7-9-25 - 6am - The Media & The Floods and Flood Numbers

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Michael, we can't even hold anybody accountable who was working.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
With Jeffrey Epstein or attended his islands, and we just
let them all go scott free.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
So, you know what, maybe America is the problem.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
We're going to get to Epstein again later in the program,
since I started it out yesterday.

Speaker 4 (00:22):
I but I, you know, just.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Because you know, people are getting in out of the car,
their people are going to work, they're doing different things,
so people tend to, you know, the audience changes all
the time because it's just the nature of radio. So
what I try to do, which I'm not very good at,
and I do try to do it, is if I
if I did one topic, you know, first thing in
the morning, I might try if they're still follow up,

(00:46):
I might do that later. An example of that are
the Texas floods. So we'll do Epstein again later in
the program. But I want to go back to the
floods and what prompted the of course I'm talking about
Texas prompted it was numerous conversations I had yesterday with
News Nation and CNN and Fox. I ended up not

(01:14):
doing any of the television appearances, but primarily because the
governor Abbott was doing a press conference, and they were
all trying to get me on within the about the
same hour, and I just finally told all of them that, look,
this is not gonna work. I don't know how these
press conferences go, so I'm not willing to sit around,

(01:34):
you know, in a studio somewhere all afternoon while he
does the press conference. And then you're telling me at
the end of the press conference, oh, that program's now
over with. We're going into the next program, and we
don't have you scheduled for that. So I just said, now,
I'm not gonna do it. I don't need to be
on the TV to sproke my ego. It's big enough
without that, so I don't need that.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
True. Yeah, I knew you'd say that, but.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
I did so all these conversations I had with him yesterday,
because all the producers, you know, want to ask all
these questions before the program. So they have all these questions,
and the questions lead me to believe that one surprise surprise,
not that they're looking for a particular angle. They already have.

(02:21):
The producers themselves already have preconceived notions about fault, blame
cause everything that you can possibly imagine and everything that
I'm telling them, I know I can just if I
could see, Like some of them are in New York,
some we're in DC. I can just see their heads
exploding because they, oh, this will be controversial, so we

(02:47):
want you on yet what you're going to say, we're
not quite sure how we're going to deal with that,
And we're not quite and the producers themselves are thinking,
Jimminy Christmas, this guy's an idiot because doesn't he understand
the climate change is causing all of this. It's just horrific.
And I'm just I'm just chucking to myself also because

(03:09):
they and I can't speak for anybody else, but I
know that when I get called to make a television appearance,
I don't get excited about it. I'm like, well, okay, well,
I you know, if it fits the schedule, I'll do it.
If it doesn't fit the schedule, I won't do it.

(03:31):
I know that it helps the brand. I know that,
you know, it's nice to have your name on the chiron,
to have you know, you know, nationally syndicated radio talk
show hosts former under Secretary of Homeland Security. All that
sounds really good. Right, I mean, and it is. Don't
get me wrong. I fully appreciate the value of that,

(03:53):
but my life doesn't depend upon it. And I you know,
been there, done that, number one, number two. There are
a lot of other things in my life that are
more important than that. Some you know, if if he
had a scale, if he had a hierarchy of things
that are important, well that I mean that it would

(04:14):
be important because I believe that my brand and I
believe that marketing, the program and everything. I believe that
that is important. But I also have other things that
are important. Dinner, for example, dinner that's important to me.
I I didn't walk in this morning and I opened
up the Drudge Report. It's just gotten to be this

(04:35):
habit of because I'm not always listening to the radio
when I'm coming in anymore, because I'm just like, you know,
just I need to I gotta face a dragon. I
gotta you know, I got to walk into a building
that's under constant remodeling that I don't know whether my
key card's going to work or not. Can I can
I use a restroom? Will the printer work? Are the

(04:55):
lights going to come on?

Speaker 4 (04:57):
You know?

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Will the internet work? I mean there's just all the
you know, so it's it's always it's always a craps.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
It isn't a dragon.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
The microphones are working right now, so that's a plus.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Well it, you know, and you know, without trying to spooker,
you know, do anything to cause trouble. I'm amazed this
microphone hasn't fallen down in a long long time.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
That's because we switched it with one of the good ones.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Well, it's right, Shannon Dick coming to switch it out,
didn't it. That's right. I forget about that.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
So I so I.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Walk in and I flip open the Drudge Report, and
here are the headlines. Texas Inspectors approved Camp Mystic disaster
plan two days before deadly flood. Now, let me tell you,
I've not read any of these stories. I'm just going
buy the headlines. What does that have to do with anything?

(05:54):
The Texas Inspectors could have approved the camp Mystic disaster
plan two years ago, two minutes, two days. They had
a disaster plan. And I can tell you this about
disaster plans. They're good. They give you a basic framework
by which you're going to respond to a disaster. Every

(06:19):
disaster is different. I mean a flood is a flood
is a flood. Tornadoes and tornado is a tornado. But
the geography, the time of day, the population, the infrastructure,
the duration, everything, all of these factors are all different

(06:41):
in every single disaster.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
So what are they doing?

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Well, without reading the plant, without reading the story, I'm
sure they're going after the inspectors who approved the disaster plan.
I'm sure they're going to go after the camp owners,
the camp managers, the counselors, and then everybody. They're going
to go after the plan. And the fact that it

(07:07):
was two days before deadly flood is somehow pointing out that. Well,
for me, it points out that and everything is going
to happen to you. Nobody ever thinks it's going to
happen to them. The next line, hope of finding survivors' dems. Yes,

(07:29):
it does now. I will tell you that what I'm
about to say, I have no basis other than I
saw a couple of posts on X yesterday and the
story went something like this. Two girls that were thought
dead were discovered I forget six seven miles whatever the

(07:49):
mileage was from where they were camping or where they were.
They were found alive in a tree and then you know,
in all it was a heartbreaking store. And then about
an hour later, oh, that story was false. So as
is stereotypically normal, you've got well, you never know what

(08:11):
to believe until you know what to believe.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
At least one.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Hundred and sixty one people still missing in Single County.
That's okay. Should I be shocked by that? I Whether
that's true or not, I don't know. But considering the
nature of these floods, the geography, the size, the geographical area,

(08:39):
and the fact that one hundred and sixty one people
are missing does not surprise me in the least. But
by the way that that headline ends with an exclamation point,
one hundred and sixty one still missing a single county, Well,
that may be true. And you know what, they may not.
They may not all have been at Camp missic or
yeah what misstic. They may have been people traveling through,

(09:04):
people that just went out for a picnic. I mean
any number of things. People just were overnight camping, people
that you know, this actually happens. This happened in nine
to eleven. People saw it as an opportunity. I'm not
saying this is what occurred here. I'm just saying that
this is what goes through my head on nine to eleven.
We have people that wit missing that we obviously, and

(09:29):
this doesn't surprise me considering the magnitude of that disaster,
that we never found any identifiable body parts or DNA
or anything else that could identify those particular individuals. I
believe some people chose that as an opportunity to disappear

(09:52):
on their own. They've gone to Europe, they've gone to
Southeast Asia, they've gone to Thailand, They've gone they've gone
to Oregon, They've gone I don't they've gone to Colorado,
They've gone somewhere. But they chose that as an opportunity
to start their lives entirely over again. Fierce debate erupts
overroll job cuts played in weather forecasts, ellipses in all caps.

(10:17):
More that's still going on. Gnome defends FEMA, and then
three lives lost in historic New Mexico flash flooding. Oh so,
the heartbreaking, and it is heartbreaking. I mean, you know,

(10:37):
they're kids, you know, kids and puppies. Of course, it's
going to be very very heartbreaking. It's a tragedy, but
it demands reflection, accountability, and action. It doesn't require political grandstanding.
And I had a really gout feeling yesterday that I

(11:01):
was trying to be drawn into some political grandstanding. So
the catastrophe, which it is well, deeply painful, ought to
be examined through the lens of history and scientific clarity
and not be hijacked to push a political agenda, a
climate change argument, or budgetary blame games.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
Just shouldn't do it.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
That flooding that hit Texas, including areas near Austin, has
brought I would hope some renewed attention to the vulnerabilities
of flood prone valleys.

Speaker 4 (11:45):
We know about it.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
In Colorado, I was fascinated by a conversation that I
assume was Katie v R. Because I don't generally watch
the other stations interviewing some people from the Lions flood
back in two thousand and thirteen, I think, and one
guy made the note, no, no, they were in Pewter Valley.

Speaker 4 (12:06):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
They were up in Pewter Canyon and they were talking
to some campers, and of course they're going over the
things that I talked about incessantly while I was the
under secretary and director of FEMA about you know, a
battery powered transistor radio or a weather radio, and there

(12:28):
was They interviewed some guy who's camping on the Pewter
Canyon and you know, asked him about if he was
worried about flash flooding, and he said, yes, I camp
a lot, so I pay attention to the weather. They
asked him, do you have a weather radio. No, I
watched the weather and I thought to myself, Okay, this
guy is aware of, you know, the potential for flash floods.

(12:54):
He and I don't know this. I'm just these are
all things that I'm making an assumption about. He nonetheless
takes on that risk, which I don't object to. That's fine.
But here's what I do believe. I don't think he
truly understands how quickly and how devastatingly huge a flash

(13:17):
flood can be. Now I couldn't really tell by the
camera angle what kind of you know, he's obviously in
Pewter Canyon, but I don't know exactly how narrow the
gap is where he was camping. But depending on the
size of the gap, the width of the gap, flash

(13:37):
flood could you know, be simply three feet two feet
and depending on how fast it's moving two feet of
water can move a house. It can certainly take you know,
a camping trailer, a tent, whatever is in that campground,

(13:57):
and take it all the way out to the planes. Now,
there are reports that indicate that despite receiving advanced warning
from the weather services, the response at the local and
the regional levels in Texas was insufficient. There are gaps

(14:19):
in emergency preparedness and land use planning, but that's not
that's I've come to just recognize that that's.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
The way of the world.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
People always think it's not going to happen to me,
or that it's not going to happen here, and it's
human nature. Historically, we know that Central Texas is recognized
as one of the most flood plown areas in the
entire country. As we went over on Monday. Flood events

(14:57):
occur with devastating frequency and devastating intensity, and they've done
that for one hundred.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
Years or more.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Then you have the construction of dams and reservoirs throughout
the twentieth century, which was largely driven by the necessity
of managing those frequent flooding episodes, and ironically, those infrastructure
developments dramatically reduced flood magnitudes across many rivers, which actually
makes the most recent catastrophe even more indicative of infrastructure

(15:29):
and regulatory failure than any long term climatic shift. The
importance of historical context, and the frequent omission of historical
context from any discussion of climate narratives ends up getting

(15:50):
pardon me, ends up getting inserted into All these discussions
go back to even the Palisades fire. You know, there
are stories floating around about the Palisades fire, adding Los Angeles,
about the slowness of building permits I read somewhere you

(16:11):
know to so far have been issued. Well, Palisades fire,
if you recall, was also blamed when climate change. Now,
according to extensive research, including the recent Texas A and
M twenty twenty four climate report, river flooding in Central
Texas has not demonstrated a significant long term increase in trend.

(16:36):
In fact, the report says, and I quote, no long
term river flooding trend has been identified in the observations,
nor is such a trend projected at this point. So
we ought to evaluate the official government reports. What do
they say? Detailed examinations of the reports from both the

(16:56):
EPA and Noah, I think provide critical counterpoint to the
simplistic climate narratives. They get pushed by the media, but
gets pushed by the cabal. I was going to say,
by the media and the politicians and reporters, but it's
just the cabal. There's EPA documentation that confirms that while

(17:21):
the frequency of intense rainfall events has slightly risen, overall
water availability in river flowing Texas has actually declined because
of increase of operation rates, changing vegetation, the amount of vegetation,
the extensive the thickness of the vegetation, and of course

(17:43):
we've had altered land use practices throughout the entire country,
just not in Texas.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Noah.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
Texas A and M climate data explicitly contradict claims that
extreme rainfall frequency and flooding are ended or primarily climate driven.
Central Texas has experienced variable rainfall trends recent decades, showing
primarily decreasing precipitation, dependent largely upon very specific locations within

(18:15):
the state. The EPA has a map that has data
plots that show variability rather than any clear upward trend
in flooding events. It's it just shows the changes in
the size of flooding events and rivers and streams between

(18:38):
nineteen sixty five and twenty fifteen. And I'm looking at
the graphic, and I would say that significant decreases, significant increases,
and insignificant decreases and increases. They're pretty much equal all
over the country.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
Michael, you know the old saying, every person who steps
into the ring's got a plan until they get punched
in the face. I imagine a disaster is a lot
worse than being punched in the face.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, plans always go out the window with the first shot,
So go back real quickly.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Excuse me.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
The EPA chart that I'm looking at change in the
magnitude of river flooding the United States between nineteen sixty
five and twenty fifteen, and it's it's designated by little
triangles that show either a significant decrease, an insignificant decrease,

(19:48):
or an insignificant increase or an insignificant increase. And when
you just glance at the map, you see that, well,
it's all over the place. I mean, I haven't sat in,
but it shows that there are differences. Some areas have increases,

(20:08):
some areas have decreases, some don't have anything. That's significant
one way or the other. Well, those data plots show
variability rather than what they keep claiming in the cabal
as a clear upward trend and flooding events.

Speaker 4 (20:28):
What does that mean.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Well, that completely undermines the narrative the climate change alone
drives increased flooding unless you buy the theory, which I
guess is what their theory is, is that climate change
is only working in certain parts of the country. So
as I look at the graph, as I look at
the map, and I see that, oh, in the far

(20:50):
upper northwest, there are about three or four that show
a significant increase in flooding, and then in parts of
oh I would say around the DC area, you know,
along the east coast, a little bit in the northeast
part there are a few more that shows significant increase.
And then all over the rest of the country it's

(21:11):
a missmash of everything. So climate change this affect some
parts of the country but not in other parts of
the country. It just completely debunks the idea that somehow
because if the climate's changing, the climate is changing, and
apparently it's changing in Colorado until it meets the you know,
it goes over ratone Pass and then in New Mexico.
It's not changing or going, you know, east of Kansas

(21:34):
or west of Utah. So let's dissect the climate narrative
and the political exploitation that's going on, because despite the
clear data from author you know, authoritaty sources that you know,
all these news channels that were talking to me last
night all want to use politicians and certain climates so

(21:56):
called so called climate scientists. They quickly leveraged the tragedy
so they can blame federal budget cuts to agencies like
Noah and the National Weather Service, and then they suggest
that those budgetary adjustments somehow significantly impaired the weather forecasting
and that therefore amplifies the fatalities from a singular severe

(22:22):
weather event. As I went through, I found some of
the l a usual suspect, but one particularly egregious example
is a statement by Jay Insley. Jay Insley's former governor
may still be governor of Washington. I'm not sure who

(22:43):
tweeted this or posted this, and he cites a New
York Times article. It is hard to make the Texas
flood tragedy worse except to know that on the same
day that Trump signed the bill, cratering solar and wind
energy that is vital in the battle against the climate
change making these torrential rains more frequent. Now, I can

(23:09):
again dissect that sentence any number of ways. It is
hard to make the Texas flood tragedy worse except to
know that on the same day, Trump signed a bill
that cratered solar and wind energy that is vital in
the battle against climate change, which is making those toruential
rains more frequent. You understand, We've got like, we got
four layers of bull crap to go through to realize that, Okay,

(23:33):
we can make this tragedy worse by knowing that Trump
signed to bill. That bill cratered solar and wind energy,
and solar and wind energy are vital in this battle
against climate change, which is making those rains more frequent,
and so therefore it's all Trump's fault. It's some sort

(23:56):
of mental gymnastics that really just you know, it's only
six thirty six in the morning, and I'm exhausted just
going through that. That claim is utterly scientifically baseless, profoundly insensitive,
and it's just simply using a tragedy, a human tragedy,
to push a political agenda. You know, just as I

(24:18):
said the words human tragedy. It shows how crazy my
brain works. But let's go back to the late seventeen hundreds,
the early eighteen hundreds, when there wasn't you know, San
Antonio was not some giant city. There were still Indians

(24:42):
roaming the plains. There were settlers trying to move out
and move through the west. You've seen the movies, You've
seen all of the miniseries or anything else. And I
think about, oh, some of the prequels to the current
yellow Stone series, which I've never watched. I've not watched

(25:03):
the current Yellowstone series, but I've watched many of the
prequels eighteen sixty three years.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
And there's another one. I forget what they are, but.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
I recall being seeing in those fictional stories flash floods. Now,
why would there be flash floods in the late seventeen hundreds,
the early to mid to late eighteen hundreds, when oh,

(25:34):
there wasn't this. Well maybe there's actually more CO two
in the atmosphere, but there weren't any cars. There weren't
any you know, factories spewing out, you know CO two
left and right. It's just preposterous because we're so ignorant

(25:55):
of history and we have these I think natural blinders
on that think that whatever's in front of us right now,
that nothing's come before and nothing's going to come afterwards. Now,
that's a great way to live your life, to live
in the moment, which I would highly encourage you to do.

(26:16):
But you can't ignore the past and you can't not
think about the future. But that's how they want us
to deal with these tragedies. Well, anyway, that claim but
by Jay Ensley is not only scientifically baseless, but it
really is insensitive. The historical records of flood related fatalities.

(26:37):
Number of lives that this comes. This comes from Noah,
And these are the number of lives lost due to
floods in the United States between twenty ten and twenty
twenty three. You do I know what the numbers are.
Let's go through twenty ten sequentially through twenty twenty three.

(26:58):
So as I read you these numbers, the numbers of
lives lost due to fatalities between twenty ten and twenty
twenty three, starting at twenty starting in twenty twenty ten,
one hundred four lives, one hundred thirteen lives, thirty lives,
eighty three lives, forty four lives, one hundred eighty nine lives,

(27:19):
one hundred twenty seven lives, one hundred thirty six lives,
eighty four lives, ninety three lives, fifty nine, one hundred,
forty six, one oh five seventy nine. There's no definitive
upward trend that correlates with any budget cuts or greenhouse
gas concentrations, or global average temperatures or any other metrics

(27:41):
you want to use. Death tolls from flooding fluctuate year
to year without any demonstrable dependence on changes in agency
staffing or funding or anything else. These data driven insights
actually expose the politically motivated nature of the claims that
link recent budgetary decision to tragic fatalities, and that's what

(28:02):
the Cabal's doing. Can my god, can we get away
from everything being political? Everything? It's just absurd. Then you
have the media reports that confirm that local authorities and
residents had ample warning of the impending severe weather event

(28:23):
over twelve hours of advance notice. According to the National
Service National Weather Service website. The flash flood watch, which
included Kerr County, was issued at one eighteen PM. So
there's a flash flood watch meaning that conditions are good

(28:45):
that you could have flash floods. That's at one eighteen
in the afternoon.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
Thursday.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Twelve hours later, a life threatening quote life threatening flash
flood warning was issued at one fourteen am, again according
to the website. Yeah, you can argue if part of
the emergency plan that's now part of the headlines in

(29:17):
on the Drudge Report, did they have communications, did they
have the wherewithal? Did anybody in the camp, main house
or headquarters have any sort of notification mechanism by which
they could begin the evacuation, or had taken precautions. I'm

(29:41):
not trying to criticize. I'm just asking a question. The
point is there was clear and timely warning warning. The
emergency response in community preparedness simply failed. There's a story
now circulating that the fire chief in Austin, Texas that
has swift water rescue team failed to deploy them the

(30:04):
day of, not that night. I'm not talking about it
one eighteen in the morning. I'm talking about when the
earlier watch was issued. That chief should be ashamed of himself.
He was concerned about budget matters, his own budget matters,

(30:26):
not some Trump budget, his own budget matters, which I
found him amazingly ignorant, because under every existing mutual aid
agreement that I know that exists across the entirety of
this country, those mutual aid agreements, the county to which

(30:47):
you go AID or the state to which you go
AID is going to reimburse you for those costs, and
yet he failed to do so. Misdirection towards climate alarmism
distracts from just focusing on pragmatic, essential responses that are

(31:08):
needed if we're going to safeguard lives and property. It
highlights the dire deficiencies in land use regulations, flood infrastructure,
building camps or residential areas within flood flood prone valleys
without any sort of mitigation measures, without any sort of

(31:29):
making sure you have the right kind of warning systems
in place. If you're going to have, you know, a
well established camp there, inevitably is going to invite disaster.
But some practical solutions do exist.

Speaker 5 (31:43):
Michael, I think you're saying that nature is doing what
nature has been doing for eons?

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (31:52):
I believe so well, Damn cap you sir, maybe correct.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
It's the talk back cap.

Speaker 4 (32:04):
The top back cat UH fifty five sixty six.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
Mike. When growing up, growing up in rural Nebraska, I
thought all of Nebraska was rural, but I digress. We
had a dedicated radio from the National Weather Service that
would activate during a weather warning of any sort when triggered.
The alert sound he gave was very loud, followed by
repeating messages. Once in a week, you would send a
test signal and you'd come home to hear the radio
playing the weather. You could turn it on at any
time to get the local weather. They still have that

(32:30):
system from nineteen sixties. Yes, you can still buy a
weather radio. Yes, battery powered radio up, you know, battery
powered radio. You can also get a hand crank one
where you don't have to replace the batteries. You can
get you can get one of those two.

Speaker 4 (32:48):
So this is.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
You know, I just find it bizarre that I left
federal service in two thousand and five, two thousand and six.
So here we are, you know, all these years later,
and you know, some almost twenty years later, and we're
doing the same thing while they're int repete, you know,

(33:13):
as Senator to Kennedy one time said, you know, Alexandri
Acossia Cortez is why we have instructions on shampoo bottles. Yes, well,
sometimes I think that's the media and politicians in general.
So I sent Dragon the charts that I was referring to,
so you can put those up on the website. Michael says,
go here dot com so you can see them.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
But lo and beholding. He was actually doing some work
back there.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
I found them.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
I'm shocked he found some.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
He found some charts too, but his went back further,
which I found shocking because of the numbers.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
All the way back to nineteen fifty nine, where only
twenty five people died from flooding that year. But the
biggest one on the chart that I have here was
in nineteen seventy two, five hundred and fifty five people died,
and that seemed to be there was two hundred and
thirty eight died in a Black Hills flood.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
And that was nineteen seventy two. So seventy two is
I think about the time that we were told we
were all going to freeze to death. Yes, we're all
going to freeze the death at that time. And so
then so that high of you said five something.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Five hundred and fifty five, five hundred.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
And fifty five, and I'm just in my mind kind
of looking at a trend line that seems to be
going downward. Now it blips, but the trend line is downward,
which means what, Well, better warning systems, better infrastructure, I hope,
better awareness of just the natural disasters that can occur

(34:43):
at any time anywhere. Guys be crazy, absolutely crazy. I'm
sure I'll get called again, and I don't know whether
it A'll go on and talk to the TV people
or not