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T<\/span>wenty-seven blue, pink and purple trunks, adorned with yellow roses and other flowers, were placed within view of the White House on Monday \u2013 each representing a child who perished when Camp Mystic in Texas was overwhelmed by a devastating flood.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are gentle, angry people and we are singing for our lives,\u201d sang a group of activists, including mothers from Texas, as they protested against the deadly consequences of government cuts and Donald Trump\u2019s inaction on the climate crisis.<\/p>\n 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\u2019 initial response and possible improvements to warning systems in a special session on Monday.<\/p>\n The 34 activists who gathered at the Ellipse, south of the White House, held signs that said, \u201cWe need warnings, not cuts\u201d, \u201cFlood warnings came late, budget cuts came fir$t\u201d and \u201cNo more kids lost to climate disasters\u201d.<\/p>\n They attributed the fatalities in Texas not to a natural disaster but a \u201cpreventable and politically charged crisis\u201d 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.<\/p>\n The protesters, many with direct or indirect connections to the flood\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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: <\/strong>\u201cOur 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThey did not die as a result of natural disaster. They died as a result of choices \u2013 terrible and deadly choices \u2013 made by Kerr county officials, made by the state of Texas and made by the Trump administration.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThese 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.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s so-called \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d, passed by Congress in time for 4 July, will make matters worse, the activists argued, with a $200m cut to Noaa\u2019s forecasting and public alert programme. The cuts were inserted late in the process by the Texas senator Ted Cruz.<\/p>\n <\/span>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.<\/span> Photograph: Shawn Thew\/EPA<\/p>\n Gore, 43, a functional medicine nutritionist who now lives in Brooklyn, New York, said: \u201c<\/em>As a mother in the richest country in the world, I should not have to worry every night that I won\u2019t 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\u2019s a combination of cowardice and corruption.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Trump and Texas\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Nyeka Arnold, founder and executive director of the Healing Project, a grassroots non-profit in Austin, said: \u201cWhen humans don\u2019t prepare or respond to disasters, we make them worse. We need more than thoughts and prayers. We need accountability and that\u2019s why we\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n 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. \u201cEmergency planning that centres equity and not just politics.\u201d<\/p>\n Eileen McGinnis, who launched the Parents\u2019 Climate Community in 2019, said: \u201cOur 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWildfire 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Monday\u2019s protest ended with a call-and-response chant: \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twenty-seven blue, pink and purple trunks, adorned with yellow roses and other flowers, were placed within view of the White House on Monday \u2013 each representing a child who perished when Camp Mystic in Texas was overwhelmed by a devastating flood. \u201cWe are gentle, angry people and we are singing for our lives,\u201d sang a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[186,4396,3003,146,96,560,1010,5118],"class_list":{"0":"post-11666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-climate","9":"tag-disasters","10":"tag-flood","11":"tag-kids","12":"tag-lost","13":"tag-protest","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-washington"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}