Texas officials long feared for riverbank summer camps. A warning system was rejected as too expensive

[Guno צְבִי]

Officials in Kerr County, Texas, had long been concerned about kids’ summer camps along the banks of the Guadalupe River, an area known as “flash flood alley.”

The camps in the idyllic Texas Hill Country, where children from the surrounding big cities of San Antonio, Austin and Fredericksburg came to fish, horseback ride, and snorkel, relied on a word-of-mouth system from camps further up river when it came to flooding, according to The New York Times.

But in 2015, a flood in Wimberley, 75 miles east of Kerrville, killed 13 people and hundreds of homes were destroyed and damaged when the Blanco River crested to nearly 30 feet in a matter of hours.

It brought the dangers of flash flooding front of mind for officials in Kerr County who debated at local meetings whether to bolster their flood emergency system with weather sirens now used by other cities.

Tom Moser, a former Kerr County commissioner, proposed that Kerrville establish a similar system to one that had been put in place in Wimberley.

But it was deemed to expensive by fellow commissioners.

Texas officials long feared for riverbank summer camps. A warning system was rejected as too expensive

Camp Mystic, the Christian girl’s camp, reported that 27 campers and staffers had been killed in last week’s flash flooding

news.yahoo.com

“It sort of evaporated,” Moser, who retired in 2021, told The Times. “It just didn’t happen.”

 

[Guno צְבִי]

Attempts to improve response on a state level were also met with resistance in the last few months. A bill that would have established a statewide plan to improve the state’s disaster response did not pass at the statehouse.

 

[FastLane]

Officials in Kerr County, Texas, had long been concerned about kids’ summer camps along the banks of the Guadalupe River, an area known as “flash flood alley.”

The camps in the idyllic Texas Hill Country, where children from the surrounding big cities of San Antonio, Austin and Fredericksburg came to fish, horseback ride, and snorkel, relied on a word-of-mouth system from camps further up river when it came to flooding, according to The New York Times.

But in 2015, a flood in Wimberley, 75 miles east of Kerrville, killed 13 people and hundreds of homes were destroyed and damaged when the Blanco River crested to nearly 30 feet in a matter of hours.

It brought the dangers of flash flooding front of mind for officials in Kerr County who debated at local meetings whether to bolster their flood emergency system with weather sirens now used by other cities.

Tom Moser, a former Kerr County commissioner, proposed that Kerrville establish a similar system to one that had been put in place in Wimberley.

But it was deemed to expensive by fellow commissioners.

Texas officials long feared for riverbank summer camps. A warning system was rejected as too expensive

Camp Mystic, the Christian girl’s camp, reported that 27 campers and staffers had been killed in last week’s flash flooding

news.yahoo.com

“It sort of evaporated,” Moser, who retired in 2021, told The Times. “It just didn’t happen.”

Someone monitoring a NOAA radio at the camp when rain and flooding is forecast would have prevented this disaster. NOAA weather radios are less than $50 each.

 

[Matt Dillon]

They should not allow development in flood zones. Not unless the development can withstand a serious flood.
C'mon man. Somebody made a lot of money, and children died.
Then again, acts of God are acts of God.

 

[Scott]

They should not allow development in flood zones. Not unless the development can withstand a serious flood.
C'mon man. Somebody made a lot of money, and children died.
Then again, acts of God are acts of God.

Sure acts of God are acts of God, but I think we can all agree that Texas should have been better prepared, and would have been had certain politicians not decided that saving a bit of cash was worth the risk of losing lives.

 

[martin]

Sure acts of God are acts of God, but I think we can all agree that Texas should have been better prepared, and would have been had certain politicians not decided that saving a bit of cash was worth the risk of losing lives.

Right. The whole point of warning systems is to save people if possible from "acts of God".

 

[Hawkeye10]

Right. The whole point of warning systems is to save people if possible from "acts of God".

And bungled weather engineering.

 

[volsrocks]

Right. The whole point of warning systems is to save people if possible from "acts of God".

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[Scott]

Right. The whole point of warning systems is to save people if possible from "acts of God".

And bungled weather engineering.

I've heard that weather engineering might have been involved, but haven't seen any solid evidence of this yet.

 

[volsrocks]

Officials in Kerr County, Texas, had long been concerned about kids’ summer camps along the banks of the Guadalupe River, an area known as “flash flood alley.”

The camps in the idyllic Texas Hill Country, where children from the surrounding big cities of San Antonio, Austin and Fredericksburg came to fish, horseback ride, and snorkel, relied on a word-of-mouth system from camps further up river when it came to flooding, according to The New York Times.

But in 2015, a flood in Wimberley, 75 miles east of Kerrville, killed 13 people and hundreds of homes were destroyed and damaged when the Blanco River crested to nearly 30 feet in a matter of hours.

It brought the dangers of flash flooding front of mind for officials in Kerr County who debated at local meetings whether to bolster their flood emergency system with weather sirens now used by other cities.

Tom Moser, a former Kerr County commissioner, proposed that Kerrville establish a similar system to one that had been put in place in Wimberley.

But it was deemed to expensive by fellow commissioners.

Texas officials long feared for riverbank summer camps. A warning system was rejected as too expensive

Camp Mystic, the Christian girl’s camp, reported that 27 campers and staffers had been killed in last week’s flash flooding

news.yahoo.com

“It sort of evaporated,” Moser, who retired in 2021, told The Times. “It just didn’t happen.”

And I’d also absolutely love to know what an early warning system was going to do when the river goes up 26 feet within an hour?

You could have had an army of meteorologists sitting in boats on the river and nothing was going to prevent this type of tragedy.

 

[volsrocks]

This cost 30.00

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Someone monitoring a NOAA radio at the camp when rain and flooding is forecast would have prevented this disaster. NOAA weather radios are less than $50 each.

Somebody looking at

National Forecast Maps

Once in a while would have prevented it.

And, don't tell me that in a camp full of teenage girls there wasn't one with a smart phone...

 

[NiftyNiblick]

How is this even a discussion?
We KNOW who's at fault.

People who don't believe in adequate government.

People who think that they're rugged individualists,
this despite not being able to find their own asses with two hands.

How many times must I repeat it?
Trump supporters must strain their necks to look up to
the microbes that eat whale shit
at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

America was conceived about a quarter millennium ago.
I'm afraid that it may have committed suicide in November of 2024.