A Hill Country realtor's perspective on the July 4th floods and the need for legitimate questions about emergency preparedness
By Lauren Byington, Hill Country Insider
My stomach dropped.
I'd been watching the weather reports obsessively during my Florida vacation, but nothing had prepared me for what I was hearing.
Dozens of children...
According to ABC News, at least 134 people died after devastating flooding in the Texas Hill Country that began early on the Fourth of July, with Kerr County being the hardest hit with 107 confirmed deaths, including 37 children. The Guadalupe River at Kerrville rose from 1 foot to over 34 feet between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. on July 4th, NPR reported in their timeline of the catastrophic floods. This wasn't just unprecedented – it was impossible according to everything we thought we knew about flood patterns in the Hill Country.
By the time I crossed into Texas that evening, I knew my world had changed forever. Not just the Hill Country I call home and help families find their piece of paradise in, but the very idea of what we're allowed to question when tragedy strikes our community.
When the Unthinkable Becomes Reality
The numbers still don't feel real. According to CBS News, between 5 and 11 inches of rain fell across northwestern Bandera County, Central Kerr County, Northeastern Tom Green County, East Central Kerr County and West Central Kendall County. The rapid rise of the river haunts me most.
The Camp Mystic situation reveals a pattern of regulatory failures. As NPR and the Associated Press reported, FEMA included the prestigious girls' summer camp in a "Special Flood Hazard Area" in its National Flood Insurance map for Kerr County in 2011. But in response to appeals, FEMA in 2013 amended the county's flood map to remove 15 of the camp's buildings from the hazard area. After further appeals, FEMA removed 15 more Camp Mystic structures in 2019 and 2020 from the designation.
The Questions That Make You Dangerous
The timeline of emergency alerts that morning reveals critical failures. According to ABC News and dispatch audio they reviewed, a firefighter requested a CodeRED alert at 4:22 a.m., saying "Is there any way we can send a CodeRED out to our Hunt residents, asking them to find higher ground or stay home?" Dispatchers replied they needed special authorization. The first alert didn't come through Kerr County's CodeRED system until 90 minutes later, with some messages not arriving until after 10 a.m.
Emergency management experts emphasize that such delays in flash flood scenarios fundamentally undermine the system's core purpose of protecting lives through timely information.
Worse yet, as the Washington Post reported, Kerr County did not use IPAWS – the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System that sends emergency alerts to every cell phone in an area. The National Weather Service issued 22 alerts through IPAWS on July 4, but county officials did not issue any cellphone alerts through the system that morning, despite having used it twice before, most recently in 2024.
When President Trump visited Kerr County for a briefing, CBS News Texas reporter Marissa Armas asked: "Several families we heard from are obviously upset because they say those warnings, those alerts didn't go out in time, and they also say that people could have been saved. What do you say to those families?"
According to multiple news outlets including ABC News, HuffPost, and Newsweek, Trump responded: "Only a bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you. I don't know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that."
Look, when I vote, it's not for who I revere – politicians have skeletons, all of them. I vote for who I view as the lesser evil in any race, and I understand why most people vote the direction they vote, regardless, as people generally have good intentions. But Trump supporter or otherwise, this response troubled me deeply.
Evil?
For asking why emergency systems designed to save lives weren't used when lives needed saving?
This wasn't some fringe conspiracy theorist asking about lizard people or space lasers. This was a legitimate question about infrastructure failures that contributed to the deaths of children. Questions any responsible community should be demanding answers to.
But that response set the tone...
Suddenly, asking about emergency preparedness failures became politically radioactive...
Local Facebook groups started banning members for discussing alert timeline issues. Neighbors began treating basic questions about government response as attacks on first responders who heroically saved hundreds of lives that morning.
The line between honoring our heroes and examining our failures somehow became impossible to walk.
The Reality Most Texans Don't Know Exists
Then came the second wave of forbidden questions – the ones about weather modification.
Here's what most Texans don't realize:
According to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation's 2022 summary, cloud-seeding operations are widespread in Texas and cover about one-sixth of the state, spanning 31 million acres across its northwestern, western and southern regions. These programs use specially-equipped aircraft to place seeding materials containing silver iodide and other compounds into convective towers to induce them to expand and process more atmospheric water.
The technology has been enhancing precipitation across Texas for over fifty years, funded by local water districts and county commissions.
According to Snopes, CBS News, and statements from Rainmaker CEO Augustus Doricko, the company did conduct a cloud seeding mission on July 2, 2025, but it was in Karnes County – about 150 miles southeast of Kerr County. The two clouds that were seeded dissipated between 3 and 4 p.m. CDT that same day, more than 24 hours before the flooding began.
Screenshots are from Rainmaker.com.
CBS News meteorologists and experts from the University of Colorado Boulder confirmed that cloud seeding is not powerful enough to have caused or contributed to the flooding. As meteorologist Scott Padgett told CBS, the deluge resulted from heavy rainfall when storms converged with the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry. Cloud seeding at best produces small amounts of additional precipitation.
But here's where it gets complicated for those of us just learning about this reality...
I don't think cloud seeding caused our tragedy. The science is clear on that. But learning about this industry has opened a floodgate of questions that deserve answers, not dismissal.
☁️ Why are California companies seeding clouds over Texas?
☁️ Who contracts with them, and what do they get paid?
☁️ What oversight exists beyond state licensing?
☁️ How do local communities get notified when operations occur in their area?
☁️ Who decides which clouds get seeded and when?
☁️ What has and can go wrong? What happens in those cases?
☁️ Are the full formulations of seeding compounds available to the public or independent researchers?
☁️ What specific chemical agents are being used in the cloud seeding process?
☁️ Are the materials used in accordance with national or international environmental and health safety standards?
☁️ Is silver iodide being used, and if so, in what concentrations?
☁️ What studies or risk assessments have been conducted on the short- and long-term environmental impacts of these substances?
☁️ Is there any monitoring of soil, water, or air quality in areas where cloud seeding occurs regularly?
☁️ Have local ecosystems or agricultural systems shown any measurable impact from the seeding agents?
☁️ What metrics are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the cloud seeding program?
☁️ Are there more sustainable or less chemically-intensive alternatives being considered?
When citizens discovered that a young CEO from California had been dropping silver iodide into Texas skies just days before children died in unprecedented flooding, their concerns weren't unreasonable. They were human...
Even if the timing was coincidental, people had a right to understand what was happening above their heads and demand transparency from both the company and the regulators who allowed it.
The 25-year-old running Rainmaker may not have caused our flood, but he and his industry owe Texas communities more than dismissive explanations about atmospheric impossibilities. They owe us transparency about their operations, their contracts, their safety protocols, and their accountability when communities raise concerns.
For most of us, learning that weather modification isn't fringe conspiracy theory but licensed reality operating across millions of Texas acres was jarring. We're suddenly bombarded with a bizarre new reality where companies can legally alter our weather for profit, and we had no idea it was happening.
That's not conspiracy thinking – that's citizens waking up to an industry that's been operating in the shadows of public awareness for decades.
When Grief Becomes a Political Weapon
Some people immediately blamed everything on government weather manipulation. Others declared any questions about weather modification or emergency systems off-limits, as if asking them dishonored the victims.
The speed with which this toxic dynamic emerged was troubling...
A Houston pediatrician posted inflammatory comments about flood victims that led to her termination from Blue Fish Pediatrics, but the damage was done – tragedy had become a partisan weapon.
https://www.facebook.com/OfficerDeonJoseph1/photos/when-your-politics-supersedes-your-decency/1280699824055643/
What We Deserve to Know
I've learned that the most dangerous phrase in local government is "that's just how we've always done it." Our flood preparedness was built on that foundation, and children paid the price.
According to the Associated Press analysis using data from First Street, a climate risk modeling company, FEMA's flood insurance map underestimates flood risks because it fails to account for the effects of heavy precipitation on smaller waterways such as streams and creeks.
Kerr County's emergency alert failures weren't due to act of God either. According to the Texas Tribune's investigation, they were the predictable result of years of deferred investments in warning systems. Multiple efforts in Kerr County to build a more substantial flood warning system have failed or been abandoned due to budget concerns. County officials and the river authority applied for FEMA funds to build a new warning system in 2017 but were denied, public records show.
According to CNN's reporting, Kerr County Emergency Management Coordinator W.B. "Dub" Thomas was likely asleep at home during the critical early morning hours when the flooding began, with Sheriff Larry Leitha confirming "I'm sure he was at home asleep at that time."
Weather modification programs operating across Texas aren't acts of God – they're policy decisions made by local water authorities and funded by taxpayer money. Whether or not these programs contributed to our flooding, Texans deserve to understand what's happening in their skies and who's making those decisions.
These are infrastructure questions. Policy questions. Accountability questions.
They're not conspiracy theories.
And they're questions that even Republican-led states are asking. Florida has recently passed legislation addressing weather modification concerns, showing this isn't a partisan issue but a transparency one.
The Real Conspiracy
The most insidious conspiracy isn't about weather machines or political plots. It's the conspiracy to convince us that asking questions about failed systems makes us the enemy.
When an everyday real estate agent can't discuss flood map accuracy without being called a conspiracy theorist, we've lost our way. When parents can't ask why emergency alerts weren't sent without being labeled evil, we've abandoned accountability. When citizens can't inquire about weather modification programs their tax dollars fund without being dismissed as cranks, we've surrendered democratic oversight.
Amid the collective sadness sweeping Hill Country and our hearts, I've seen a community torn apart not by floodwater, but by the toxic idea that some questions are too dangerous to ask.
I want to keep helping families find their piece of paradise in these hills. But first, we need to make sure we can protect the families who call this place home. That means demanding better emergency warning systems that actually get used when seconds count. It means requiring accurate flood maps that account for change, not just historical patterns. It means transparent policies about weather modification programs and open discussion about their scope and safety.
Most importantly, it means reclaiming our right to ask hard questions when our children's lives depend on the answers.
Because the next time the river rises, our community's survival may depend on whether we had the courage to demand better today.
Lauren Byington is a licensed real estate professional specializing in Hill Country properties.
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