Never let a good disaster go to waste.

Numerous failures here:

• The National Weather Service, handicapped by the Trump/DOGE RIFs, worked diligently to forecast the storms and get the word out. Best they could do under the circumstances, but still… the circumstances were avoidable, yet intentional.
• Local authorities chose to broadcast alerts almost exclusively to Facebook and X/Twitter. I remember discussing this with emergency management folks in the early days of Twitter… whether it was a blessing or curse with respect to emergency alerts. Many of us argued at the time that if an algorithm comes to determine message delivery priority based on popularity, the system becomes less of a ‘public square’ and more of a profit/advertisement-driven platform, or if authorities become so dependent on the platform only to have masses leave or stop using it, that itself is a disaster. As all of this has come to fruition, this is a failure of management.
• To top it all off, Greg Abbott chose to insult everyone - emergency responders, authorities, and victims alike - with this offensive appeal to God and prayer. But it’s no surprise he would take advantage of the situation to promote ignorance. Politicians depend on it.

Disgusting.