Flooding in Texas youth camps

[windywave]

@The_GMAN_Retired

I was just reading updates on NYT. In addition to the missing girls at the camp there’s apparently an unknown number of folks likely missing from a nearby RV park. The park is gone and officials have no idea how many people may or may not have been there. I guess there’s usually a lot of holiday campers.

BBC sent a reporter who was flummoxed

[windywave]

So far my takeaway of the local officials is blame shifting weasels

[sphere]

It’s possible that you know more about it than I do at this point, which is very little.

[windywave]

@sphere

It’s possible that you know more about it than I do at this point, which is very little.

If allowing camps filled with tons of kids to be built next to a river known for flash flooding and not issuing an evacuation notice because it could cause people to move away from said river during a biblical storm is competence in your opinion let’s agree to disagree then.

[bt]

Windy-- no need to be rude. I meant that I personally don’t know who is in charge of istening to the weather at the camps and such and conveying the info, not that it was impossible. I doubt they have a TV on in the k8ds cabins. Surely there is a system in place and it will be investigated. In some places, I am seeing that the Guadalupe River crested over 20 feet above normal in less than 1 to 2 hours. You have to act fast, and sometimes the roads are blocked.

And I don’t ignore the weather warnings (case in point, we were prepared when Texas froze in 2021, unlike so many others). I checked radar about 20 times yesterday, waiting for the storm to get to our side of Austin. It mostly broke up, then reformed overnight, and stalling.

[Yeeper]

@bt

I wouldn’t say the camps are in flood plains. The photos Cathy posted are from a park in the town of Kerrville, not where the camp was. (Though that is where the Kerrville triathlon transition area is.)

The rivers rose more than 10 feet in a matter of hours, in the wee hours of the morning. Warnings were put out, but that storm stalled and dumped way more than I think anyone expected. Were warnings heeded, or, as is often the case, not given much concern? Have already seen SM posts that they get “so many warnings, they don’t believe them.”

Another part of the storm stalled just west of Austin last night, after we were thinking it was settling down, and there are water rescues happening near Austin right now.

My heart is breaking for all the families, esp the kids. I hope some of them are found alive.
Just read a story of a colleague’s 98 year old dad escaping, but just barely.

We’ve been in drought here so long. This is often how we get water back in our lakes (i.e., our water supply). It’s an awful event, but also beneficial in a way.

This was the weather situation at 3:14 a.m. the morning of the flood. How that would be broadcast to the camps and such, I don’t know.

If they were in a flood plain in modern times there’s nearly zero excuse to not have multiple people informed and someone on communication.

They knew the storm was imminent and dangerous. Overnight watch should have been a minimum.

[TJ56]

Here in the Midwest we get weather alerts on our phones if you are in the path of an oncoming tornado. Seems logical that this technology could be used for flash flooding. It’s a loud alert, similar to an amber alert. You don’t sleep through them.

[windywave]

@bt

Windy-- no need to be rude. I meant that I personally don’t know who is in charge of istening to the weather at the camps and such and conveying the info, not that it was impossible. I doubt they have a TV on in the k8ds cabins. Surely there is a system in place and it will be investigated. In some places, I am seeing that the Guadalupe River crested over 20 feet above normal in less than 1 to 2 hours. You have to act fast, and sometimes the roads are blocked.

And I don’t ignore the weather warnings (case in point, we were prepared when Texas froze in 2021, unlike so many others). I checked radar about 20 times yesterday, waiting for the storm to get to our side of Austin. It mostly broke up, then reformed overnight, and stalling.

Weather Radio | Weather Underground

You don’t need anyone in charge if you are merely competent. These people assumed care for children and failed evidently.

I have one of these because you can’t always hear tornado sirens. It has an alarm function that wakes the dead.

[windywave]

@TJ56

Here in the Midwest we get weather alerts on our phones if you are in the path of an oncoming tornado. Seems logical that this technology could be used for flash flooding. It’s a loud alert, similar to an amber alert. You don’t sleep through them.

You’d get them for flooding if you set it up properly

[sphere]

Reporting suggests this was a 100 year event. The central questions are, where in the flood plain were the victims housed or trailered, what warnings were issued, and what actions were taken.

I don’t have any of those answers yet.

[Andrewmc]

You’d think if you checked it, that someone with responsibility for a number of kids might have and acted upon it

[bt]

I just saw a photo from a San Antonio news station that they were working on getting some of the campers to higher ground, walking through shin-deep water in the early morning hours (still dark). So it’s not as if they weren’t acting.

But as people may recall, with flash floods, if the water had accumulated upstream and comes to you fast, it’s almost like a wall of water. (Recalling flash floods in Arizona-- you don’t have to be where the rain is to get flooded out.)
Did they just run out of time? What information did they have at 2 or 3 am? Here is the situation at 4 am.

The people commenting about the camp’s location. Yes. It’s by the river. Rivers can flood, but this camp has been there many years. This is definitely not a normal weather event.

[bt]

Also, think about – since this event in Kerr County, as the system moved, parts of the area closer to Austin and Georgetown got 10-15" of rain between midnight and 9 am this morning. Try to comprehend how much water that is.
Trying to stress that this is not normal weather and rainfall, certainly not here.
Austin typically gets about 30-32 inches of rain a year.

[Endo]

Yeah, i live here in central texas also. As you know we get flash flood watches many times a year. Most of the time its a non event. No one was expecting this much rain yesterday, and now today again. Forecast for yesterday was 35-40% rain, which around here generally means no rain. It has been incredibly dry and no rain here for many months. It rained all day yesterday and coming down pretty good again today so far.

I had heard same, that camp folks had started to evacuate kids, but wall of water came within minutes, cut them off from higher ground and all cabin structures were just washed away.

Entire RV park with all RVs separately got washed away, which im assuming is a lot of the still missing count.

Rain is not letting up today

[bt]

Thanks for the backup. We’ve only had about 2.5" here in Pflugerville.

I would like some of the readers on here to understand that I’m not trying to make excuses for the weather services, public servants, camp staff, etc. Clearly, this was devastating and there are painful lessons to learn. But sometimes the confluence of events leads to more than what was predicted. 3 to 6" rain and a 2 foot rise in the river is different than 15-20" of rain and a 12-20 foot rise.

[bt]

That said, it just started raining hard here and radar looks like it’s hanging out all day. This system is moving slowly.

[windywave]

@sphere

Reporting suggests this was a 100 year event. The central questions are, where in the flood plain were the victims housed or trailered, what warnings were issued, and what actions were taken.

I don’t have any of those answers yet.

The preparation and actions were clearly insufficient, wouldn’t you agree?

[windywave]

@Andrewmc

You’d think if you checked it, that someone with responsibility for a number of kids might have and acted upon it

This

[windywave]

@bt

This is definitely not a normal weather event.

Outright stupidity at darwin level is not being prepared for normal weather. Negligence is not being prepared for this type of event when you’re in charge of tons of kids next to a fucking river

[windywave]

@bt

Trying to stress that this is not normal weather and rainfall, certainly not here.
Austin typically gets about 30-32 inches of rain a year

And my town rarely gets a tornado yet out schools and camps et al are well drilled in what to do and monitoring for them