this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025

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205

The Texas way: why the most disaster-prone US state is so allergic to preparing for disasters (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 7 months ago by Davriellelouna@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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[–] riskable@programming.dev 50 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

To summarize: Texas allows itself to be governed via right wing ideology and right wing ideology makes for piss poor disaster preparedness.

Expecting your government to do anything at all to protect people from disasters is literally the opposite of right wing ideology. Disaster preparedness—in the form of warning systems and building regulations—are implementations socialism (and environmentalism).

If you're a conservative (or libertarian), little girls dying in floods every few years is your ideal scenario. That's literally what you believe in! That it's not the government's job to prevent such things.

And let's be honest: If you're conservative you probably don't believe in global warming either so this is just an "act of God" that no one could've predicted (except science did predict this). Clearly, God is punishing those little girls (or their parents) for... Living in Texas?

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 3 points 7 months ago

isnt texas also reliant federal dollars via having tons of US military bases there.

[–] Jolly_Platypus@lemmy.world 43 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Because Texans aren't very bright?

[–] voxthefox@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 7 months ago

There are a lot of very bright texans, they're just concentrated heavily in urban areas, gerrymandered to hell and our opposition party is even dumber than the national democrats. Not that there aren't frustratingly a lot of really dumb texans.

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They put self-reliance above everything else, while also not being all that self-reliant. So yeah, morons.

[–] Jolly_Platypus@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

[–] NoForwardslashS@sopuli.xyz 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The Lone Brain Cell State

[–] mxcory@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 7 months ago

They earned that one star sticker in school and are so proud of it.

[–] MisterOwl@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

Bingo.

[–] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago

Article can be summarized thusly: They're morons.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They're stupid and corrupt.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 8 points 7 months ago

Uneduct and corrupt. It's not that they're genetically predisposed to have a lower intelligence, it's that their government actively works on keeping the majority of the population dumb as dumb people are easier to control and manipulate and lie to

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I mean they don't believe at all in federal government unless you're talking about ice raids or police. Then they also don't really believe in state government unless you're talking about bending over and spreading wide for industrial waste generating junk corporations. Then much of the state is unincorporated praire so you're not getting a local government that takes great care of the tumbleweeds. It's basically anarcho capitalism in Texas which is exactly why it sucks so much.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

I mean they don't believe at all in federal government unless you're talking about ice raids or police.

That's not true at all! How can you just ignore that they'll happily come to the fed and take all kinds of money (whether or not they use it for the intended purpose, or ignore disaster preparedness to spend the money on militarizing the cops)

[–] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Everything’s bigger in Texas.

[–] Linktank@lemmy.today 2 points 7 months ago

The bigots,the morons, the assholes...

[–] DrunkEngineer@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Texas can spend all the money in the world on disaster preparedness, but it won't matter if Camp Staff has their cell phones and weather radios switched off.

[–] Atomic@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

You couldn't even be bothered to read the article could you?

Here's a fun fact for you. Outdoor sirens can be heard by people, regardless of the status of their electronic devices.

As the article states. Texas seems very willing to spend enormous sums of money on disaster recovery, but very little on prevention, as the mentioned siren system was shut down in the Texas Senate for the reason of "too expensive"

[–] DrunkEngineer@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The siren system was shut down because the technology was unreliable and giving out way too many false alarms -- to the point where the residents were just ignoring it. It is a difficult problem because you need to give enough possible advance warning to evacuate, but not so much that they start tuning it out altogether. Even modern first-world countries struggle with this.

[–] Atomic@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/06/texas-disaster-warning-emergency-communication-bill-kerrville-floods/

The measure, House Bill 13, would have created a new government council to establish the emergency response plan and administer the grant program, both of which would have been aimed at facilitating better communication between first responders. The bill also called for the plan to include “the use of outdoor warning sirens,” like those used in tornado-prone Texas counties, and develop new “emergency alert systems.”

The technology isn't unreliable. It's a question of implementation. It's a question about money and how much you want to spend refining and improving the software controlling it and surrounding sensors.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

if they wernt they wouldn't have energy sector completely controlled by an oligarchy, texas most resemble russia out of all the states.