Texas officials long feared for riverbank summer camps. A warning system was rejected as too expensive
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.
'It sort of evaporated,' Moser, who retired in 2021, told The Times. 'It just didn't happen.'
On the Fourth of July, downpours and catastrophic flooding in hill country devastated Camp Mystic, the Christian girls' summer camp on the Guadalupe River.
The river rapidly rose 20 feet in 95 minutes in the early hours of the morning.
Camp Mystic confirmed Monday that 27 girls, some as young as eight, and staffers had been killed. Ten girls remain missing and one counselor, according to local officials.
Moser wasn't the only one who had pushed for a better emergency warning system, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Former Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer, who had responded to the 1987 floods that killed teens at a camp in Kendall County, was hoping to install outdoor warning sirens in Kerrville.
The sirens in Kendall County, which is about 81 miles away from Kerr County, went off on Friday.
Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, also said budget concerns waylaid any action.
'Taxpayers won't pay for it,' Kelly recently told The Times. He said he didn't know if people might reconsider in the wake of this tragedy.
In 2018, Kerr County applied for a $1 million grant for a flood warning system. The application was not selected, according to KXAN. In 2020, a commissioner said the county had been 'trying to get a new flood warning system here.'
As recently as a May budget meeting, commissioners were discussing a system being developed by a regional agency.
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.
But, had it passed, it still would not have gone into effect until after the Hill Country flooding, The Texas Tribune noted.
And it's not just smaller communities that lacked warning systems.
The city of Austin, which also saw fatalities in the floods and is one of the state's largest cities and home to nearly a 1 million residents, doesn't have an emergency warning system.
But, a spokesperso n for the city of Austin told KXAN the fastest way to get information out is with 'the technology we have today' and there was a concern that sirens could 'cause confusion.'
Since the disaster, 446 people have signed a change.org petition for an early warning siren system in Kerr County.
Moser said Kerr County had previously taken some measures to mitigate potential danger, including installing flood gauges and barriers, according to The Washington Post.
This weekend, Texas Governor Greg Abbott says a special session at the Capitol will focus on better warnings for floods.
It's hard to know how much of a difference a flood warning system would have made last Friday, Moser said. But, he believes it could have had some benefit.
As of Monday afternoon, the death toll stood at 91 people with dozens more still missing.
'I think it could have helped a lot of people,' said Moser.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
13 hours ago
- The Guardian
Texas Hill Country under flood watch as search continues for missing people
Texas Hill Country was back under a flood watch on Saturday, with the National Weather Service warning of 'locally heavy rainfall' of 1-3in with isolated amounts close to 6in possible. The flood watch, which continues through Sunday evening, comes as the death toll from the 4 July flood continues to rise – now at nearly 130 people - and authorities continue their search for the 160 more who are missing. The latest warnings anticipate considerably less rain than what came down last week, which caused the Guadalupe River to rise 29ft in 45 minutes. The Texas division of emergency management had mobilized before the storm, but its assets were not focused exclusively on Texas Hill Country. The storm alerts that were issued before and during the storm, in an area of patchy cellphone service, are now the subject of scrutiny. On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic's buildings from its 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous floodplain in the years before rushing waters swept away children and counselors. Fema had included the prestigious girls' summer camp in a 'special flood hazard area' on its national flood insurance map for Kerr county in 2011, which meant it was required to have flood insurance and faced tighter regulation on any future construction projects. That designation means an area is likely to be inundated during a 100-year flood – one severe enough that it only has a 1% chance of happening in any given year. The 4 July flood was far more severe than the 100-year event envisioned by Fema, experts said, and moved so quickly in the middle of the night that it caught many off-guard in a county that lacked a warning system. Syracuse University associate professor Sarah Pralle, who has extensively studied Fema's flood map determinations, said it was 'particularly disturbing' that a camp in charge of the safety of so many young people would receive exemptions from basic flood regulation. 'It's a mystery to me why they weren't taking proactive steps to move structures away from the risk, let alone challenging what seems like a very reasonable map that shows these structures were in the 100-year flood zone,' she said. Pralle told the AP that some of the exempted properties were within 2ft (0.6 meters) of Fema's floodplain by the camp's revised calculations, which she said left almost no margin for error. She said her research shows that Fema approves about 90% of map amendment requests, and the process may favor the wealthy and well-connected. Experts say Camp Mystic's requests to amend the Fema map could have been an attempt to avoid the requirement to carry flood insurance, lower the camp's insurance premiums or pave the way for renovating or adding new structures under less costly regulations. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion In a statement, Fema downplayed the significance of the flood map amendments to the AP: 'Flood maps are snapshots in time designed to show minimum standards for floodplain management and the highest risk areas for flood insurance. They are not predictions of where it will flood, and they don't show where it has flooded before.' While Texas officials and Donald Trump have been resistant to questions about any failures to forewarn of the impending flood – queries that have largely been put to one side as local and state recovery teams, along with thousands of volunteers, work in and alongside the river to find the missing – the Washington Post reported that Kerr county had the technology to turn every cellphone in the river valley into a loud alarm. But the mass notification system, known as the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, or Ipaws, was not activated and emergency managers in the county relied on a series of text messages for alerts. Trump visited the area on Friday, telling first responders that he and Melania Trump, the first lady, were there to 'express the love and support and anguish of our entire nation'. 'So all across the country, Americans' hearts are shattered,' he said. 'We're filled with grief and devastation. It's the loss of life and, unfortunately, they're still looking.' Trump said two things had struck him: the 'unity' of Texans and the 'competence' of those responding to the disaster. 'Everyone has just pulled together, it's rare that you see this,' he said.
The Guardian
16 hours ago
- The Guardian
Texas Hill Country under flood watch as search continues for missing people
Texas Hill Country was back under flood watch on Saturday, with the National Weather Service warning of 'locally heavy rainfall' of 1-3in with isolated amounts near 6in possible. The flood watch, which continues through Sunday evening, comes as the death toll from the 4 July flood continues to rise – now at nearly 130 people - and authorities continue their search for the 160 more who are missing. The latest warnings anticipate considerably less rain than what came down last week, which caused the Guadalupe River to rise 29ft in 45 minutes. The Texas division of emergency management, or TDEM, had mobilized before the storm, but their assets were not focused exclusively on Texas Hill Country. The storm alerts that were issued before and during the storm, in an area of patchy cell service, are now the subject of scrutiny. On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic's buildings from their 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous floodplain in the years before rushing waters swept away children and counselors. Fema had included the prestigious girls' summer camp in a 'special flood hazard area' on its national flood insurance map for Kerr county in 2011, which meant it was required to have flood insurance and faced tighter regulation on any future construction projects. That designation means an area is likely to be inundated during a 100-year flood – one severe enough that it only has a 1% chance of happening in any given year. The 4 July flood was far more severe than the 100-year event envisioned by Fema, experts said, and moved so quickly in the middle of the night that it caught many off-guard in a county that lacked a warning system. Syracuse University associate professor Sarah Pralle, who has extensively studied Fema's flood map determinations, said it was 'particularly disturbing' that a camp in charge of the safety of so many young people would receive exemptions from basic flood regulation. 'It's a mystery to me why they weren't taking proactive steps to move structures away from the risk, let alone challenging what seems like a very reasonable map that shows these structures were in the 100-year flood zone,' she said. Pralle told the AP that some of the exempted properties were within 2ft (0.6 meters) of Fema's floodplain by the camp's revised calculations, which she said left almost no margin for error. She said her research shows that Fema approves about 90% of map amendment requests, and the process may favor the wealthy and well-connected. Experts say Camp Mystic's requests to amend the Fema map could have been an attempt to avoid the requirement to carry flood insurance, lower the camp's insurance premiums or pave the way for renovating or adding new structures under less costly regulations. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion In a statement, Fema downplayed the significance of the flood map amendments to the AP: 'Flood maps are snapshots in time designed to show minimum standards for floodplain management and the highest risk areas for flood insurance. They are not predictions of where it will flood, and they don't show where it has flooded before.' While Texas officials and Donald Trump have been resistant to questions about any failures to forewarn of the impending flood – questions that have largely been put to one side as local and state recovery teams, along with thousands of volunteers, work in and alongside the river to find the missing – the Washington Post reported that Kerr county had the technology to turn every cellphone in the river valley into a loud alarm. But the mass notification system, known as the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, or Ipaws, was not activated and emergency managers in the county relied on a series of text messages for alerts. Trump visited the area on Friday, telling first responders that he and Melania Trump, the first lady, were there to 'express the love and support and anguish of our entire nation'. 'So all across the country, Americans' hearts are shattered,' he said. 'We're filled with grief and devastation. It's the loss of life and, unfortunately, they're still looking.' Trump said two things had struck him: the 'unity' of Texans and the 'competence' of those responding to the disaster. 'Everyone has just pulled together, it's rare that you see this,' he said.
The Independent
21 hours ago
- The Independent
Texas leads nation in flood deaths due to geography, size and population
Even before the Central Texas floods that killed more than 100 people, the state was by far the leader in U.S. flood deaths due partly to geography that can funnel rainwater into deadly deluges, according to a study spanning decades. From 1959 to 2019, 1,069 people died in Texas in flooding, which is nearly one-fifth of the total 5,724 flood fatalities in the Lower 48 states in that time, according to a 2021 study in the journal Water. That's about 370 more than the next closest state, Louisiana. Flooding is the second leading weather cause of death in the country, after heat, both in 2024 and the last 30 years, averaging 145 deaths a year in the last decade, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Other floods have turned deadly this year: Last month in San Antonio, 13 people died including 11 people who drove into water thinking they could get through, according to study author Hatim Sharif, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Texas at San Antonio who studies why people die in floods. For several years Sharif has urged state and local officials to integrate better emergency action programs to use flood forecasts and save lives by alerting people and closing off vulnerable intersections where roads and water meet. 'I think in Kerr County, if they had an integrated warning system that uses rainfall forecasts to forecast real-time impacts on the ground, that could have saved many lives and could have also helped emergency crews to know which location would be flooded, which roads would be impassable,' Sharif said. 'They could have taken action.' The role of geography and terrain Texas has so many deaths because of its geography, population and size, experts say. The area where the most recent deadly floods struck is known as flash flood alley because of hills and valleys. 'Steep, hilly terrain produces rapid runoff and quick stream rises, since the water will travel downhill at greater speed into rivers and over land,' said Kate Abshire, lead of NOAA's flash flood services. 'Rocky terrain can exacerbate the development of flash floods and raging waters, since rocks and clay soils do not allow as much water to infiltrate the ground.' 'Urban areas are especially prone to flash floods due to the large amounts of concrete and asphalt surfaces that do not allow water to penetrate into the soil easily,' she said. Along with those hills, 'you've got the Gulf of Mexico right there, the largest body of hot water in the entire North Atlantic most of the time,' said Jeff Masters a former government meteorologist who co-founded Weather Underground and now is at Yale Climate Connections. 'So you've got a ready source of moisture for creating floods.' Preventable driving deaths Historically, many of the deaths were preventable across the nation and in Texas alike, according to experts. Masters said nothing illustrates that better than one statistic in Sharif's study: 86% of flood deaths since 1959 were people driving or walking into floodwaters. Nearly 58% of the deaths were people in cars and trucks. It's a problem especially in Texas because of hills and low lying areas that have more than 3,000 places where roads cross streams and waterways without bridges or culverts, Sharif said. ' People in Texas, they like trucks and SUVs, especially trucks,' Sharif said. 'They think trucks are tough, and that is I think a factor. So sometimes they use their big car or SUV or truck, and they say they can beat the flood on the street ... especially at night. They underestimate the depth and velocity of water.' Abshire said that not only do people ignore the weather service's safety mantra, 'Turn around, don't drown,' but studies found that a number of these fatalities occur when people actively drive around barricades and barriers blocking flooded roads. The latest Texas Hill Country flooding was less typical because so many of the deaths were in a camp where the water overtook the victims, not people going into the water, Sharif said. Only about 8% of flood deaths in the last 60 years happened in permanent homes, mobile homes or camping, according to the study. The July 4th floods happened at night, a common time for flood deaths. More than half of deaths since 1959 have occurred at night, when it's dark and people can't see how much flooding there is or are not awake for the warnings, Sharif's study found. As far as demographics, about 62% of U.S. flood deaths were male, according to the study. 'Risk-taking behavior is usually associated with men,' Sharif said, adding that it's why most fatal victims of car crashes are male. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
