It has been a week since catastrophic flooding in Texas Hill Country. At the time of writing the death toll exceeded 120 people with roughly 170 missing. As the tragedy unfolds, important questions are being raised about the lack of a real-time warning system,

The White House is defending the National Weather Service and accusing some Democrats of playing politics in the wake of devastating floods in Texas.

"A lot of the weather forecast offices now are not operating at full complement of staff," said the former lead of NOAA.