Texas Hill Country disaster unfolds in the shadow of 1987's deadly flood

Hindustan Times

3 days ago

Cindy Manley was a summer camp counselor in 1987 when a different devastating flood scarred the Texas Hill Country. The area, which is known locally as 'Flash Flood Alley,' has hills that quickly gather water and funnel it into narrow river banks.(AP)
The Heart O' the Hills camp is on the Guadalupe River, where a massive search continues for more than 160 people who are believed to still be missing after catastrophic flooding over the July Fourth holiday. Decades earlier, Manley said there was an informal system in place when the river started rising: camps upstream would call down a warning and then get kids out of their bunks and to higher ground.
During the flood of 1987, Manley recalled a floating canoe injuring camp director Jane Ragsdale. But Ragsdale, 68, was among the more the than 100 victims who died in the flooding that began July 4, many of them in Kerr County.
'This water, it did something different,' Manley said. 'Jane knows floods more than anybody else. There's no way she would have been sitting in her house if she had thought this was dangerous.'
It is at least the fifth time in the last century that flooding near the Guadalupe River has turned deadly. The area, which is known locally as 'Flash Flood Alley,' has hills that quickly gather water and funnel it into narrow river banks. Water rises fast, catching people by surprise.
Here is a look at the river's deadly history of flooding.
Frantic evacuations in 1987
This mid-July flood killed 10 teenagers and injured 33 others. Water overwhelmed the river and its tributaries, forcing hundreds to flee. At a Christian academy, buses evacuating children initially encountered modest flooding. While some vehicles turned around in time, a bus and van were stranded when the river rose rapidly.
As the children were trying to leave the stranded buses to safety, a 'wall of water, estimated to be as much as half a mile wide, rushed upon the campers,' according to a government report. It scattered the kids. A bus with Seagoville Road Baptist Church on the side was pictured slammed against tangled trees, at an angle and partly under water.
A deadly morning flood in 1978
The amount of rain was extraordinary – 30 inches fell on parts of the Hill Country between Aug. 1 and 3.
It killed 33 people. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the flooding that hit the Hill Country struck early in the morning, 'the worst possible time form the point of view of data collection, warning dissemination and community reaction.'
Heavy rains in the early 1990s
A large portion of the state flooded, killing at least 13 people and causing vast damage, especially to agriculture. Month after month of 1991 was wetter than normal. Then more than half of the state was hit with more than 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain over a six-day period ahead of Christmas. That caused flooding not only in the Guadalupe basin but created what officials called 'one of the most voluminous floods recorded in the history of the State of Texas.'