Flash floods swept through Texas Hill Country over the 4 July holiday, killing more than 100 people and leaving dozens missing. Among the dead were 27 children attending Camp Mystic on the Guadalupe River, where cabins were destroyed in minutes. State and federal authorities are still searching riverbanks and assessing damage in Center Point, Hunt and surrounding communities. The catastrophe has revived a long-running dispute over the Trump administration’s deep cuts to weather and disaster agencies. Democrats and former officials say reductions in staffing and research funding at the National Weather Service and its parent, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, weakened forecasting capacity. At least 55 of the NWS’s 122 field offices currently have vacancy rates above 20%, and a pending proposal would cut NOAA’s budget by roughly $2 billion and shrink its 12,000-person workforce by 18%. Amid the political backlash, the Senate Commerce Committee on 9 July questioned Neil Jacobs, President Trump’s nominee to head NOAA. Jacobs told lawmakers that “staffing the Weather Service offices is a top priority” and pledged a post-disaster assessment of the Texas floods. He also outlined plans to modernize weather radios and use satellite and telecom technologies for faster alerts, while indicating support for elements of the administration’s budget blueprint. Lawmakers are seeking broader accountability. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has asked the Commerce Department’s inspector general to investigate whether the layoffs contributed to the high death toll, and House Democrats warned that further cuts mean “people will needlessly die.” The debate over federal preparedness comes as hurricane season intensifies and the administration pursues separate plans to overhaul FEMA.