Horrifying final act inflicted on Camp Mystic children BEFORE Texas floods hit

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

Brave counselors who realized Camp Mystic may be swept away by raging water wrote campers' names on their arms as the deadly Texas floods rolled through.
Silvana Garza Valdez and María Paula Zárate, both 19, started preparing their campers for the worst as cabins nearest the Guadalupe River started to be evacuated via helicopter.
'We began writing the girls' names on their skin, wherever it could be visible,' Zárate told the Los Angeles Times. 'We told them to make a bag with all their things, whatever was most necessary to get ready to evacuate.'
At least 120 people have died in the flash floods that laid waste to the Hill Country region of Texas and more than 160 people are still believed to be missing as recovery efforts are underway.
Among those killed in the tragedy were 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic, a century-old all-girls Christian summer camp. Officials said five campers and one counselor from the camp have still not been found.
Community members are urgently calling on city and county officials to implement a warning system to prevent deadly disasters, such as floods and tornadoes.
More than 38,000 people have signed an online position requesting that old-fashioned outdoor sirens be installed across Kerr County, where the majority of fatalities occurred.
Authorities have faced scrutiny over the region's emergency alert system since last Friday when the Guadalupe River swelled and broke its banks in the middle of night, with many locals alleging the alert response was delayed or never came at all.
Valdez and Zárate, both from Mexico, were first privy to the severe weather around 3am Friday when torrential downpour knocked the electricity out across the camp.
But it wasn't until midday that all counselors were notified that a portion of the camp had been ravaged by the floods, with survivors being kept in the dining hall.
The pair noticed that helicopter evacuations were underway and decided it was time to prepare their own campers even though they 'didn't know if they were going to evacuate us or not'.
They instructed the youngsters to pack their bags and wrote their names on their arms, but say they didn't really understand what was going on.
The counselors played games and sang songs with the girls as the river spilled over and furniture from the campground rushed past them.
When the evacuation orders came, the girls became frightened, Valdez recalled.
'All the girls lost their cool, they all began crying because they didn't want to leave campgrounds, because they wanted to be with their parents. It was a terrible situation,' she told the newspaper.
The counselor said it was 'never reported to us that anyone died', suggesting it was because that was unclear at the time, but said they were told dozens were missing.
Valdez, who described the floods as a 'storm from a horror movie', added that the situation felt 'unreal' and said she didn't understand the 'gravity' of the disaster 'until we left on the Army trucks'.
Local authorities and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have urged the public not to point fingers after the flooding, but anger is starting to boil over.
Self-described 'undersigned residents' have launched a petition calling for city and county officials to implement a 'modern outdoor early warning siren system for floods, tornadoes, and other life-threatening emergencies'.
'The tragic events at Camp Mystic and the devastating flooding along the Guadalupe River that happened in July are stark reminders that severe weather can strike with little notice,' the Change.org petition reads in part.
'A well-placed siren system will provide critical extra minutes for families, schools, camps, businesses, and visitors to seek shelter and evacuate when needed.'
The petition urges a warning siren system is 'not just a wish' but instead a 'necessary investment in public safety' which can save 'thousands of lives'.
Nicole Wilson, who started the petition, says rural communities 'lived and died' by warning sirens in the 80s and 90s - when text alerts did not exist - and thinks they should be brought back.
'I would be willing to talk about it but not yet. It's just too raw right now,' said Glenn Andrew, a former Kerrville city council member who voted in 2017 to pull the city out of the grant proposal for the project. 'My preference is to look forward to the future.'
'When I found out that there were no sirens in this area and in a lot of areas in the state of Texas... that blew my mind because sirens are simply an easy warning system,' she told CNN.
Wilson argued disaster agencies 'cannot rely on the text alerts' because technology can fail, service is patchy and, in the case of children attending summer camps, not necessarily accessible.
'My daughters were just at a faith-based camp. These children are not allowed to bring any technology whatsoever. It'll get confiscated because they're there to be present,' she explained, adding that often times counselors are also banned from having cell phones in the cabins.
She says agencies need to have 'layers' of alerts and 'cannot rely on one single mitigation'.
Over the last decade, an array of Texas state and local agencies missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert a disaster like Friday's flash floods.
A spokesperson for Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Wednesday that lawmakers, who begin a special session later this month, would approve funding to cover such projects in the future.
'The state will provide emergency warning sirens where needed,' Patrick spokesperson Steven Aranyi wrote in an email.
But some Raymond Howard, a city council member in Ingram, Texas, in Kerr County, said Wednesday it´s 'unfathomable' that county officials never took action despite repeatedly talking about it.
'That´s just mind-boggling,' he said. 'It´s unfathomable that they never worked on it. If it comes down to funding, they´re constantly raising taxes on us for other stuff. This is more important. This is lives. This is families. This is heartbreaking.'
Howard, who lives in a home along the Guadalupe River, said any action now would come too late for those who have died.
Kerr County requested a flood warning system grant in 2016 through the Texas Division of Emergency Management´s hazard mitigation program, which is supported by Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to help communities reduce their risk.
But that application was rejected because it did not meet federal specifications, including one that required the county have a current hazard mitigation plan on file, Texas emergency management spokesperson Wes Rapaport said.
The county hired a consultant and an engineering firm to help prepare another application for the project for the next funding cycle in 2017. The system outlined in the county´s preliminary plan would provide 'mass notifications to citizens about high water levels and flooding conditions throughout Kerr County.'
At targeted low water crossings within Kerr County, sensors connected to monitoring stations would transmit a signal that would notify local officials and emergency management agencies of the rising water levels. Officials envisioned using that information to alert the public and call their contacts at youth camps and RV parks during emergencies.
But after Hurricane Harvey caused record flooding in Houston and other areas of Texas in August 2017, 'funding was distributed to counties that fell under the disaster declaration, which Kerr County was not included on,' Rapaport said.
The City of Kerrville's council voted 4-0 to decline to participate in the grant proposal, balking at its planned $50,000 contribution, minutes show.
Texas voters created a new funding source for such projects in 2019, backing a constitutional amendment to create a state flood infrastructure fund with an initial $800 million investment.
The Upper Guadalupe River Authority, which manages the watershed in Kerr County, revived the project last year with a $1 million initial request for funding. The Texas Water Development Board, which oversees the fund, offered a $50,000 grant and a $950,000 interest-free loan for the rest of the project.
The river authority declined to pursue the funding, saying the terms were not favorable.