Independence Day Recap

I did what I rarely do these past few days, which was to try and really commit to staying offline as much as possible. Sometimes you need a relaxing break that doubles as sort of a hard reset.

The country, the world doesn’t wait while we mark the 249th anniversary of our republic’s independence. The Big Mid Bill passed, Democrats targeted border agents again, Musk and Trump went at it, and a horrific flood swept away young girls and those who tried saving them at church camp. I’ll dive into all of this on tomorrow’s broadcast, but a quick note first.

It’s been raining here in Texas for days. We are in north Texas, not south in Hill Country, but we have many friends who do live there. Our kids have attended church camps in the area and we have spent many a night anxiously watching the weather to make sure our campers were out of harm’s way.

Texas meteorologists were all over the weather. Predicting the weather is part science, part hoping, and part luck. They issued warnings days before about potential torrential downpours and flooding. What no one anticipated was how this particular storm system stalled out over several Hill Country counties for actual hours, not moving, not progressing, but yet still dumping gallons of water out on the already oversaturated ground and into the swollen rivers. Texas soil has a lot of clay and doesn’t absorb all of the excess the way you’d see elsewhere. Add the creeks, tributaries, flood plains, et al., and with an unexpected stalling period of a large storm system, you have a catastrophe. In some parts the Guadalupe River rose by over 26 feet in barely 40 minutes. Some things cannot be predicted.

I think it’s fair to ask if all of the campers had access to their phones or if staff saw the warnings. It’s also fair to ask what the emergency evacuation plans are for various camps. I don’t think it’s fair or intellectually honest to claim that the redundant cuts to the National Weather Service targeting bureaucracy is the cause. I’ll explain tomorrow.

Right now, let’s all be grateful. We’re here, we live in the best country in the world, we’re dry, and tomorrow is another day. Please lift up those still searching for their precious children, the rescuers praying they find a survivor and not another body, the parents in anguish with either grief or dimming hopes. They will need every prayer you can offer right now.

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