Twenty-seven blue, pink and purple trunks, adorned with yellow roses and other flowers, were placed within view of the White House on Monday – each representing a child who perished when Camp Mystic in Texas was overwhelmed by a devastating flood.
“We are gentle, angry people and we are singing for our lives,” sang a group of activists, including mothers from Texas, as they protested against the deadly consequences of government cuts and Donald Trump’s inaction on the climate crisis.
Flash floods killed at least 135 people over the Fourth of July weekend. Most of the deaths were along the Guadalupe River in Kerr county, north-west of San Antonio. State legislators were due to discuss authorities’ initial response and possible improvements to warning systems in a special session on Monday.
The 34 activists who gathered at the Ellipse, south of the White House, held signs that said, “We need warnings, not cuts”, “Flood warnings came late, budget cuts came fir$t” and “No more kids lost to climate disasters”.
They attributed the fatalities in Texas not to a natural disaster but a “preventable and politically charged crisis” stemming from government defunding of critical agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and National Weather Service.
The protesters, many with direct or indirect connections to the flood’s victims, also condemned a broader failure to address the climate crisis and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable. They demanded immediate policy changes, full funding for weather and disaster response agencies and a rapid transition away from coal and oil.
Samantha Gore, who grew up attending a summer camp along the Guadalupe River, where fast-moving waters rose 26 feet and washed away homes and vehicles, said: “Our hearts are broken to be here today commemorating the lives of 27 children who should be at home right now, recounting the adventures they had at summer camp.
“They did not die as a result of natural disaster. They died as a result of choices – terrible and deadly choices – made by Kerr county officials, made by the state of Texas and made by the Trump administration.”
Accurate weather predictions and timely alerts could have saved lives but were hindered by systematic defunding, Gore added, noting that, since Trump took office, Noaa and the National Weather Service had lost more than 600 staff, while weather balloon launches, flood modelling tools and emergency communication systems have been suspended or scaled back in many regions.
“These cuts directly affected Texas. Key Texas weather offices are understaffed, including those responsible for issuing flood alerts. Emergency coordination at the local level has been weakened due to reduced federal support.”
Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”, passed by Congress in time for 4 July, will make matters worse, the activists argued, with a $200m cut to Noaa’s forecasting and public alert programme. The cuts were inserted late in the process by the Texas senator Ted Cruz.
Climate activists, with friends and family of Texas flood victims, attend a press conference and memorial for the lost children on the Ellipse in Washington DC. Photograph: Shawn Thew/EPA
Gore, 43, a functional medicine nutritionist who now lives in Brooklyn, New York, said: “As a mother in the richest country in the world, I should not have to worry every night that I won’t get flood warnings in time to save my family because our government defunded our National Weather Service and Noaa. This is insanity. This is so dangerous. This is not leadership. It’s a combination of cowardice and corruption.”
Trump and Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, have pushed back aggressively against questions about how well local authorities responded to forecasts of heavy rain and the first reports of flash flooding.
But activists called for Washington to restore all funding to Noaa, Fema and the National Weather Service, for Abbott to release funds for flood relief without partisan conditions, for polluters to be held accountable and for a rapid transition to clean energy.
Nyeka Arnold, founder and executive director of the Healing Project, a grassroots non-profit in Austin, said: “When humans don’t prepare or respond to disasters, we make them worse. We need more than thoughts and prayers. We need accountability and that’s why we’re here.”
Arnold called for investment in local communities rooted response systems as well as infrastructure funding for flood prevention and climate resilience in historically marginalised neighbourhoods. “Emergency planning that centres equity and not just politics.”
Eileen McGinnis, who launched the Parents’ Climate Community in 2019, said: “Our kids are at the frontline of the climate crisis and we see this playing out in so many ways, big and small. Summers no longer have the same sense of unbridled joy and possibility.
“Wildfire smoke, extreme heat make it dangerous for kids even to set foot out there. Young people who survived disasters like the recent floods can develop PTSD, which is compounded by poverty, repeat exposures to disasters or other sources of instability in their lives. The list goes on and on.”
Monday’s protest ended with a call-and-response chant: “The people, we rise; the people, we rise; up from the wreckage, we rise; with tears and with courage, we rise; fighting for life, we rise.”
