Ongoing Reaction to the Texas Floods

Fox News Radio's Ryan Schmelz joins us to discuss continuing search and rescue efforts and gives us reaction from Congress on this tragic event. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We think it a little audio Ben as we talk

(00:02):
about these Texas floods, a lot of questions that have
gotten kind of political. This is West Michigan's Morning News,
Steve Kelly and Brett Makita. Here is Senator Katie Britt.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Every normal parent, every normal person across this country is
thinking about those parents, is thinking about those of lost
loved one and lifting them up in prayer. And so
the fact that Democrats want to find some way to
make this about Donald Trump, to take this moment and
make it political, it's got to stop.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
So talk to us a little bit about that. Ryan
Schmels with Fox News Radio is in Washington, d C.
There has been, and I don't know how many more
are to come, questions about whether Trump cuts have caused
problems with alerts for those campers, those people that eventually
got into trouble. Ryan.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Yeah, you've seen a majority or minority leader Truck Schumer
call for a probe into the cuts of the National
Weather Service and staffing reductions there. You've also seen number
of other Democrats go as far as saying that these
reductions of the National Weather Services are deadly, even though
you have the Union for the National Weather Service coming

(01:10):
out and saying that in this case, staffing was not
an issue and that did not play a factor in
the National Weather Service in the respective regions of Texas
there were adequately staffed for this major storm. So and
certainly the politics are playing in here, and I don't
know if it's going to go anywhere at Timpson.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Listen, if it was part of the problem, then the
finger needed to be point pointed back at the problem.
But in one of the earlier press conferences that I saw,
Senator Ted Cruz, who was clearly emotional along with the
rest of the people that were in the press conference,
said listen, the National Weather Service and that local office

(01:50):
was overstaffed. There were like three people working there. But
spreading the word was still a problem, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
It certainly is. I mean you see the officials in
Kirk County taking a number of questions about, you know,
emergency preparedness. Did you should there have been certain alerts
that were sent out, certain evacuation notices that were sent out. Yeah,
those questions are definitely being asked, whether we're getting them.
It looks like, you know, in some cases they've been dodged.
But you know, I don't think the press is going

(02:21):
to stop asking those questions anytime soon, because you know,
the death tollsk gets quite quite quite quite terrifying, you know,
and it's only getting higher. Over one hundred people are dead,
many of them are children. You know, this is a
huge problem by so I yeah, I think this certainly
is going to be a conversation about emergency preparedness and

(02:41):
and how these alerts go out, and when is an
ideal time or the right time to evacuate a zone,
the way that that that that that should be appropriate.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, we here in West Michigan, we get the tornado
warnings that come across our phone, we get the amber
alerts that scare us, and what is happening to the
my phone right now? And in twenty twenty five, the
idea that there are still one hundred and sixty nine
missing people in this thing in Texas. So and I

(03:12):
understand it's one of the most dangerous rivers, like ten
years ago, ten people swept away. But my heavens, and
as you mentioned, there has to be a time once
we work through these recovery efforts, we start talking about
preventing something like this from happening again.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, Well, and you know, I'm a former fire friend
of myself. My fire department in Texas that I was
in volunteer was actually actually on scene right now. I
am down to have a public safety and a evacuation,
you know, any type of safety and security and those
conversations pretty much any time. I mean, we don't need

(03:50):
a tragedy for us to have those conversations, because I
think it's always important to work on emergency preparedness and
the best way to get people out of a situation
if a catash or a potential danger is to arise,
you know, So, so I'm happy if that conversation is
being had any time. I think that will probably be
the immediate one that does start getting had, because you know,

(04:12):
they've got no choice. They have to have it, because
they've got more rain in the forecast. They they could
be at risk for more potential flooding. You know. Later
this year we saw this. Howel you know how much
damage can be caused by just this current weather situation. So,
I mean, that's one that needs to be had almost immediately.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
How did I not know? How did we not know
that you were a former firefighter. I saw a dramatic
picture of a group of first responders around a recovered
body and one of them just openly weeping. Our prayers
have to go out to first responders too, for the
things that they're seeing and recovery.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Oh yeah, no, I was actually having a conversation with
somebody about this yesterday who's like, you know, you know
a lot of these guys are you know, they're doing
this for free. You know, they're volunteers, they're leaving their families,
they're leaving their jobs for a period of time, and
you know a lot of these people are doing search
and rescue right now, and you know their goal is
to find something. You know, and you hope that it's

(05:12):
a miracle that you're going to find, which is that somebody,
somebody who survived this flood. But you know, you also
are very well preparing yourself for the possibility of finding
something that's going to give you nightmares, probably for the
rest of your life. So yeah, the terrifying situation.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Ryan Smells with Fox News Radio Ian Washington, d C.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Thank you, of course, thank you.