Constructed After Catastrophe, Held to Its Standard: A Forensic Back-Test of Project Star Forge in Response to the 2025 Kerr County Flood

This report presents a forensic back-test of Project Star Forge, a prototype AI system designed for real-time disaster foresight and autonomous alert escalation. The analysis focuses on the July 4–5, 2025 flash floods in Kerr County, Texas—one of the deadliest weather events in recent state history. Using real-world telemetry, government response records, and synthetic simulations, the report reconstructs the timeline and identifies how delays in warnings, gaps in targeting, and infrastructure failure contributed to the outcome.

The Project Star Forge MVP is retroactively deployed against this event to assess its potential value, with attention to realistic signal lag, data ambiguity, and human behaviour constraints. The conclusion offers a grounded estimate of lives potentially saved—both under the MVP alone and under proposed future modules—while identifying limitations and system blind spots.