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Children's camps were located in areas known to be at high risk of flooding

Children's camps were located in areas known to be at high risk of flooding

CNN21 hours ago
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The waterways in Texas Hill Country have carved paths over the centuries through the granite and limestone, shaping the rocky peaks and valleys that make the region so breathtaking.
When too much rain falls for the ground to absorb, it runs downhill, pulled by gravity into streams, creeks and rivers. The rain fills the waterways beyond their banks, and the excess overflows in predictable patterns that follow the terrain.
Governments and waterway managers know what will flood first and who will be threatened when a truly historic rain event takes place.
Several of the camps along the Guadalupe River and its tributaries sustained damage early July 4. Many of them are in areas known to flood.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency maintains a database of flood zones throughout the country. It maps the regulatory floodways — the places that will flood first and are most dangerous — and the areas that will flood in extreme events.
The Guadalupe River flood was a 1-in-100-year event, meaning it has about a 1% chance of happening in any given year. Extreme flooding is happening more frequently as the world warms and the atmosphere is able to hold more moisture.
Texas has already seen multiple dangerous flooding events this year, and the United States overall saw a record number of flash flood emergencies last year.
More than an entire summer's worth of rain fell in some spots in central Texas in just a few hours early on the Fourth of July, quickly overwhelming dry soils and creating significant flash flooding. Central Texas is currently home to some of the worst drought in the United States and bone-dry soils flood very quickly.
Camp Mystic is a nondenominational Christian summer camp for girls in western Kerr County. The camp is located at a dangerous confluence of the South Fork Guadalupe River and Cypress Creek, where flood waters converged.
Camp Mystic has two sites, both of which overlap with either the floodway or areas the federal government has determined have a 1% or 0.2% annual chance of flooding.
Officials have not shared how many of the Camp Mystic girls perished in the floods. At least 10 girls and one counselor remain missing as of Sunday evening.
Ten minutes north on the South Fork is Camp La Junta, a boys camp. Some of Camp La Junta's property also coincides with areas known to flood, though several of its buildings are located in the lower-risk zone, or outside the flood zones entirely.
Wyndham Etheridge, a 14-year-old at Camp La Junta in Hunt, Texas, told CNN's Fredricka Whitfield he woke up to people from all over the camp coming to 'seek refuge' at his cabin. They stayed there, fearing the strong floodwaters could sweep them away.
As the water rose, they climbed into the loft of their cabin to escape, but it wasn't safe, Etheridge said. 'So at some point we just decided … we could go to bed for a little bit, but then we woke up again to more water,' he said.
Etheridge's parents were among the lucky who received word that their child was safe and could be picked up. 'All those boys were pretty traumatized,' said Amy Etheridge, Wyndham's mother.
Everyone at Camp La Junta has been safe and accounted for, the camp announced Friday.
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Some ex-Texas county officials thought phone calls, not sirens, would be OK in flood
Some ex-Texas county officials thought phone calls, not sirens, would be OK in flood

Yahoo

time38 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Some ex-Texas county officials thought phone calls, not sirens, would be OK in flood

Over the years that the Kerr County Commission spent discussing whether to implement a new flood warning system, some commissioners suggested that sticking with "river calling," an informal phone chain of sorts used by summer camps, would be better than installing new flood sirens, flashing lights or signs. "The camps have had a very good system -- if there's a rise, they're phoning their competitors or colleagues down river and letting them know what happened," said commissioner Kerr County Commissioner Bob Reeves, according to minutes of a 2016 meeting, nearly a decade before devastating floods left at least 100 dead over this past weekend. "It's informal as you said, but it's been a very good system." "They notify each other, we notify them, they notify, there's a lot of informal things that really do work real well," said former Kerr County Sheriff W.R. Hierholzer said at the time, although he noted the river can "come up in an instant." MORE: Texas flooding victims: From young campers to a dad saving his family, what we know about the lives lost At another meeting in 2017, a different commissioner said the "river calling" system between camps "still works" and added that "the thought of our beautiful Kerr County having these damn sirens going off in the middle of [the] night, I'm going to have to start drinking again to put up with y'all." But to others, the status quo appeared unreliable at best: "We have a warning system out there that may or may not work," Kerr County Commissioner Jonathan Letz said in 2016. "My gut feeling on this and it's kind of an odd way to say this but I think we have a duty to look at what we have," the commissioner continued, later noting, "We are very flood prone, we know that." Some commissioners noted that nearby counties, including those with lower flood risk than Kerr, had already implemented upgraded flood warning systems. According to transcripts of commission meetings, Kerr County Commissioners decided to apply for FEMA dollars made available by President Barack Obama's disaster declaration in 2017. But a county judge and some commissioners expressed discontent that such funding would have to come from the Obama administration and discussed possible exit strategies if they were to receive a FEMA grant. Outside of applying for the FEMA funding, one commissioner said, "Our other option is don't do anything, which is an option. I mean we can just stick with what we have." This includes their system of 20 High Water Detection System crossings -- nine maintained by Texas Department of Transportation and 11 maintained by GBRA. Another commissioner supported applying for the grant but said he wanted to make clear that "this is a kind of a straw man to put in the application because we have to have it, but it's going to be re-looked at in the future." Commissioners acknowledged that this was "not normally the way we would do things," but that the process had to be rushed to meet the deadline of the Obama Administration ending. Kerr County was not selected by the Texas Division of Emergency Management to receive federal funds the state received from FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Assistance Program.

Some former Texas county officials thought informal phone calls, not sirens, would be sufficient in a flood

time44 minutes ago

Some former Texas county officials thought informal phone calls, not sirens, would be sufficient in a flood

Over the years that the Kerr County Commission spent discussing whether to implement a new flood warning system, some commissioners suggested that sticking with "river calling," an informal phone chain of sorts used by summer camps, would be better than installing new flood sirens, flashing lights or signs. "The camps have had a very good system -- if there's a rise, they're phoning their competitors or colleagues down river and letting them know what happened," said commissioner Kerr County Commissioner Bob Reeves, according to minutes of a 2016 meeting, nearly a decade before devastating floods left at least 100 dead over this past weekend. "It's informal as you said, but it's been a very good system." "They notify each other, we notify them, they notify, there's a lot of informal things that really do work real well," said former Kerr County Sheriff W.R. Hierholzer said at the time, although he noted the river can "come up in an instant." At another meeting in 2017, a different commissioner said the "river calling" system between camps "still works" and added that "the thought of our beautiful Kerr County having these damn sirens going off in the middle of [the] night, I'm going to have to start drinking again to put up with y'all." But to others, the status quo appeared unreliable at best: "We have a warning system out there that may or may not work," Kerr County Commissioner Jonathan Letz said in 2016. "My gut feeling on this and it's kind of an odd way to say this but I think we have a duty to look at what we have," the commissioner continued, later noting, "We are very flood prone, we know that." Some commissioners noted that nearby counties, including those with lower flood risk than Kerr, had already implemented upgraded flood warning systems. According to transcripts of commission meetings, Kerr County Commissioners decided to apply for FEMA dollars made available by President Barack Obama's disaster declaration in 2017. But a county judge and some commissioners expressed discontent that such funding would have to come from the Obama administration and discussed possible exit strategies if they were to receive a FEMA grant. Outside of applying for the FEMA funding, one commissioner said, "Our other option is don't do anything, which is an option. I mean we can just stick with what we have." This includes their system of 20 High Water Detection System crossings -- nine maintained by Texas Department of Transportation and 11 maintained by GBRA. Another commissioner supported applying for the grant but said he wanted to make clear that "this is a kind of a straw man to put in the application because we have to have it, but it's going to be re-looked at in the future." Commissioners acknowledged that this was "not normally the way we would do things," but that the process had to be rushed to meet the deadline of the Obama Administration ending. Kerr County was not selected by the Texas Division of Emergency Management to receive federal funds the state received from FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Assistance Program.

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