This Week I'm Reflecting On:
Texas-Sized Rage and the Price of Sirens
As I sit in rural Kentucky surrounded by my nine nieces and nephews, with spotty wifi & flickering cellphone service, listening to the news out of Texas I feel the rising of grief and rage.
The rage where my eyes, nose, and back of my neck burn with the intensity of a dragon, maybe three. #Delphyne
The grief knowing Texas — a place I called home for 18 years — has been hit with another tragedy that stemmed from its public infrastructure gutted, its scientific warnings politicized, and its most at-risk residents deprived of safety.
I have floated on the Guadalupe River with friends a half dozen times. I’ve celebrated at baby showers in Hunt. I officiated my best friend's wedding in the Heart of Hill Country. And as the death toll rises in Kerrville, and more reporting reveals that the flood warning systems were broken, ignored, not built, or never sent at all…
I’m reflecting on my Texas-sized rage and the price of sirens.
You won’t find ‘thoughts and prayers’ here.
My heart is with the families and my foot is on the neck of the systems that betrayed them.
Systems built for the most delicate serve us all.
But when we ignore them, the vulnerable suffer first—and most.
I’ve been on active duty orders as a medic (91W to 68W) with the Army National Guard for two devastating hurricanes in our U.S. history:
2005: Hurricane Katrina – New Orleans, LA
Death toll: 1,8332008: Hurricane Ike – Galveston, TX
Death toll: 112
The devastation was demoralizing. The water damage was grotesque.
The wind and rain weren’t just a storm; they were a flood of loss.
Loss of life.
Loss of pets.
Loss of homes, belongings, memories.
Both physical and metaphorical foundations washed away.
I’ve never forgotten the smell. The night patrols searching for people. The refrigerated trucks transporting those found too late. The quick action of local leaders, government agencies, and volunteers doing what they could to salvage what was left.
I also remember the president at the time had been on vacation for 27 days. And it doesn’t escape me that the president during the Kerr County disaster was out golfing for the 40th time this year.
📌 I’m putting a beloved pin in that one. He’s spent 23% of his time in office on personal days.
📌 If you work 40 hours a week and get three weeks of paid vacation, that’s only 5.77% of your total working time each year.
📌📌📌 pinboard to follow 📌📌📌
So on this topic, if we designed with the most delicate in mind, maybe we’d be less tolerant of leaders who abandon their posts or vacation at a rate that far exceeds our most equitable workforce policies.
Like I said. It is a full Middle-earth Smaug burn today. And as I am up late re-heating coffee I am re-heating the note I shouted to Siri on Sunday while walking across a hot parking lot carrying out a box of Chinese food for 18 people:
“When we design systems with the most delicate in mind, we wind up with a stronger system for everyone.”
Naturally, I felt the statement was right—but I had to ask: “Is that actually true?”
And then I grinned. And cried. In a despairing delight.
Because of course a Black woman had already done the research.
Angela Glover Blackwell gave us the concept of the “curb-cut effect”: policies designed for vulnerable communities often end up benefiting everyone.
If you build a ramp for wheelchair access, it also helps parents with strollers, travelers with suitcases, and delivery workers with carts.
The clients who are “squeaky wheels” for better access to data, QBRs, and customer success drive your internal teams to develop features that benefit all accounts.
When a rural farmer gets access to an extension office, they gain tools to protect their own land, and in doing so, surface insights that shape stronger practices across the entire agricultural system.
An ambitious team member who demands transparent career paths allows managers a chance to clarify promotion policies, improving retention for the company.
The dance student struggling with a specific step might reveal to the teacher that the whole class would benefit from multiple methods of demonstrating and drills, enabling a sharper technique for every dancer.
It’s the curb-cut effect: accommodations for one become accelerators for many.
We should see this in government.
Build alert systems to reach rural, low-connectivity areas first to ensure people in cities get them too.
Make alerts available in multiple languages and platforms — not just iPhones — and achieve increased comprehension across the board.
Distribute battery and solar-powered weather radios to those without reliable power and create a national backup system for everyone when towers go down.
Adjust the alert type and alarm so citizens can understand and verify a growing threat.
Minimize the unnecessary alerts and prevent alert fatigue. *Receives Blue alert, shuts off ALL emergency alerts on phone, deep dive on reddit.
Designing for the most vulnerable isn’t charity. It is strategy. It creates systems that don’t just work in ideal conditions; they work when it matters most.
If we start with those who have the least access, the least trust, or the least cushion, we build systems that protect all of us when we find ourselves in vulnerable circumstances.
Because at some point — through illness, job loss, aging, caregiving, grief, or disaster — everyone becomes the delicate one.
And if it hasn’t happened to you, Kyle, that is because you are in the most privileged group in America, regardless of your denials, and that is a post for another time.
So I’m curious …
Why aren’t we building public systems this way? And next, why are we continuing to build oppositely?
Money. The budget. The cost. It is too expensive. Time. The process. We need to remain agile.
Better to get something adequate for the “majority/average/every day man” out the door than to wait and do things in a more impactful, inclusive way.
📌 And I do mean “man”.
Most everything that we see and interact with daily, especially in government or public departments, was built for the average man.
The average single, young, white, man at that. Not disabled. Not a parent. Not a veteran. Not a caregiver. Not an elder. Not belonging to the LGBTQ+ community.
📌 Only ~22% of medical products are tested on female biology.
📌 Only ~35% of transportation planning includes caregiving routes or unpaid labor trips.
*sigh*
Let’s get into the pushback: Cost, Time, and Rhetoric.
From the reporting I’ve reviewed, Texas could’ve spent $1 million on a flood alert system that would help prevent deaths.
At the time of this post, we’ve seen 137+ people confirmed dead so far, at least 37 of them children. We have approximately 2 people who are still missing.
What did this Cost? $1,000,000 divided by 137.
***I told you, this is not a ‘thoughts and prayers’ post.
That’s $7,299 per life. Is there anyone you love whose life you would value at only $7,299?
That is:
Less than a hospital bill.
Less than a political ad run in prime time.
Less than a hot tub.
Less than a family of 4 going on a cruise.
Slightly more than what some of these gop puppets pitched as “baby bonuses” and that is a conversation for another day. 📌
The state of Texas requires drivers to carry minimum liability auto insurance of $30,000 for partial bodily injury.
The average wrongful death settlement in Texas, minimum, is around $500,000.
So at a minimum, we are looking at a cost to Texas in a loss of life around $69,000,000.
20 days into search and recovery, we are staring at a loss of life that costs nearly 10x as much as putting in those fucking sirens.
As they say, the math doesn’t math.
And then the elected will pull out their straight face and beady eyes and tell the camera: “It is a one hundred year flood”, “We will have to look into it very seriously”, “It is reasonable to find out if we can prevent this from happening again”, “People ignore the alerts”.
Yet our Texas lawmakers, the elected GOP who have held the power of all 3 branches of the Texas government since 2003, and climate activists already knew that this region was behind the times in an alert system…
They knew that this county had been discussing implementing better systems for weather warnings because we’ve already seen the detriment to human life.
Quick Texas history lesson: The Guadalupe River flooded in 1987 and took 10 teenagers' lives at The Pot O' Gold Ranch. The Pot O' Gold Ranch is only 35 miles east of Camp Mystic, along the same river. And even though those 10 tragic deaths were 38 years forgotten, the Guadalupe River still took triple the amount of children's lives on July 4, 2025.
When we fail to design for the most delicate among us, we don't just risk tragedy — we guarantee it.
Which takes me to Time. And failure. Not the start-up “Fail Forward” failure.
The failure of knowing and doing nothing.
Knowing this area required a flood warning system. Knowing this county had funding from ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) to implement the warning system, and knowing there had already been a $1,000,000 loss of life from flooding AND failing to act.
We often say “humans are flawed” to excuse failure. But what if we accepted that being human means needing help, missing alerts, getting tired, falling behind, and we designed systems for that?
Ignoring an alert is human. Governments not having a backup plan isn’t.
Being confused in a storm is human. Defunding sirens and cutting science isn’t.
And there is the Rhetoric safety net of it all. I think humans say things like “It is ‘a 100-year flood.’” to hide from the grief and shame of knowing that the tragedy occurred during their 100 years. And if we get down to the money of it all, I prefer to think they would not defend that a flood every 100 years taking 200+ lives is acceptable when we had the time *and* could have implemented a system at just a tenth of that cost.
What I am saying is the problem isn’t just the flood. It’s the system that let it happen. And if it is a system problem, people built it, and so people could solve it.
To me, this wasn't ignorance. It wasn’t chance.
It was neglect dressed up as pragmatism. And it cost us hundreds of lives.
Poorly designed systems, ones that fail teams, clients, or communities, are the responsibility of the leaders in that vicinity.
Leaders hold power and must hold power accountable. And if the leader says they don’t have the power to change anything…then our calculated curiosity should ask: What exactly are they leading?
We the people determine who our leaders will be.
We are not evil for asking who failed Kerr County.
We are not losers for reviewing the logs.
We are not radicals for wanting systems that are built to care.
We are not sinful for grieving children we didn’t know.
A society built to hold its most fragile members isn’t weaker. It’s wiser. And more resilient.
The responsibility for this avoidable tragedy lies fully with the Texas GOP, which voted against a flood warning system.
It lies with those who poisoned public trust in FEMA, alert systems, and infrastructure support.
It lies with politicians who have traded their last drop of honor to sit silently under a predator's boot and serve at the pleasure of oligarchs.
Unapologetically.
These political heads will roll on my writing block.
Ted Cruz. John Cornyn. Greg Abbott. Donald J. Trump.
Are the voices that helped design the system that failed Texas.
We the people should expect that when we are the delicate ones, our leaders will have an infrastructure we can stand on, not be the hands removing the ground from under our feet. ☕️
Calls to Action
☕️ Support flood victims in Kerr County.
☕️ Follow reporting from:
☕️ Call your congress people now. The Texans are attempting to take away other states’ protections too.
Texas Rafael Edward “Ted” Cancun Cruz removed funding for NOAA in H.R.1, impacting all states.
Governor Greg Hot Wheels Abbott is attempting to redistrict and further gerrymander Texas at the behest of the regime.
#CoffeeandCalculatedCuriosity #ReimaginingSystems #ChangeWithCassie #StayCaffeinated #ViveLaRevolution
In a similar vein, Kim Crenshaw proposed an analogy of a basement where we are stacked - the least privileged at the bottom, with the more privileged standing on shoulders until the top. The goal isn't to get more people through the glass ceiling, but to raise the floor. When we unburden the most marginalized, we do the right thing and it's also more cost effective (funny how that works). But it's hard to ask for care for the marginalized from democracy - a system where the majority will always be the powerful.