Greg Abbott isn't the first Texas Republican governor to offload the blame for repeated tragedy in Texas onto others (primarily, Democrats), but he is the latest. And, he's been in office for over a decade, and in that time what has improved in Texas?

Nothing.

Children still dying in mass shootings. Teachers are still woefully underpaid, and educational outcome of students in Texas rank as some of the lowest in the nation. Women and babies still dying from one of the most restrictive set of laws in this country placed on women's health and bodily autonomy, and now this: over 100 people swept away in floodwaters along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Ingram, and Kerrville.

For years, well before my sister and I, and our mother and aunts before us, were campers at one of the many camps along the Guadalupe River, the danger of the river has been well known. While summer deluges are rare in central Texas, they are not unknown, and when they happen, be it from a hurricane coming onshore from the Gulf Of Mexico, or a Pacific tropical storm that has made its way across Mexico into our state, the Guadalupe River can quickly overrun its banks, with predictable results.

Automated flood warning systems exist, and they have been proven to save lives. State and local officials have repeatedly, and for decades, refused to upgrade the warning systems in dangerous places along rivers in Texas. There was no warning sent out to the citizens of Kerr County.

But, it's even worse than that. The citizens in this state are so brainwashed that in 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $5.1M American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 grant that could have been used to, among other things, upgrade the flood warning system along the river. One resident, attending a meeting on the subject of accepting Federal grant money said, "And I'm here to ask this Court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House. And Kerr County should not be accepting anything from these people. They're currently facilitating an invasion of our border, and we're going to support these people? So that's what I have to say. Thank you."

So, this is what we're dealing with here.

Families from across the state sending their most precious gifts, their children, to the dozens of camps along a river that has been known to quickly swell and kill those recreating along its banks. And the residents who live there rely on a notification chain of phone calls to one another, and even Facebook posts, to warn of impending disaster.

This is not how modern, functional state or local governments should operate.

Texas lawmakers failed to pass a bill to improve local disaster warning systems this year

For the last three days, state Rep. Wes Virdell has been out with first responders in Kerr County as they searched for victims and survivors from the devastating floods that swept through Central Texas early Friday morning.

“All the focus right now is let’s save all the lives we can,” Virdell, who was still on the scene in Kerrville, told The Texas Tribune on Sunday.

Virdell’s closeup view of the havoc wreaked on his district has made a lasting impression, he said, and left him reconsidering a vote he made just a few months ago against a bill that would have established a statewide plan to improve Texas’ disaster response, including better alert systems, along with a grant program for counties to buy new emergency communication equipment and build new infrastructure like radio towers.

“I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now,” said Virdell, a freshman GOP lawmaker from Brady.

The Texas legislature came together this year, as it does once every two years, to pass important legislation such as further restricting a woman's right to bodily autonomy, and passing draconian laws targeting the LGBTQ+ community. They passed laws restricting the growing and use, and sale of hemp, along with giving public education tax dollars to private schools (aka, 'vouchers').

But, somehow, the legislature couldn't be bothered to pass laws that actually help save lives in this state.

We have Ted Cruz, who constantly and without fail, politicizes disasters, saying that now is not the time to politicize disasters. This is the same guy who headed to a Mexican resort as this state became an ice block in February 2021, and then blamed his kids. This is the same guy who within hours of massacres offers 'thoughts and prayers' and says that now is not the time to make things political.

Does it surprise anyone that Ted Cruz was on vacation in Greece when this happened? Do people like Ted Cruz actually do any work for the people, or do they just cash the checks?

And so, back to Greg Abbott: sitting in front of the people giving a press conference where he thanks all his Republican sycophants and grifters, says they won't rest until they recover all of the dead Texans from the flood debris of the Guadalupe River.

Glad that Greg Abbott isn't resting until all the dead kids, that shouldn't be dead, are recovered.

Texas Republicans could do good things for this state, but they won't. They never have, and they never will. They continue to wage culture war against women and vulnerable people, and will never, ever do the right thing.