powerful tornado.
The twister passed just behind that row of houses.
The occupants had to be terrified.

Affordable camcorders had become popular in by around 1990, allowing far more people to easily film and share footage of events. That included tornadoes  near tornadoes. 

On April 26, 1991, a tornado outbreak in the central United States produced at least 55 tornadoes, resulting in 21 deaths. The most powerful and destructive of the tornadoes was an F-5, the strongest kind, in Andover, Kansas. 

Duke Evans took out his camcorder and filmed more the six minutes of the Andover tornado's rampage. At the tine it was considered the highest quality tornado footage ever produced. I imagine the film was studies by many tornado experts and in meteorology classrooms everywhere. 

The most terrifying part of the video is when it goes just behind a row of houses. If anyone was in those houses huddling in a closet or basement, the screaming roar of the tornado must have shaken them to their bones. 

Since then, now that we're in the age of everyone having a camera phone, it seems almost every tornado is well documented. But Evans' was the first in a cottage industry: America's Most Terrifying Tornado. 

We'll revisit Andover and another tornado later in this post. 

Jarrell, Texas, May 21, 1997

The Jarrell, Texas tornado as it was developing.
Multiple vortices - mini tornadoes within the main
tornado are visible, giving a dead man walking
looks to the storm, The tornado became extremely
powerful and essentially stalled over a subdivision
killing 17 people 

This was a tragic, weird and largely unexpected F5 tornado that hit the community of Jarrell, Texas. Although some severe thunderstorms were forecast that day, nobody expected a powerhouse twister like this one in the community about 40 miles north of Austin. 

The photo of the tornado is called "Dead Man Walking" and you can see why. The photo was taken while the tornado was rapidly powering up to it F5 status. 

As I mentioned above in the Palm Sunday, 1965 piece, powerful tornadoes often have multiple vortices. Essentially tornadoes spinning within the parent tornado. 

The photo was taken by Scott Beckwith as he stood outside the building housing his employer, Jarrell Farm Supply. 

He caught the beginning stages of the tornado, when it began as a narrow, almost harmless looking rope, to the Dead Man Walking photo that because famous. 

Knowing what happened after the photo was taken, the tornado with its vortices inside it really looks  a sort of grim reaper heading toward a neighborhood to take a lot of lives.

Which is precisely what this tornado did.  It headed slowly southwestward, the opposite direction of most tornadoes. 

A typical tornado's forward speed is about 20 mph and can be 50 mph or more in some instances. The powerful F5 tornado then did the worst thing possible. It essentially stalled over the Double Creek Estates Subdivision. It sat there crawling forward ever so slowly through  the subdivision, with its 260 mph winds, for three minutes. 

The people in the subdivision's houses never stood a chance. 

The winds were so strong, and lasted so long, that every piece of several homes was swept completely away from foundations and ground to small pieces. Some construction material was pulverized down to dust. Asphalt was lifted off the street and blown away. Cars blew half a mile or more away from where they had been parked. 

The destruction was arguably the most extreme of any tornado seen in the United States. 

Tuscaloosa, Alabama, April 27, 2011

The Tuscaloosa, Alabama tornado of April 27, 2011 seemed
to have tentacles coming out of it 

While many years since 1974 had more than the usual number of tornadoes, it seemed the days when tornadoes killed several hundred people in a single year seemed in the past. Then came 2011.  That year, 553 people died in U.S. tornadoes. Only the year 1925 had more tornado deaths.  

Many of these deaths occurred in what I'd call the Super Duper Tornado outbreak of April 25-28. 2011. This one far outdid the famous 1974 Super Outbreak with tragic results. 

According to the Weather Channel:

"An incredible 349 tornadoes were spawned in just 72 hours April 25-28, according to NOAA. While the Deep South - Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee - bore the brunt o fit, tornadoes tore through parts of 21 states from Texas to central New York. 

According to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, 929 tornado warnings were issued by 44 different National Weather Service offices from April 25-29."

Also, 199 tornadoes occurred on just one day - April 27. The normal amount of tornadoes in the U.S. during the entire month of April is 194. 

The Tuscaloosa, Alabama tornado during this outbreak really stands out. It wasn't the strongest of the outbreak as there were four EF-5 tornadoes and the Tuscaloosa storm was "only" an EF-4 with top winds of ???

This tornado claimed 65 lives along an 80-mile path from Greene County, Alabama, through Tuscaloosa  and into the northern suburbs of Birmingham, the Weather Channel notes. Despite the very high death toll, the fact that this powerful tornado rolled through such high populated areas speaks well to the warnings from the National Weather Service and local television stations.

A fascinating aspect of the visuals on this tornado were the horizontal vortices wrapping around the tornado. You see that sometimes in the most ferocious tornadoes. It always makes me think these tornado are sentient monsters with tentacles trying to pick people off the streets. 

Joplin, Missouri, May 22, 2011

The view out a van window as their occupants were trying
desperately to flee the EF-5 Joplin, Missouri tornado in
2011. If you click on the photo to make it bigger and
if you look closely, you can see the tornado looming
just a very short distance away 

The horrible tornado season of 2011 wasn't done after the Super Duper Outbreak. On May 22, 2011, an EF-5 tornado slammed through Joplin, Missouri, a city of about 50,000 in southwest Missouri. 

The tornado killed 161 people, making if the deadliest tornado since 1953 and the nations seventh deadliest on record. 

The tornado also showed what a monster tornado can look like, and how it can give people who are used to big storms a false sense of security. 

The tornado was wrapped in rain, and just looked like a big ugly black cloud approaching. It seemed to be a nasty storm looming, for sure, but not the cataclysm it turned out to be.

There's a haunting must-see YouTube video taken from inside a van with several knowledgeable storm chasers inside. They know that black mass looming behind the buildings they are passing is a highly dangerous tornado. The van load of storm chasers know they have to get out of the way very quickly or they will be hit and quite possibly killed by the twister.

Their escape is hindered by people keeping to routines as if death was not looming in that black cloud. 

The notes on the YouTube video say:

"It is interesting to note that many drivers on the road were completely oblivious to the sirens, and were driving and texting on their cellphones instead of observing the approaching tornado and trying to get out of its path. Most of us felt sick afterwards, but it actually sank in a few hours/days later as we really had no idea what was actually happening in Joplin."

Part of the reason the video is so haunting is because many of the buildings that the van drove past were reduced to ruins moments later. Subsequent videos of the aftermath proved that.  

 The people in the van are increasingly panicked as the tornado closes in,  but they manage to get onto Interstate 44 and speed away from the twister in the nick of time. 

That photo of the black mawing mass looming over Joplin still gives me chills.  

Andover, Kansas, April 29, 2022

An incredible still from a wild video taken via drone
and produced by famed storm chaser Reed Timmer

Just three days after the 31st anniversary of the immense tornado of 1991, Andover, Kansas was struck again. And like the earlier tornado, new technology offered a stunning fresh look at the power of a twister. 

This one was an EF-3 when destroyed several homes and damaged other buildings. The tornado was on he ground for 21 minutes and tracked 12.8 miles. 

But the dry stats on this tornado don't give nearly the amazing vision of what tornadoes can do. Prominent tornado chaser Reed Timmer incredibly captured the tornado ripping up houses from a drone he launched nearby. 

The resulting video from Timmer is absolutely jaw dropping. The best footage is at the beginning as the well-lit tornado pulls roofs from a series of houses in the neighborhood. At one moment, the roofs of three adjacent houses lift off simultaneously. A white snow of insulation fills the air, as does a maelstrom of boards, roofing material and other debris. 

Just incredible what a tornado can do, especially when viewed from the air 

 Crystal Lake/Gary, South Dakota, June 28, 2025

The "Dancing Tornado" in Gary, South Dakota last year

This one is called the dancing tornadoes. Tornadoes come in all kinds of shapes and sizes: Funnels, wedges, stovepipes, ropes, drill bits, you get the picture. Individual tornadoes also change their shapes during their lifetime.  

This one in South Dakota last year was a real shapeshifter.  It starts out with a classic stovepipe shape. Then in quickly turned into a rope, which is usually a sign a tornado is about to dissipate. 

But this time, the rope thicken again. And for the lack of a better description, the ropey tornado danced. Sort of wiggled as it moved across the countryside.

Click this link to view the dancing tornado.

As cool and interesting as this tornado was, it wasn't all fun and games. It was an EF-3 twister, with wind speeds of 155 to 165 mph. It traveled nearly ten miles, damage several properties. A farm house, garage, two machine sheds, a barn and grain bins were completely destroyed. A half ton pickup truck was hurled 300 yards.

South Dakota gets plenty of tornadoes but not many are as strong as the "dancing tornado." Statistics show South Dakota had 1,931 twisters between 1950 and 2024 but only 75 of those were EF-3 or greater. 

We're not getting into the heart of tornado season. There's already been plenty of horrifying and wild photos and videos of tornadoes and their aftermaths this year. And unfortunately for the victims of these storms, there's more tornado pictures coming over the next several weeks 

 

It's Not Just Minneapolis: Noem Continues To Botch Her FEMA/Disaster Role, Too

Ice storm damage in Oxford, Mississippi last month.
While understandable ire goes toward Kristi Noem
and her "creative" approach to immigration
enforcement, she's also getting terrible marks
dealing with natural disasters in the U.S;.

Everybody is hating on U.S. Homeland Security Secretary  Kristi "ICE Barbie" Noem. For good reason 

ICE Barbie's oversight of ICE and the U.S Border Patrol is obviously gaining the most headlines, due to what is basically the invasion of Minnesota and exceptionally cruel and unlawful ICE arrests across the U.S. 

The outrage reached a crescendo in late January with ICE Barbie's outrageous remarks ad reponse about two people in Minneapolis who were killed by federal immigration agents. 

Within hours of Alex Pretti's  death, both Noem and the equally odious White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller described him as a domestic terrorist who "wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement."

Never mind that we all saw the video taken by witnesses of Pretti's murder with our own eyes. 

 "Imagine how they lie when there's no evidence to contradict them," Jon Stewart recently said, "And maybe that, more than anything, explains why Alex Pretti really was a threat. Because he was brandishing a weapon: A handheld, aluminum 1080p, 60fps weapon of mass illumination, " referring to Pretti's camera phone. 

I really do think this administration's greatest fear is camera phones. Hard to spin bull all over the place when there's plenty of footage to debunk their lies.

It's pretty clear Noem should not be the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary. But MAGA loves cruelty, incompetence and grift, so here we are.  Noem's incompetence extends to where the cameras aren't: In her offices, dealing -  or in her case not dealing - with disaster assistance. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC recently had the following to say about Noem's work on disaster relief:

"Another part of the Secretary of Homeland Security job is disaster response and I cannot tell you enough how incompetent she is on that score as well. The data clearly shows that something is seriously wrong here. 

Under Secretary Noem's lack of leadership, FEMA has invented an entirely new set of bureaucracies, the likes of which I've never seen. And I'm in a state that deals with a disaster almost every season. 

Under Noem's leadership, which is supposed to be more efficient, more effective and more responsive to the disaster in western North Carolina and the other states that were affected look like the EKG of someone who's having a heart attack. She needs to get out of the C-suite."

Meanwhile, as Inside Climate News reports, disaster victims from across the United States are pleading with Congress to restore FEMA as an independent agency, one that would be no longer under the politicized leacdership of ICE Barbie.

The disaster victims and advocates say ever since FEMA fell under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, it has become more slower, more restrictive e and less accountable. 

FEMA was formed in 1979 and until 2003 reported directly to the President and Congress, But FEMA wss consolidated under the Department of Homeland Security after the 9/11 terror attack.

The disaster survivor group says FEMA is held hostage inside an agency that's focused on violent immigration enforcement. Disaster relief has at best become an afterthought. 

LATEST DISASTER

ICE Barbie did appear to want to at least pretend she was gearing up for the immense winter storm that hit the U.S. on the weekend of January 24-25. 

She waltzed into the FEMA headquarters just before the storm to give a rah-rah little pep talk. 

"I was shocked she showed up after all the shit we've been put through and what she's said," one FEMA official told CNN, adding that you could hear a pin drop in the center that day."

CNN continues:

"In the case many FEMA insiders were heartened by Noem and her team's sudden show of support, but aren't convinced the heavy-handed overhaul and downsizing are over. 'I doubt that this is permanent. I hope it is, but I doubt it,' one high-ranking official said."

More likely than not, ICE Barbie's appearance at the FEMA headquarters was just window dressing. In all the news stories about the immense ice and snow storm that caused so damage and misery on January 23-26, I hear very little about FEMA involvement in what was truly a huge disaster. 

A FEMA help page did appear last week, and Donald Trump has declared federal disaster areas in Mississippi and Tennessee. And some federal help arrived in some of the hardest hit states

But I didn't really see boots on the ground FEMA help like we saw in other disasters during the Biden administration. Vermont was crawling with FEMA personnel during and after the big summer floods of 2023 and 2024, for instance . 

FEMA in January had been poised to terminate waves of disaster-specific workers in waves, according to the Washington Post. 

However, just before the big winter storm in late January, DHS paused the FEMA firings. Bad PR to get rid of the help when it's really needed, I guess.  

I'm not optimistic about victims of last month's winter storm given the handling of other disasters over the past year. 

FEMA under Ice Barbie have faltered with big disasters like the aftermath of Helene. That storm hit in 2024 and North Carolina has only gotten a fraction of the requested federal aid.ON

Only about one fifth of applicants in Kerr County, Texas,  hardest hit by last July's extreme flooding, have been deemed eligible for financial help so far.

Additional big calamities are almost certainly in the pipeline. Tornado season will ramp up in a month or two. The western U.S is deep in drought, which makes me and a lot of other people worried about the summer fire season. 

Last year, the U.S. got lucky with no hurricane landfalls. Can we do two in a row? Fingers crossed, but it's a long shot. 

Unfortunately, I've said this before and I'll say it again. Anyone who gets nailed by a natural or climate disaster under this administration is on their own. 

 

Odd Winter Heat Raising Winter Fire Dangers In Texas, Colorado, Elsewhere

Flames in the Sabine National Forest in eastern Texas.
Numerous wildfires have broken out in eastern Texas
because of oddly dry, warm winter weather. 

Since it's been oddly warm and dry in the southern United States so far this winter, out of season wildfires are breaking out in places from Louisiana to Colorado. 

There's already been a few high fire danger days in Colorado in December. This afternoon, parts of Colorado, along with areas of New Mexico, are seeing a high fire danger due to strong winds, low humidity and drought. 

The fire danger is expected to spread and intensify tomorrow. The Texas panhandle is the highest risk area on Monday. Nearby sections of southeast Colorado, eastern New Mexico and Oklahoma are at risk, too. 

Eastern Texas and parts of Louisiana are also dealing with fires after a winter so far of light precipitation and record high temperatures. 

In just one Texas County, one fire department got 50 calls for outdoor blazes. More calls came in the next day. This despite the fact that many East Texas and western Louisiana counties and parishes are under burn bans. 

East Texas saw about 70 wildfires in the week leading up to New Years Eve.

Wildfires also swept through areas of Oklahoma in December. Fires got so dangerous in Kansas last month that the governor declared a state of emergency. 

It's been dry in Florida, as well. It's usually driest in Florida in April and May, and the state does occasionally get spring wildfires. But so far winter has been pretty arid in the sunshine state, raising fears of winter fires, and ever-more ferocious wildfires in the spring. 

Things could get worse across Texas in the coming days. Dry, warm, windy weather is due most of this week. Some rain might finally arrive in New Mexico and west Texas around Thursday. Record high temperatures and dry weather are expected until Friday, when a little rain might sneak into eastern Texas and Louisiana.  

But that rain doesn't look like much, and it'll stay dry and relatively warm for winter. Up in eastern Colorado and Wyoming, there might be a bit of precipitation late this week, but they'll also revert to dry, warm weather by the weekend. 

Ominously, snow cover in the Colorado Rockies is far below normal, which could set the stage for widespread wildfires this summer. 

CLIMATE CHANGE INFLUENCE 

Winter wildfires have really become more of a thing in recent years. Climate change has brought warmer winter weather. That has allowed some areas of the nation to dry out more. 

Last January brought us the catastrophic Los Angeles area wildfires that caused 30 direct deaths and possibly as many as 440 indirect fatalities. 

So far this winter, California is relatively safe from wildfires due to some storms that blew through in November and December. 

Another devastating winter wildfire hit the area around Boulder, Colorado toward the end of December, 2001, destroying about 1,000 homes. 

There's essentially no longer a "fire season." With the help of climate change, fire season in the United States starts on January 1 and goes through December 31. 

 

Tornadoes Near Houston Wrecks Homes, Part Of "Second Tornado Season"

Menacing clouds about to put down a tornado 
yesterday near Klein, Texas. 

Tornadoes swept through suburbs northwest of Houston Monday, leaving homes smushed under trees, roofs ripped up and walls collapsed. 

Surprisingly and luckily, nobody was seriously injured.  Other severe storms also swept through other parts of the South. A couple more tornadoes might spin up around Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia today. 

Peak tornado season is usually in the spring and early summer.  Very muggy, warm air flows north that time of year, it flows into large storms, collides with colder air from the north, and you get tornado outbreaks. 

The jet stream screaming over the U.S. adds energy for these tornadoes. 

Tornado season fades over the summer because the storms that add the kind of spin in the air that you need for a swarms of twisters. The jet stream retreats into Canada. If you don't strong storms and not much spin, you don't get many tornadoes. 

Right now, there is a second tornado season going on. You wouldn't think so, given that the forces of winter are taking over. Tornadoes don't like cold air, so why are there tornadoes spinning down there.

But now that we're into the cold season, we can get strong storms again. The jet stream is now back down in the United States. That can generate nice strong storms. The kind that add spin to the air.  The kind that can pull warm, muggy air out of the Gulf of Mexico. The kind that can manufacture tornadoes. 

Of course, the late autumn early winter tornado season isn't anything like you'd get in the spring. That warm, humid air can't make much headway. Not with all that Arctic air coming down from the Great White North of Canada. 

So, you can get November and December tornadoes. 

Here's another twist, pardon the pun, since we're talking about tornadoes, the second twister season might be getting worse, thanks to climate change. 

Remember that sticky, yucky hot air that tornadoes need? Climate change is allowing bigger surges of that air that can penetrate further north. That can lead to more widespread cold season tornadoes. 

November is now on average Alabama's third busiest tornado, even busier than May, the Washington Post informs us.  March and April, and November are Alabama's big twister months. In tornado alley November is Oklahoma's fourth busiest twister month.

Throughout history there have been deadly tornado outbreaks in the final two months of the year. But trend lines might be getting worse. 

An example of our stormy late year future might be December, 2021. A tornado outbreak killed more than 80 people in the southeastern United States on Dec. 10-11 of that year. One of those tornadoes basically leveled the city of Mayfield, Kentucky. 

Just days later, on December 15, 2021, a massive derecho with a swarm of 120 tornadoes, including 63 in Iowa alone.  

As for this year, the next chance of severe weather after today will run in the South this weekend and early next week. It's too soon to tell how extensive the bad weather will become, if it develops at all. 

VIDEO

Firefighters on a call in Cyr Fair, Texas take shelter in a home's garage as an apparent tornado passes very close by. Note the sudden wind shift halfway through the video. Video is from a camera on a firetruck. Click on this link to view, or if you see the link below, click on that. 

Watch House Get Struck By Lightning, Burn Down

A home burns in Spring, Texas shortly after a 
lightning strike. Not all lightning strikes cause fires
like this but once they get going, the
blazes can move pretty fast.

 It's amazing how quickly a lightning strike can can cause chaos.

 Thunderstorms rumbled through the Houston area last Friday, typical weather in that humid part of the nation. 

But lightning is always dangerous and often destructive, and we have a classic case here. Doorbell cameras caught lightning hitting a house. Within minutes, almost the entire roof was in flames.

It looks like a somewhat newer house, and this type modern wood frame homes seem to burn down awfully fast once they catch.  

Watch the videos: 

The first video shows a house being struck by lightning in Spring, Texas, a suburb north of Houston. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Moments have the strike, the house looked like what you see in the next video. The house is essentially a total loss, even though neighbors called the fire department immediately after the strike and those firefighters got there quickly. 

The roof and attic are gone, and I'm sure the rest of the house is trashed by heat, fire, smoke and water. 

Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

I had a little trouble finding reliable statistics on house fires caused by lightning. One source, lightningrods.com, could well have an agenda, but here's what they said 

They claim that one in 200 homes are hit by lightning annually, though many of those don't cause fires. Lightningrods,com also say that between 2014-2018 U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated 22,600 fires started by lightning. 

That statistic didn't break down what percentage were in homes, businesses, other buildings and no buildings at all. It looks like that was the most recent data available, too.

Up here in Vermont, we don't have nearly as many thunderstorms as, say, Florida and Texas, so we're somewhat safer from these house fires. Unfortunately, though, you never know, 

On the bright side, no lightning storms are in the forecast until at least Saturday, and thunderstorm season up here will soon draw to a close, 

 

Weather Conspiracy Theories Weirdly Gain Traction Over Reality

The tin foil hat crowd is working overtime, with so many
weather conspiracies that GOP politicians to pass
unnecessary law, and put people in unnecessary danger. 

 The weather wackos are out there. And gaining in numbers and power.

They're actually passing ridiculous laws, distracting from the big issues of the day that really need to be addressed.  

These are the people who look at all the storms, floods, wind and other weirdness out there we've had this year, and conclude some nefarious groups are controlling the weather. 

Even perfectly normal weather becomes fodder for these wackadoodle theories.  

Marjorie Taylor Greene in her usual full conspiracy mode said and has been "researching weather modification" (oh boy) and, "We must end the dangerous and deadly practice of weather modification and geoengineering."

Never mind that the limited attempts at things like cloud seeding and such and haven't produced any deaths or damage. Mostly because there's no weather modification going on, aside from local, small cloud seeding operations that produce sprinkles of rain.  

Still, Marjorie is  pressing on, introducing a bill that "prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature climate or sunlight intensity. It will be a felony offense."

She's got buddies in this endeavor. "Weather manipulation is real, but in the hands of our enemies or or some overlord, I think it can be a very detrimental thing. I'm big on God and just letting him work his magic and not people trying to play God," said GOP Tim Burchett, who cosponsored Greene's House bill that would ban supposed weather control.

Our friends Marjorie and Tim are  getting mocked for all this, as she always. does. Florida Democrat Care Moskowitz said on social media, "I'm introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release or dispersion of stupidity into Congress."

Yeah, good luck with that.  

CLOUD SEEDING AND TEXAS

Meanwhile retired general Mike Flynn, a former national security advisor in the first Trump administration - and also a right wing batshit conspiracy dude - n reposted another nutcase, who, in all caps of course, screamed "I NEED SOMEONE TO LOOK INTO WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS. WHEN WAS THE LAST CLOUD SEEDING?"

The answer is a few days before the storm. 

Like almost all conspiracy theories, a microscopic nugget of truth begins the story for instance, in the days  before the big Texas flood, there was some cloud seeding aircraft up there, trying to produce a little rain for some places that were actually drought stricken before the flood. 

That produced isolated, small amounts of rain, as cloud seeding never creates much precipitation. Cloud seeding is arguably useful to provide some parched crops a little moisture, but it sure as hell doesn't make it pour, 

As meteorologist Matthew Cappucci explained on X, cloud seeding doesn't "create" moisture to land as rain drops. 

It just helps droplets in clouds bump into each other to form bigger drops that fall. You can't get much moisture from just a collection of clouds. 

In the Texas floods, a gigantic surge of moisture pumped very wet air and dense clouds into central Texas. That air and those clouds needed no help in producing those tragic downpours. 

Cappucci, in full snark mode, also said, "Claiming that enormous regional floods are tied to cloud seeding is like claiming an overweight individual jumping into the Pacific Ocean could cause a tsunami. Such crazy conspiracies exhibit a fundamental lack of any semblance of understanding of scale."

MORE LAWS, CONSPIRACIES

But, despite that dose of reality, it's full speed ahead with the conspiracies. 

Florida just passed through a new law that says public use airports starting in October must submit monthly reports on geoengineering and weather modification activities or lose funding. 

I'm not sure how that's going to work, because nobody at the airports or on planes who use those airports is modifying the weather, at least intentionally, but not matter. 

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier  is really into this, though, because - sigh - he appears to be one of those sad people who think contrails from jets flying overhead is trying to poison the populace for some nefarious reason. Reasons that they really have a hard time explaining, never mind providing any evidence.

Here's Uthmeier's breathless, melodramatic statement on the issue: "From farmlands to our waterways, to the very air we breath - Floridians' health is under attack from toxic particulates being sprayed into our atmosphere, polluting our water, contaminating agriculture, and destroying human health."

Uthmeier included photos of cloud streaks in his post, which were those  jet contrails. Which is water vapor caused by condensation from the exhaust from aircraft.  

Uthmeier of course also invoked Texas and cloud seeding which we've already gone over, and there's no evidence (of course!) there's no toxins from our imaginary weather modification projects in Florida. 

First of all, nobody in Florida has applied for or received a weather modification license since it became a requirement back in 1957, according to PoliFact/Poynter. In 1957 citrus growers in three Florida counties tried cloud seeding for their orchards. But apparently, it didn't work great so they gave up. 

Poynter reached out to Florida environmental officials and Uthmeier to find out whether there were any reports of unlicensed weather modification efforts but didn't hear back. 

It's not just Florida. Missouri lawmakers are considering a proposal to ban all weather modification, including cloud seeding, saying in part that humans should not "play God" with the weather. 

Then there's the fringe group that is threatening to attack and destroy Doppler weather installations around the United States. 

The group, Veterans on Patrol, somehow think that Doppler radar is some sort of "weather weapon" but don't explain how a device that just measures precipitation intensity and direction is some sort of weapon. 

Earlier this month, a man was arrested for destroying the power supply to the weather radar at television  station KWTV in Oklahoma city. 

The dude who was arrested, Anthony Tyler Mitchell, 39, is not known to be a member of Veterans on Patrol, but the crime was inspired by them, officials said. 

But, according to NBC News, the head of that group. Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer (can we add a few more names?) welcomed the Oklahoma attack. 

"When we destroy and eliminate over 15 in a state of Oklahoma, your radar maps are going to change big time, and the weather in just going to be completely different over Oklahoma and the surrounding area," he told NBC. 

Or, in reality, the weather in Oklahoma won't change, except if he succeeds, residents of the state won't know if one of the area's many tornadoes, flash floods and other weather hazards are heading their way. I guess this dude figures Oklahomans love surprises, even if they are supremely unpleasant and deadly. 

He claimed the Texas flood was an effort by the military to murder children (by catching them in a flash flood, I guess), but he offered no motive for this alleged murderous scheme. 

I'm sure Mitchell, our radar vandal, is enjoying the charges of felony malicious injury to property, burglary and damage to critical infrastructure. 

We're all laughing at the stupidity of these whack jobs, except for one thing: It's dangerous. Wired reported the head of the Texas cloud seeding company Rainmaker has received 100 death threats since the Texas flood. 

And the fact that right wind influencers, MAGA politicians and other so-called leaders keep pushing the conspiracy theories means we'll keep seeing ill-considered, waste of time laws,.

MY "CONSPIRACY THEORY"

To appease their followers, the current administration will cater to these influences as yet another convenient distraction from what really matters, and what they are really doing. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, always the good Trump minion, said he would investigate the so-called weather control that "caused" the Texas floods. 

"Americans have questions about geoengineering and contrails, They expect honesty and transparency from the government when seeking answers, For years, people who asked questions in good faith were dismissed, even vilified by the media and and their own government. That ends today," Zeldin sanctimonious declared recently. 

So, they'll find some innocent scapegoat to prosecute, like that cloud seeding company that might have caused a few sprinkles of rain a few days before  and 120 miles away from the Texas flood scene.

There always were and always will be gullible people who get taken in by the wildest stories. And there will be always grifter who take advantage of these gullible people, 

Which is what's going on,

Humans are modifying the weather in one big way: Climate change. As everyone in the real world knows, all that fossil fuel we've been burning for the past century or two has modified the climate and thus the weather. 

Heat waves are hotter, rainstorms are wetter and powerful storms are more powerful. 

As the Washington Post puts it, "....extreme weather events are becoming more intense and frequent because of human-caused climate change. Some long-term deniers of that well-established process have been more likely to blame chemtrails or cloud seeding than to reconsider the climate-altering effects of fossil fuel emissions."

My conspiracy theory - and I actually thing it makes a bit of sense - is that the fossil fuel industry will do anything to protect their business. 

Distract the public with bogus "theories" and they can keep pumping those greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Which worsens the climate, and creates more extreme weather. Rinse and repeat. 

There's more than enough gullible people to keep this scam going.  

Trump Administration Feeling Heat On Texas Flood Response

The grim search for bodies continue after
the July 4 catastrophic floods in Texas,
as our early look at Trump era FEMA
response is not great, 

 The Trump team is finding out it's harder to manage major disasters than they thought.

And the public is learning why a fully staffed Federal Emergency Management Agency might not be such a bad idea after all. 

Let the state's handle it, FEMA isn't necessary,  the Trumpers said.  This Texas flood will manage itself, they must have thought. Or at least disappear in the next news cycle, so it won't be a problem for them anymore. 

We know that if something doesn't directly benefit Trump or his minions, it's not worth dealing with it. So to their minds, why mess with that Texas mud pit?

But when disasters get this big and stay under the media spotlight like the Texas floods have done, it gets harder and harder to control the narrative.    

At last check, at least 134 people were confirmed dead  in the Texas flooding   Huge swaths of the Texas Hill Country are devastated, with houses washed away, others with flood damage up to the ceilings 

The Trump folks are publicly patting themselves on the back about what a good job they're doing with the Texas flood, but the evidence suggests otherwise. 

CALLS UNANSWERED

The New York Times on July 11 reported the now-really short-staffed FEMA was answering very few calls for help after the Texas disasters. Answer rates to the FEMA disaster assistance hotline fell to roughly the 35 percent rant on July 6 and just 16 percent on July 7. 

As USA Today reports: 

"The lack of responsiveness happened because the agency had fired hundreds of contractors at call centers, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal matters.

The agency laid off the contractors on July 5 after their contracts expired and were not extended according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter.

Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who has instituted a new requirement that she personally approve expenses over $100,000, did not renew the contracts until Thursday, five days after the contract expired. FEMA is part of Department of Homeland Security."

It appears to me ICE Barbie, as I call her, did not worry about this mess-up until it appeared there might be a public relations problem brewing. 

ICE Barbie, who is much better at cosplaying and posing for the media, naturally went on TV.  Here's her quote from her appearance on NBC's 'Meet the Press with Kristen Welker."

"No employees were off of work....... Every one of them was answering calls, so false reporting, fake news and it's discouraging. It's discouraging that during this time, when we have such a loss of life and so many people's lives have been turned upside down, that people are playing politics with this because the response time was immediate."

Notice the careful wording.

A lot of employees had been let go. The ones that were left were answering calls. I'm sure every one of the few remaining did answer calls, as Noem said. She just left out the part that a bunch of people who could have helped handle the big call volume weren't there anymore. 

Any criticism is supposedly "playing politics."  The crisis in Texas is far from over, so you'd think prodding an agency to actually help people is the definition of caring about "so many people's lives."

MICROMANAGING

Noem's micromanaging - reviewing any expenditure over $100,000 - also slowed the response to the Texas flood in other ways. As CNN reported:

"For FEMA, where disaster response costs routinely soar into the billions as the agency contracts with on-the-ground crews, officials say that threshold is essentially 'pennies' requiring sign-off for relatively small expenditures.

In essence, they say the order has stripped the agency of much of its autonomy at the very moment its help is needed most.  

'We were operating under a clear set of guidance: lean forward, be prepared, anticipate what the state needs, and be ready to deliver it,' a longtime FEMA official told CNN. 'That is not as clear of an intent for us at the moment.'"

This for instance meant FEMA couldn't pre-position Urban Search and Rescue crews from a network of teams stationed regionally around the country. Noem reportedly didn't authorize FEMA's deployment of  the Urban Search and Rescue teams until more than 72 hours after the flooding started.

For their part, the Noem team used other search and rescue assets and didn't need this Urban Search and Rescue Team. 

The head of FEMA's Urban Search and Rescue branch,  Ken Pagurek, resigned Monday over frustrations with Noem and other Trump appointed FEMA heads. CNN reported that he quit after months of frustration with the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the agency.

Another talented, needed person leaving because of this idiotic bunch.  Said a DHS spokesperson: 

"FEMA is shifting from a bloated, DC-centric dead weight to a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers state actors to provide relief for their citizens......The old processes are being replaced because they failed American emergencies for decades."

The spokesperson has it exactly backwards. Until now, FEMA has been praised for its rapid response I'm the immediate emergency in the hours and days after the disaster strikes.

UNEVEN DIRECT RESPONSE

The very valid criticism of FEMA comes in the recovery phase, where applying for assistance and money for rebuilding roads, other infrastructure, homes, and businesses, and girded for the next disaster, always seemed to become a horrible, bureaucratic slog. 

That's where the FEMA reform coulda, shoulda happened. 

FEMA has ultimately arrived in Texas, and they do seem to be trying to help. Parts of the old, better FEMA infrastructure are still there. At least for now.  

Victims are being encouraged to contact FEMA, despite the phone issues to start claims. The agency has set up a help center and has started processing claims. 

Some Texas flood victims said that FEMA has been helpful so far, which is a glimmer of encouragement here.

But private and church groups are leading the way, searching for victims, mucking out damaged homes and setting up field kitchens for people whose houses have washed away or otherwise have been left uninhabitable. 

Still the Texas FEMA stumbles are disconcerting. 

I doubt FEMA and the Trump administration will change course much, but the bad Texas disaster response is certainly being noticed. 

"Heck of a job, Secretary Noem," the Houston Chronicle editorial board sarcastically wrote. The remark is a throwback to former President George W. Bush's notorious and highly inaccurate praise for then-FEMA Director Michael Brown as New Orleans flooded during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Several Democratic members of Congress demanded an investigation into Noem's response to the disaster. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts called for her resignation. None of this will happen, given the Republican fealty to whatever Trump and his minions do, but it's notable. 

The irony is that Noem, acting FEMA director David Richardson and the Trump administration is undoing what had been badly needed FEMA reforms after the Katrina debacle.

Speaking of Richardson, he didn't make any public statements and appearances for more than a week after the floods. Usually, FEMA directors are splattered themselves all over the news when there's big disasters, giving overviews of the federal response to these calamities. 

Richardson, who famously seemed unaware that the U.S. has a hurricane season, does not have five or more years of disaster management experience. The post-Katrina reforms require FEMA directors to have such experience, but the Trump administration is getting around that by keeping him as the so-called "acting" director. 

Another indication how unseriously the Trumpsters take disaster responses

And remember, this terrible flood happened in a red state.  Trump is the probably the most sinister transactionally motivated person in the world. He'll help his supporters until he doesn't need them anymore. 

But he'll attack his perceived enemies and try everything he can not to help.  What if the Texas disaster happened in a blue state?

We got a taste of that during and after the immense and deadly California wildfires back in January.  

Trump threatened to withhold disaster aid to California unless the state enacted voter ID laws. Never mind that those ID laws have nothing to do with wildfires. That casts doubt on whether he will approve $40 billion California Gov Gavin Newsom has requested to help pay for fire recovery costs.  

Meanwhile, other disasters have hit since Texas and more loom, Wildfire season is ramping up.  Forecasts point toward weather conditions in the coming days and weeks across much of the West that favor large fires. 

Hurricane season has started. The big ones usually hit soon - mostly in August and September. Those flash floods keep hitting all kinds of communities in the United States.

We've known for months that Trump and his loyal band of sycophants are not inclined to help their fellow Americans. Again, because there's nothing in it for them. No profits, no monetary gain. And gawd forbid any of this crew to help disaster victims because it's the right thing to do.

Trump, according to numerous reports, at least once called fallen military service members "losers and suckers."

I think he believes disaster victims are losers and suckers, too.