Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio's newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.
A new poll reported that slightly more than half of Americans believed most deaths could have been prevented if government officials had been better prepared for Texas flooding this July.
The Economist/YouGov poll asked, “Do you think most of the deaths from the floods in Texas could have been avoided if the government had been better prepared or were these deaths tragic but unavoidable?”
Pollsters surveyed nearly 1,680 U.S. adults this week, and 52% of them blamed lack of government preparation for most of the deaths, mainly centered in Kerr County along the Guadalupe River.
Also, 29% of them believed the deaths were unavoidable.
TPR’s journalism is free to read, but not free to produce. If you believe in independent, local journalism, help us keep it going.
The poll found that 38% said the government's response to the flood was poor, 31% found Gov. Greg Abbott's response was also poor, and 22% felt the same way about FEMA's response.
However, only 9% of Americans thought FEMA should be eliminated, as President Trump has proposed. They had similar views on cuts at the National Weather Service.
Pollsters reported that 54% of Americans said they thought global warming has caused an increase in natural disasters, while 27% said global warming did not cause an increase in natural disaster, and 19% weren't sure.
State and local officials have said, as they were peppered with questions about emergency warning systems at multiple press conferences, that no one could have been prepared for the river to rise 26 feet in 45 minutes.
