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Devastating flooding in central Texas over the July 4, 2025, weekend highlighted a number of elements of the state’s danger profile that are also related to the remainder of the nation, in accordance with the newest Triple-I Issues Brief. One is the rising incidence of extreme inland flooding associated to tropical storms.
Tropical Storm Barry made landfall in Mexico on June 29 and weakened shortly, however its remnant moisture drifted northward into Texas, in accordance with Dr. Phil Klotzbach, a analysis scientist within the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University and a Triple-I non-resident scholar.
“A slow-moving low-pressure area developed and helped bring up the moisture-rich air rom Barry and concentrated it over the Hill Country of central Texas,” Klotzbach stated. “The soil was also extremely hard from prior drought conditions, which exacerbated the flash flooding that occurred.”
Such flooding removed from landfall has turn into extra frequent and extreme lately. In Texas – as in a lot of the United States, notably removed from the coasts – few owners have flood insurance coverage. Many imagine flood harm is roofed by their owners’ or renters’ insurance coverage. Others imagine the protection will not be price shopping for if their mortgage lender doesn’t require it. In Kerr County, the place a lot of the July 4 flooding happened, flood insurance coverage take-up charges by way of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) have been 2.5 p.c.
Convective storms, fires, and freezes
But tropical storms aren’t all the time the impetus for flooding. In July 2023, a sequence of intense thunderstorms resulted in heavy rainfall, lethal flash floods, and extreme river flooding in jap Kentucky and central Appalachia. The circumstances that result in such extreme convective storms are also prevalent in Texas.
Severe convective storms are a rising supply of losses for property/casualty insurers. According to Gallagher Re, extreme convective storm occasions in 2023 and 2024 “have cost global insurers a remarkable US$143 billion, of which US$120 billion occurred in the U.S. alone.”
Given its aridity and winds, it needs to be no shock that Texas is very topic to wildfire – however the state additionally has been more and more vulnerable to extreme winter storms and debilitating freezes. On Valentine’s Day 2021, snow fell throughout most of Texas, accumulating as temperatures stayed under freezing and precipitation continued by way of the evening. A catastrophic failure of the state’s impartial electrical grid exacerbated these circumstances as snow and ice shut down roads and plenty of properties suffered pipe bursts and a number of days with out energy.
Texas’s 2021 expertise illustrates how grid instability can act as a “risk multiplier” for pure disasters. The complete U.S. electrical energy grid is more and more susceptible because the infrastructure ages and proliferating AI information facilities improve demand.
Need for information and collaboration
The extreme harm and lack of life from the July 4 flooding have naturally raised the query of whether or not the Trump Administration’s reductions in National Weather Service staffing contributed to the excessive human price of this occasion. While it’s arduous to say with certainty, these cuts have affected how NWS works – for instance, in its use of climate balloons to watch climate. As early as April, staffing information gathered by NWS indicated that subject workplaces have been “critically understaffed”.
In June, panelists at Triple-I’s Joint Industry Forum expressed concern concerning the impression of the federal cuts on climate monitoring and modeling, in addition to applications to assist communities adequately put together for and get well from disasters. Triple-I has revealed extensively on the necessity for insurers to shift from completely specializing in repairing and changing property to predicting occasions and stopping harm.
Collective motion in any respect ranges – particular person, industrial, and authorities – is required to mitigate dangers, construct resilience, and scale back fraud and authorized system abuse. Triple-I and its members are dedicated to fostering such motion and repeatedly present information and evaluation to tell the mandatory conversations.
Learn More:
Triple-I Brief Highlights Rising Inland Flood Risk
Hurricane Helene Highlights Inland Flood Protection Gap
JIF 2025: Federal Cuts Imperil Resilience Efforts
Weather Balloons’ Role in Readiness, Resilience
ClimateTech Connect Confronts Climate Peril From Washington Stage
BRIC Funding Loss Underscores Need for Collective Action on Climate Resilience
JIF 2024: Collective, Data-Driven Approaches Needed to Address Climate-Related Perils
Texas Winter Storm Costs Raise Extreme-Weather Flags for States, Localities