Michael Cohen - When the System Drowns Its People [View all]

There are disasters, and then there are premeditated failures dressed up as acts of God. What’s unfolding across Central Texas isn’t just a freak storm or an unfortunate tragedy; it’s the culmination of arrogance, willful neglect, and a depraved obsession with austerity over human life. More than 100 are confirmed dead, and over 160 remain missing. This is not just weather. This is the rotting fruit of a political doctrine that puts dollars before dignity, and ideology before infrastructure.

This is Flash Flood Alley. They’ve called it that for decades. Scientists warned. Local officials knew. But Texas chose not to prepare. The topography is unforgiving: limestone hills, shallow rivers, rapid runoff. When the sky opens up, this region doesn’t flood. It drowns. It suffocates. And still, nothing. No modernized alert systems. No meaningful statewide plan. Just the usual chest-beating about “personal responsibility” while entire families were swept into the dark.

Here’s the insult to injury: Texas is sitting on $30 billion in a rainy-day fund. That’s not a metaphor; that’s a literal pile of untouched cash that could’ve bought sirens, early-warning systems, elevated infrastructure, floodplain mapping, and the staffing to support it all. Instead, it sat in a bank account while children drowned in their camp bunks.

Now comes the scapegoating. Right on cue, Texas officials have turned their aim at the National Weather Service, claiming it failed to provide sufficient warning. But the San Antonio Express-News called it what it is: a coward’s deflection. The NWS issued alerts—repeatedly. The problem wasn’t the forecast. The problem was that the system built to respond to that forecast had been deliberately dismantled.

https://www.meidasplus.com/p/when-the-system-drowns-its-people