Nearly two months after the tragic July 4 floods in Texas that killed more than 130 people, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said he’s still seeking answers to some of the most basic questions about the federal government’s response.
Which emergency officials did the National Weather Service call on the night of the flooding? How exactly did the agency staff up for the storm event? How did vacancies in key positions at the local National Weather Service office, such as the warning coordination meteorologist, affect the outcome?
In four letters to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and in a fifth to the Department of Commerce, the Austin congressman has demanded records that would help tell the story of July 4.
“I’ve never received a written response,” said Doggett, who is accusing the agencies of stonewalling his inquiries.
The congressman’s push for records highlights gaps in the public accounting of what happened that day. In the immediate aftermath of the flooding, independent meteorologists said the National Weather Service issued timely warnings and that its forecasts were solid, given the limits of modern forecasting technology during flash flood events.
What was less clear then — and remains so as of late August — was how effectively the agency was able to reach emergency managers and other stakeholders on the ground when the risk to specific locations became apparent. Reaching the “last mile” is something former NWS meteorologists have said suffers when forecasting offices are short on staff or overworked.
“If they have nothing to hide and the Trump slash-and-burn approach to the weather service did not have any impact here, they need to produce the logs,” Doggett said, referring to the records he has been seeking. “Getting public attention on it is perhaps the only way to get the administration to respond.”
Neither NOAA nor the Commerce Department responded to requests for comment.
Doggett sent his first letter to NOAA on May 20, before the flooding. In the letter, which was addressed to acting NOAA Administrator Laura Grimm, Doggett shared concerns about the vacancy rate in the Austin/San Antonio weather forecasting office. That office oversaw forecasting and communication in the areas hit hard by the July storms.
“A 22% vacancy rate at the local NWS jeopardizes the timeliness of forecasts and warnings on which the community relies,” Doggett wrote, asking how the agency would cope with the staff shortages and if it planned to fill any of the office’s roles.
After the flood disaster, Doggett followed up with NOAA on July 8 with 15 additional questions about the agency’s response. Doggett said he received a videoconference meeting on July 11 with Ken Graham, the agency’s director.
In a letter sent after the meeting on July 11, and again in a July 24 follow-up, Doggett requested the agency provide call logs, chat logs, radar archives and shift logs, among other records.
“He said that stuff was easy to provide,” Doggett said, relaying his memory of Graham’s comments during their Zoom meeting. “I’ve been asking about it ever since and there’s no good explanation.”
Executive branch agencies are allowed to respond at their discretion to individual members of Congress conducting oversight, according to the Department of Justice’s interpretation of the law. But executive agencies often voluntarily accommodate congressional requests.
Doggett said he’s hounded NOAA with calls and texts, and in an Aug. 27 letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Doggett accused the Commerce Department of stifling a response he believed was prepared by NOAA to address his questions.
“I have been advised that answers to my inquiries have been prepared, but that these are being withheld by your office,” Doggett wrote. “We have no evidence of the NWS’s preparation, communication, and response — or lack thereof — related to the July 4 flood. The refusal to provide a complete, timely response, suggests the Administration has something to hide concerning its handling of this tragedy.”
Doggett said four children from Austin were killed in the floods and called for an investigation of the tragedy similar to those performed by the National Transportation Safety Board after major disasters, an idea that has drawn bipartisan support.
“If this had been 27 children being lost in a plane crash, we would have NTSB doing a thorough investigation of every aspect of state, federal and local [actions],” Doggett said. “I don’t see any indication of a thorough evaluation of what did and didn’t happen at the federal level.”
NBC News has filed several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with NOAA, seeking records from the NWS. Some of these requests could turn up records with answers to Doggett’s questions, but they have yet to be fulfilled.
One of the requests, for chat logs and communications between forecasters, was listed as “assigned for processing,” according to the Commerce Department’s public records website. The agency said another request — for information about staffing and job cuts — would be processed in batches and released publicly along with other similar requests about the Texas floods.
“We are working to provide an interim release by the beginning of September, with ongoing releases through the end of the year,” Julia Swanson, the agency’s FOIA coordinatorc wrote in an Aug. 18 status update. “To focus our limited staff resources effectively, all other FOIA requests have been temporarily tabled so that the NWS FOIA team can focus on processing Texas flooding requests.”
