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The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson
The PR Breakdown reveals the moves behind the mess. Crisis communication expert Molly McPherson dissects the viral scandals, celebrity meltdowns, and corporate disasters dominating headlines to show you the strategic mistakes and desperate moves that destroy reputations - so you never make them yourself.
The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson
Flood Warning Failures: The Texas Tragedy
When the flood came, the warnings didn’t. In this episode, a deadly cascade of communication breakdowns and the consequences of delay. At least 129 people are dead, with dozens still missing, after historic flash flooding swept through central Texas. The timeline reveals a gap between federal alerts and local action. Lives were lost in those hours.
We examine what went wrong, why the local warning system never materialized despite years of requests, and how messaging from state and national leaders continues to fail the public in real-time. From delayed sirens to political deflections, this is a story about infrastructure, accountability, and the high cost of silence.
Plus: the Camp Mystic aftermath, FEMA’s delayed deployment, the governor’s football analogy, and the backlash to a viral video that reframed the tragedy through race and privilege.
The floodwaters receded. The questions haven’t.
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At least 129 people have died and 166 are still missing. Is there any way we can send the code red out to our hunt residences abductions?
News Clip:upon our ground or stay home. By the time authorities were in the midst of this they were dealing with this it was already too late. People were already in danger.
Molly McPherson:In this episode we're talking about a real-time high-stakes crisis with very real consequences the devastating floods in Central Texas and the mounting communication failures that have left a community grieving, families devastated and a nation asking questions. As of today, friday July 11th, more than 120 people have died following flash flooding in Texas Hill Country. At least 36 of those lives were lost at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp for girls along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, where the river surged in the middle of the night on July 4th. President Donald Trump is in Texas today as I record this episode, meeting with first responders and families. He'll be joined by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. They will be in Kerrville, the nearest city to the camp, where they're expected to receive briefings from state and local officials.
Molly McPherson:The response, however, has been anything but smooth, from delayed warnings to mixed political messaging. This episode will examine how communication broke down before, during and after the flood, and why messaging in the middle of a disaster is not just a formality but a matter of life and death. Let's start with the facts. Around 4.15 am on July 4th, the National Weather Service office in San Angelo issued a rare flash flood emergency. Minutes later, the Austin-San Antonio National Weather Service office issued a similar warning on its social media accounts. These are the most urgent alerts that the weather service can issue, but in Kerr County, where the flooding hit hardest, official local alerts didn't start going out until well after 5 am. The city of Kerrville's police department posted its first Facebook warning at 5.16 am. The Kerr County Sheriff followed at 5.32 am. Then, over an hour later, at 6.22 am, the city posted a message downplaying the situation, noting that quote much needed rain had arrived and may affect July 4th events. The city posted a message downplaying the situation, noting that quote much needed rain end quote had arrived and may affect July 4th events. At 7.32 am, nearly three hours after the initial federal warning, the city finally urged residents living along the Guadalupe River to move to higher ground.
Molly McPherson:A newly surfaced dispatch call 911 dispatch call reveals that a volunteer firefighter in the town of Ingram, just 10 miles from Camp Mystic, was requesting a code red emergency alert as early as 422 am. There was no system in place to send such an alert countrywide. Why? Because Kerr County doesn't have a public flood warning system and that absence isn't for a lack of trying. I read an article in the New York Times this morning. They had an investigation where they revealed that since 2017, kerr County applied at least three times for federal grants to build such a system. Each time, the request was denied, first by FEMA and later by the Texas Division of Emergency Management. The reason cited was that they wanted to divert more funds to flood response recovery from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. In April of this year, the county did finally allocate $73,000 to start building a warning system, but it came too late.
Molly McPherson:The October 2024 hazard mitigation plan submitted by the county to FEMA even warned that a serious flood was likely within a year. The report noted that a flood warning system could reduce loss of life, especially for those in quote substandard structures, end quote. If you think about that, if you were to read that term, substandard structures you might immediately default to temporary homes, module homes, campsites. But would you think of a summer camp? Would you think of people vacationing? Not necessarily, but either way, by the time the rain came, no sirens existed. The PR takeaway if your own plan predicts a deadly event, a catastrophic event, a weather event, and you don't communicate that clearly or act on it, then you cannot rely on hindsight to rebuild public trust. Then the question happens oftentimes after a disaster. Who's to blame? When the waters receded, the finger pointing began. At a July 5th press conference, kerr County Judge Rob Kelly was asked why the summer camps weren't evacuated. His answer was simple Quote I can't answer that, I don't know. End quote no-transcript of a U-turn on their plans to eliminate my former employer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Molly McPherson:Now, if you've been paying attention, since January, since he was elected, president Trump has put FEMA in the crosshairs. He wants the bloat of that agency gone, but after these devastating floods they have a change of tune. The Washington Post quoted a White House official who said that no official action is being taken to wind down FEMA and that changes in the agency will probably amount to get this rebranding that will emphasize state leaders' roles in disaster response. This senior official goes on to say quote the president immediately delivered the dollars. Texas already has that money in their hands and Governor Abbott that's Greg Abbott is the lead decision maker when it comes to the Texas floods.
Molly McPherson:You should expect the structure that has quietly taken place to continue. End quote. What that is a complete about face, because back in January there was a meeting of the FEMA Review Council. This was a meeting that one could look at, even on the surface, was a meeting that one could look at even on the surface as publicly putting information out there that shows why Trump made an executive order like a pledge to reshape the federal disaster response. He wanted FEMA gone and you immediately recognized the framing if you were to watch this meeting, which I did. Here is a quote from that meeting. Take a listen.
:As President Trump has given us the responsibility of looking at an agency that, in the past, has been there in times of crisis for many people on their worst day that they've ever experienced, but many times in the past it has failed. It's an agency that has become bloated. Some of the funds have been diverted to purposes under the last administration that did not serve the American people.
Molly McPherson:That was DHS Secretary Cristina. Now imagine you're sitting there and you work for FEMA and that is the framing that is immediately coming out of the head of DHS. When I worked for FEMA, fema was a part of DHS. I cannot imagine at that time like working at that agency and knowing that the secretary was actively working to get rid of the entire agency. Here's more from Nome.
:President Trump has given us a clear direction by pointing out that in the aftermath of Hurricane Celine and Milton, FEMA disobeyed orders. They spent tens of millions of dollars in Democrat area. Meanwhile, they left the people of North Carolina high and dry. Unfortunately, those situations that happened weren't the only places of failure of FEMA over the years.
Molly McPherson:Now, this isn't a big surprise, because since Trump took over in January, he's been talking a lot. He's been mentioning FEMA a lot. Back in January, during the wildfire response in Los Angeles, president Trump said this during a press conference.
News Clip:I do have to say FEMA is a big disappointment. We had it working well, we had great people, but FEMA is not good anymore. What FEMA did in North Carolina, they still haven't even gone to certain areas. They don't know what they're doing. And I say you don't need FEMA, you need a good state government.
Molly McPherson:So what we're witnessing right now is a complete U-turn by the White House. There has been a growing count of billion-dollar natural disasters severe storms, drought, flood, wildfires, severe cold. From 2020 to 2024, Texas suffered 68 of those costly events. Florida was second. Louisiana is also a state that receives a lot of aid as well. Now, the Doge efforts already cut roughly 20 percent of FEMA staff and moved to freeze its funds. So, with Donald Trump repeatedly signaling his interest to just completely strip any of the responsibility on the federal agency and put it in the hands of the state, the timing of this flood could not be worse.
Molly McPherson:Now fingers are pointing from a local perspective and federal, because FEMA did not deploy urban search and rescue teams until more than 72 hours after the flood. Why the delay? That's not FEMA, that's Homeland Security Secretary Noem, because now there's a new rule that's been imposed, requiring her personal sign-off on contracts over $100,000. So while state and local officials scrambled, federal help was delayed, not by logistics but by bureaucracy. The last disaster I worked on when I worked for FEMA was a hurricane in Texas. The trip started in North Carolina and my team we were like on this broadcast team we followed two tropical storms and one that eventually turned into a hurricane. Two tropical storms and one that eventually turned into a hurricane, and that's Hurricane Ike. And so we ended the trip in Texas, in Houston. The reason why you want the federal deployment and you want the federal resources there is because you have JICs, you have joint information centers, you have the federal government working with state governments within the state. When disasters happen and they come in, sometimes the state, when disasters happen and they come in, sometimes the state can be overwhelmed, which is exactly what we're seeing happening in Texas right now.
Molly McPherson:I remember coming in before the hurricane. We were there already prepping. I remember speaking with the guys with the Urban Search and Rescue Corps. They were all ready to go. I remember doing media training with some of the federal coordinating officers. There, everything was prepped and everybody was preparing Now. Granted, this flood was not something that anyone expected to this level, so it'd be hard to plan for something, unlike a hurricane, where you do have that warning. However, there's training, there's people who know exactly what needs to be done. I can't even imagine the search and rescue teams just sitting there waiting while all this was happening. I could not imagine. If I were a parent who had experience working with urban search and rescue teams, knowing that my child was still lost if they were at Camp Mystic, I would be out of my mind the PR takeaway. When communication decisions are politicized, the public loses clarity in sometimes lives. Now what's happening?
Molly McPherson:at a local response level. This is what comes naturally the scrutiny. After the disaster comes the scrutiny. Local officials were quick to downplay the fault. At a press briefing, kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr said he wasn't in office when the emergency alert plans were developed. He focused on support from state leaders and called media questioning disrespectful. Now I have to give Herring a break here. There's been a lot of clips about him at press conferences.
Molly McPherson:The first press conference from last Tuesday was a complete disaster. So many questions were being asked but there weren't a lot of answers. A lot of the officials there had nothing to say. Because they didn't have answers, because there was a lot of confusion on the ground. But also they're stuck in a position where they cannot go against Governor Abbott and they can't go against President Trump as well. So in many cases, it's true they don't have answers, but also they don't know what to say in that situation.
Molly McPherson:So naturally, when people are in the glare of the spotlight, particularly in the middle of a crisis like this Kerrville mayor Joe Herring Jr things get a little snippy. Now I've worked with a lot of leaders in very hot situations. I don't blame him. Like when people get worried and people are worried about their reputation, they get very defensive. That's what he did, but when you're an elected official, you should know how to comport yourself in these types of situations. Yes, he's a small town mayor. Yes, it is possible likely that he's never done a press conference to this level. It's not just local press, it's national press, it's international press. There is a lot going on in that one town. For a curve-o mayor like Herring Jr, however, his reaction was a bad one. Take a listen.
News Clip:Nothing is as heart-wrenching as hearing the stories of what the girls around here, especially the girls at Camp Mystic, went through To see, where they lived in one moment, where they disappeared the next moment and were gone forever a few moments after that. I wanted these people to know, I want you all to know. The hearts of our fellow Texans are breaking every single day because of what people of this community and the surrounding area are going through.
Molly McPherson:Like you can understand, a mayor in that position. He's being pelted by all these questions. He's worried, he's scared, he doesn't want to show that, but he gets defensive. You should never blame the press in that type of a situation. It's a press conference. There's a million questions. That's what press conferences are. But it's also their press conference. They're the ones controlling it. They're the ones running it. If someone at the desk, someone like speaking at the mic, at the bank of mics, they can control it, they can decide whose questions they want to answer. And the reporter it's very rightfully said you're not giving us your answers.
Molly McPherson:Raymond Howard, a city council member in Ingram, said this to the New York Times. Quote the more I'm finding out about it, the more I'm getting pissed off. They spend money on all types of other stuff. It makes me very sad that they talked about it but never followed through. He's speaking about the alert system. This is what happens with scrutiny. People who are genuinely upset, people who want to come out and have the guts to come out and say this should have been done, those make for the very, very good quotes. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick himself said quote there should have been sirens here and added if local officials couldn't afford it, then the state will set up. Now it looks like the state is pointing the finger back at Kerrville.
Molly McPherson:In the end, the messaging from local leaders lacked urgency and, in some cases, lacked empathy. Governor Abbott at one press conference said the word he heard the most during the disaster was prayer. But grieving families need more than thoughts. They need more than prayers, they need answers. And it wasn't just the Kerrville mayor who got a little testy on the mic, it was also Governor Abbott himself. He was put on the spot and he deflected in a way that I see so often with leaders as well. And he deflected in a way again that is so typical that becomes so defensive. Take a listen to this clip.
News Clip:I'm going to use your words who's to blame? Know this? That's the word choice of losers. Let me explain one thing about Texas, and that is Texas. Every square inch of our state cares about football. Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who's to blame. The championship teams are the ones that say don't worry about it, man, we got this. We're going to make sure that we go score again and we're going to win this game. The way winners talk is not to point fingers. They talk about solutions. What Texas is all about is solutions.
Molly McPherson:Can you imagine a football analogy? Now you can almost imagine where his brain went. Everything that Governor Abbott is thinking about and I can say this as someone who does media interviews it's really hard to memorize everything. It's really difficult to have instant recall on all the facts. You tend to default to lines of thinking. You know that you can fall back on a lot, and what's happening in Texas is people fall back on Texas. This is how we do it in Texas.
Molly McPherson:You heard it from the mayor of Kerrville and you're hearing it from Governor Abbott as well, but he fell in the wrong part of Texas. You could talk about being resilient, but comparing it to a football game not what they want to hear. Now, one word that Governor Abbott used in a press conference he said it was a word he'd heard the most during the disaster was prayer. I like hearing that in a press conference. I think it's comforting to hear that. You don't want to hear it in a response like thoughts and prayers go to the families. That's the worst. Don't ever do that, and if you ever work for an organization or leadership that insists on putting that in a response, please get out your red pen and scratch it out. You've already explained what's being done and how you're helping. It is okay to ask for prayers it's so human but grieving families need more than thoughts. They need more than prayers. Remember, they also need answers.
Molly McPherson:Now, finally, there was a story that took the media in a different direction. After the flooding story came out, particularly what happened at Camp Mystic, a TikTok video went viral Now. In it, a Houston resident and an activist claimed the coverage and rescue efforts would have been different had the missing children been Hispanic or Black. She referred to Camp Mystic as a quote white-only conservative Christian camp end quote and questioned whether the same response would have occurred for girls of color. That clip, no surprise, created a lot of outrage In general. Whenever you hear a post that starts with I know I'm going to get canceled for saying this, the universe will reward that by creating a cancel situation for you.
Molly McPherson:It's understandable when people are experiencing a tragedy, either directly or they're watching in real time. Think about the flooding, like when you first heard about the flooding, when it was happening, if you were a parent, if you were a parent of a daughter, were you like me? Did you immediately think, oh my gosh, what would I do if that were my daughter, what would I do if my daughter was in the bubble tent or in that cabin? You personalize it, you find a way to bring yourself to that disaster and in some cases too, if you're not directly involved, you think about that disaster and how it may trigger other hurts in your life. So it would be understandable if a minority was watching the coverage about this camp and seeing what this camp was all about, that they would ask that question to themselves. And American girls would it get the same response. I think that's understandable. I think that's rational, that someone like that would think that way, especially watching all that coverage.
Molly McPherson:However, to put it on TikTok, that's a whole other story, because that clip sparked outrage. No surprise, because the partner of the activist, sade Per, was a reverend at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Houston, but now, all of a sudden, this church had to get involved and they need to issue a public apology over a partner from one of their ministers. Now he disavowed her comments and said she was not speaking for the church, which obviously she wasn't. She's not even a part of that particular church leadership, but it brought the church in because people online connected it. So soon after all that happened the church website, the social media accounts they were all scrubbed.
Molly McPherson:The mayor of Houston, john Whitmer, said Perkins would be removed from the city's food and Security Board. So there was a consequence to the post. In a statement, the board president, joan Waddell, said quote her comments contradict the core values of our church and we are horrified to be associated with them. End quote. That's actually a really good quote to say about the circumstance.
Molly McPherson:So it's a powerful reminder that in moments of crisis, public messaging has ripple effects. It's understandable that people are going to feel a certain way about a tragedy and they're going to bring their own tragedy into it, or their own pain and their own hurt. But when it goes public, it's almost inevitable that there will be a consequence. The PR takeaway. When emotions run high, every word counts and when the public is grieving, commentary, however well-attentioned, can either bring people together or fracture the conversation entirely. The Texas floods are a human tragedy, but they are also a case study in how communication shapes, defines and sometimes worsens a crisis. The warning systems failed, the press conferences wobbled, the politics overwhelmed, the public service and families are left wondering not just how this happened, but why no one warned them. This was a disaster. The only silver lining in disasters is you learn from them.
Molly McPherson:So you hope that it doesn't happen again, but what gets lost in the learning is just all the complicated messaging and all the back and forth, and it's always the politics and the agenda that could just mess these things up. So my hope as a former emergency manager I hope that FEMA is not dismantled. We need a federal response for this very reason. Texas is the reason, but we also need good messaging to explain things when disaster happens, because truly it is a matter of life and death. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.
