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00:00People don't realize this.
00:02Lightning and flash floods kill more people every year than tornadoes do.
00:07Really?
00:08Yeah.
00:16Welcome to the Myers Report Fast 15.
00:19It is Friday, July 11th, 2025.
00:24Another Myers Report forecast has come through from our team.
00:30On November 11th, 2024, our team forecast that legislation, this is a quote,
00:37legislation will be introduced and passed limiting foreign ownership of U.S. farmland.
00:44This particularly will relate to China and land near U.S. military bases and other sensitive facilities.
00:51The legislation could include a mandatory buyback.
00:54While the talk yet for a mandatory buyback is not there, it will be.
00:59This is particularly important because of the lessons learned in the Russia-Ukraine war
01:04and with the Israelis who launched drone attacks against Iran from inside Iran.
01:10We saw this coming, and the wake-up call is being heard in the halls of Congress and the Senate today.
01:16Last weekend, a tragedy struck the Texas Hill Country with a flash flood that took over 100 lives.
01:24Rumors and accusations are spewing as some try to politicize this human tragedy, which is by itself terrible.
01:33Lies are being told.
01:34It's just not good.
01:36However, we have our own weather and climate expert, Don Day, who this morning is going to provide us with some facts, logic, and perhaps even a bit of sanity.
01:48Don, what happened meteorologically?
01:50Well, there was a lot going on, but I'm very susceptible to a lot of subtropical moisture that comes up out of Mexico and Central America, the Gulf of America and the Gulf of California.
02:04And not only is it susceptible to flash flooding, it's common.
02:10And this was really part of the problem that we'll get to here in a minute.
02:14They call this flash flood alley.
02:15It's a combination of the soil and the rock type and the river systems, all very close to high water content air coming up out of the south.
02:28And they were susceptible, will remain susceptible to these types of weather events.
02:33And we get something that's called training, where you get a thunderstorm that will form, dump a lot of rain in one spot, and have another thunderstorm come in right behind it.
02:43So it's multiple thunderstorms over the same location.
02:47And that's why you get rain totals like what you're seeing here on the map.
02:51Is this unusual, Don?
02:55I don't like to, anytime we get into the weather discussions, unusual is not the best way to describe it.
03:03More like infrequent is a better way to describe it.
03:06Because we know they've happened in the past.
03:09I mean, I can go back and give you a long list of flash floods in Texas that were just as big, but not as deadly.
03:18Don, in Texas, the government has been accused of not having the right early warning system or perhaps cutting spending to the point where they couldn't get the information out about what could happen.
03:32What's your reaction to that?
03:33What do you say about that?
03:35Yeah, no, I agree.
03:36And I, first of all, blame was assigned on the National Weather Service at the beginning by some Texas officials, which I think was wrong.
03:47Very wrong.
03:49Because in retrospect, they were on top of it.
03:52But the warnings they issued were not effectively communicated.
03:57You know, we've put a lot of resources in tornado warnings with sirens, a lot of infrastructure for that type of thing, which is great.
04:05But people don't realize this.
04:08Lightning and flash floods kill more people every year than tornadoes do.
04:14Really?
04:14And, yeah.
04:15And one reason for that is tornadoes and, you know, are predicted well in advance.
04:20We've got the sirens out there.
04:22We're all used to tornadoes.
04:24But people get caught in flash floods not knowing what to do.
04:28Most people in flash floods are killed in their cars because they try to drive out of flooding situations and get themselves into trouble.
04:36But what were the were there sirens that went off, Don?
04:39What was the actual warning signals for this?
04:44Some communities have sirens, some don't.
04:46And it also happened in the middle of the night.
04:49And that was a problem as well.
04:52I mean, a lot of people just turn their phones off at night or put them on silent.
04:55And a lot of the new technology we rely on now for getting warnings is smartphone-based.
05:02When really we need to go back and address that because cell coverage is poor in some areas.
05:07And a good old siren or a good old National Weather Service weather alert radio probably would have been a lot more effective at reaching people.
05:16But our over-reliance on our technology, I think, is part of the problem here.
05:21I've got to tell you, when I hear any warnings on the radio or I get flashes on my phone or my email, it doesn't get my attention the way a siren does.
05:34Yeah, of course.
05:35So just to be clear, were there no sirens?
05:37Was it only the phones that went off?
05:39Well, it was a combination of things.
05:41Some sirens went off in some locations where they had it.
05:44Warnings were issued.
05:47But I think when they go back and piece this together what happened, they're going to find that there was failure of communicating the warnings in a timely manner and reaching people.
05:59Now, I always tell people that are organizing things in summer, like summer camps or big events, you assign a person as the weather officer.
06:09You assign somebody who is going to be on top of the weather and responsible for tracking warnings.
06:17But also, I do think there was some flash flood fatigue.
06:22Since that part of the country gets flash flooding a lot, they're used to flash flood warnings.
06:29And not always do flash floods occur or are as deadly.
06:33So that was part of the problem.
06:36Another big part of the problem is where we decide to build things.
06:40Why are we building big facilities with a lot of young people right next to a river historically known to flood?
06:48And people who do zoning, people who allow buildings to be built in these places, I think need to really reassess on how they do things.
06:57Doesn't that also harken to the question of why does New Orleans continue to rebuild when it's below sea level?
07:07Yes. I mean, everybody wants a Malibu mansion on the California coast.
07:13But, you know, then when a storm or a fire comes through, they get angry.
07:17It's like, well, why did that happen to me?
07:19It's like, well, you build right yourself in front of danger.
07:22If you look at the urban sprawl in Oklahoma City, the people that are building subdivisions and communities in the middle of Tornado Alley, I just, it's hard to fathom.
07:34And it's just a matter of when, you know, there's going to be really bad things happening there.
07:43Don, there was also talk about staff cutbacks.
07:47Did they have any impact on the National Weather Service?
07:51Well, the Weather Service is still chronically understaffed.
07:56The San Antonio office was staffed.
07:59In fact, they brought in extra people because they knew there was a situation that potentially could develop.
08:06So they staffed up.
08:08So the cuts in this particular situation did not have an impact.
08:12So basically, when someone is saying that doge cutbacks were caused this tragedy, they're basically speaking out of their behinds.
08:23They are.
08:24But I'm going to say this, and you may not, some of you may not like this comment.
08:28But as I was a critic of some of the doge cuts with the Weather Service before, the current administration set them up for this, set up the criticism, because a lot of the doge cuts with the Weather Service were reckless and not well done, not well thought out.
08:44So while doge cuts were not part of this disaster, they kind of brought it on themselves and brought on the criticism and brought on the criticism and they did not listen to people.
08:57The administration did not listen to people like myself.
09:00I know because I reached out to my senators and congressmen and all else I heard was crickets.
09:06So I have to not blame the doge cuts, but they did not do a good job with that.
09:14Sorry to say.
09:15Don, there was rumors that there was cloud seeding happening just two days before the event took place.
09:21Is that science or sci-fi?
09:24Well, a little bit of both.
09:25I mean, I don't know why anybody was cloud seeding down there, but there was a commercial outfit that was doing cloud seeding two days before.
09:32But seeding has to take place during the event.
09:35So two days prior wasn't going to do anything.
09:38And this was not the result of chemtrails or weather modification or somebody trying to control the weather.
09:44This was a confluence of events.
09:47I'd call it a black swan weather event.
09:49A major weather event happened at the wrong time at the wrong location.
09:56Don, was there anything that the government or we could have done better?
10:03Always.
10:04And there are a lot of people, including myself, calling for a national disaster review panel, which we don't have,
10:12which is to assess where we can do better when we have these natural disasters on all levels, state, local, and federal levels.
10:21A lot of time after these, you know, we go back and we pick up the pieces.
10:25But a lot of times we do not go back and talk about how we could have done it better.
10:30Bob Janetsky, Bob, amid all the chaos and tragedy, there is some good news in the form of a possible Mideast ceasefire.
10:45You wrote a piece on that.
10:46You wrote a little bit about that this morning.
10:49Do you want to let people know what happened?
10:51Well, yeah.
10:52Apparently in Hebron, on the West Bank, one of the major areas of the West Bank, a number of the sheikhs got together, and it was a substantial number,
11:03put their names on a document that said that they basically wanted to recognize the existence of Israel,
11:10join the Abraham Accords with the other Arab nations, and form what they called an Emirate of Hebron,
11:17which would be a separate political entity that could negotiate terms with Israel for employment opportunities and a lasting peace.
11:29And it seems to me to be, you know, a very, very positive, potentially moving element.
11:35Whenever people start to get together and talk about, you know, getting along with their neighbor and having peace, it's very positive.
11:45Now, how far it goes and whether it goes anywhere, all we can do is hope and pray.
11:52Let's hope it succeeds.
11:54Bob, on the business side, how does the inflation picture look?
11:58The inflation picture still is looking, you know, okay.
12:03I wouldn't call it great.
12:05I mean, all the inflation numbers suggest that we're at the two and a half to maybe three percent vicinity.
12:12We're going to get some numbers this coming week, but the numbers are affected by what was a huge one percentage point monthly increase in oil prices in June.
12:24So that, I think, could really tip the inflation numbers even higher a year-over-year basis.
12:30We'll have to wait and see when the CPI comes out.
12:33That's the bad news.
12:35The good news is the oil prices have come down, albeit only slightly since then.
12:41So the next month, the July numbers that come out in August should be just a little softer.
12:49But we're still having the effect of all of these tariffs, and that's still unknown.
12:53So far, the effect of the tariffs has not shown up in the inflation numbers, not to any great extent.
13:00I mean, two and a half, three and a half percent inflation, that's still pretty good in the scheme of things, given where we were.
13:07But there's a concern that with all of these tariffs that Trump is announcing, that we're going to see those prices go up anyway.
13:16The S&P 500 and other indexes are back at all-time highs.
13:21Do you think this is going to continue?
13:23Our model, again, our short-term momentum model says all the momentum is there.
13:29Now, this morning, the markets are down.
13:32Trump has apparently announced more major tariffs increases.
13:37But again, usually they're postponed until August 1st.
13:41So the hope is that he's going to settle with a number of other countries.
13:46We're expecting an agreement within the next week or two with the EU.
13:50The EU has said we are very close to agreeing with the U.S.
13:54And so that would be a huge agreement because the EU is basically an economy that's roughly the size of the United States.
14:02So a trade agreement with them is just tremendous.
14:05And I think it would propel other countries to join the pack.
14:09That's good.
14:11Okay.
14:12With that, I want to say thank you.
14:14Have a great, a good weekend.
14:16Be safe.
14:17And God bless America.
14:20And God bless America.
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