Texas Flash Floods Turn Deadly

I've been following this story most of the day. Absolutely terrible and tragic. I'm praying for everyone who is still missing, but especially the 2 dozen or so from the girls summer camp.

Here's a contrast of one of the rivers flooding right now compared to what it normally looks like:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1941265996112855356
 
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I think the forcast called for three to six inches of rain and the NWS did issue a flood watch on the July 3rd. But that much rain in that short of time? Unless it is a hurricane how do you predict that?

At another site a woman talked about her young cousin, Betty, who was in one of the cabins at Mystic. By the time they woke up they could not open the door. The counselor broke the window and they exited in water up to the necks and did their best to swim a short way to land. A helicopter retrieved them. They were very, very lucky.
 
The first I'd heard of this was a repost of a parent updating their plea for information finding their daughter - the news was the worst, but they thanked people for helping getting her identified so quickly :(
 
From someone familiar with the camp and then a note from Betty's cousin at the end:

https://x.com/carolinewren/status/1941538181448348088?s=46

“Camp Mystic is an all girls Christian camp on the Guadalupe River and opened in 1926 and has been run by the same family since the 1930s. The current owners, Dick and Tweety Eastland, have been with the camp since 1974 and sadly I am hearing that Dick Eastland died in the flooding (unconfirmed) while trying to rescue the young campers in the Bubble Inn and Twins cabins. Those two cabins are along the river and are for the 7-8 year old campers (the youngest age group at the camp). The cabins reportedly washed away and almost, if not all, of the 27 missing kids from Camp Mystic are from those two cabins including two camp counselors (aged 19). At least two of those precious children are confirmed dead by their families and the bodies have been recovered.“

My little cousin told her mother that as they were fighting to get away from the flood, she could see Bubble Inn was floating away, the dining hall was completely gone and the infirmary was torn in half.
 
My prayers for all the families. How terrible.

I had a couple classmates caught in a flash flood once--fortunately they were on high ground in the fields rather than down in a canyon or near a waterway. But they were caught out in the open and walked through the deluge, with multiple lightning strikes hitting all around them, and really did fear for their lives. Five miles away, there was nothing.
 
Cachoo said:
From someone familiar with the camp and then a note from Betty's cousin at the end:

https://x.com/carolinewren/status/1941538181448348088?s=46

“Camp Mystic is an all girls Christian camp on the Guadalupe River and opened in 1926 and has been run by the same family since the 1930s. The current owners, Dick and Tweety Eastland, have been with the camp since 1974 and sadly I am hearing that Dick Eastland died in the flooding (unconfirmed) while trying to rescue the young campers in the Bubble Inn and Twins cabins. Those two cabins are along the river and are for the 7-8 year old campers (the youngest age group at the camp). The cabins reportedly washed away and almost, if not all, of the 27 missing kids from Camp Mystic are from those two cabins including two camp counselors (aged 19). At least two of those precious children are confirmed dead by their families and the bodies have been recovered.“

My little cousin told her mother that as they were fighting to get away from the flood, she could see Bubble Inn was floating away, the dining hall was completely gone and the infirmary was torn in half.
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Horrible tragedy. Tonight while watching tv I saw that the number of dead is 43. :(

I can’t imagine the grief of those families. All my sympathies to them.

I am wondering if there are any laws regarding these types of camps near rivers and flash flood areas? If not, will this tragedy create some?
 
Dobre said:
My prayers for all the families. How terrible.

I had a couple classmates caught in a flash flood once--fortunately they were on high ground in the fields rather than down in a canyon or near a waterway. But they were caught out in the open and walked through the deluge, with multiple lightning strikes hitting all around them, and really did fear for their lives. Five miles away, there was nothing.
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There is a place on the Kansas Turnpike where a family and another man were swept to their deaths. But the weird thing is there isn't a stream, lake or pond anywhere to be found. I've been on that road at least a hundred times and I'm still mystified by that one flash flood.

The numbers are grim: 51 found, 27 missing that they know of at this time--most of them the girls from Mystic.
 
Cachoo said:
There is a place on the Kansas Turnpike where a family and another man were swept to their deaths. But the weird thing is there isn't a stream, lake or pond anywhere to be found. I've been on that road at least a hundred times and I'm still mystified by that one flash flood.

The numbers are grim: 51 found, 27 missing that they know of at this time--most of them the girls from Mystic.
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My understanding is that flash floods can occur in seemingly dry areas when water from elsewhere rushes in quite unexpectedly. I have heard of such areas in Arizona.

I read an article that said there are many summer camps near the Guadalupe river but many of them were empty, fortunately for those kids. There were a couple of boys’ camps on the other side but they all survived. One camp was on a hill, so the flood didn’t reach them.

The girls’ camp was asleep when the water arrived around 4am. So tragic!

It is strange that they got 12 inches of rain in just a few hours. The climate is certainly becoming unpredictable.
 
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Vash01 said:
It is strange that they got 12 inches of rain in just a few hours. The climate is certainly becoming unpredictable.
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Well, no, it's not that strange, based on several of the posts I've seen on X from some meteorologists familiar with the Texas Hill Country. This is the time of year when flash floods are quite common in the region and what happened Thursday night through Saturday was the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry got stuck against a strong low-level jet stream and the storm then stalled out over the area and just poured buckets & buckets of rain.

Here is a GREAT Substack article I came across that explains what happened in depth (scroll down past the Tropical Storm Chantal info) - https://theeyewall.substack.com/p/m...hat?r=6bg74&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
 
How awful. I hope all the missing will be found - what agony for their families.

The blame game is going to get ugly. Local authorities are blaming the National Weather Service, but it did issue warnings - good thread here on Bluesky:

There have been claims that NOAA/NWS did not foresee catastrophic TX floods--but that's simply not true. This was undoubtedly an extreme event, but messaging rapidly escalated beginning ~12 hrs prior. Flood Watch mid PM, "heads up" outlook late PM, flash flood warnings ~1am.
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and in Forbes.

But according to the NY Times, many of the weather service personnel who would normally coordinate with local officials had been let go or retired. And regardless of NWS staff shortages, there was no warning system even in this very flood prone area.

Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, said the county did not have a warning system because such systems are expensive, and local residents are resistant to new spending. “Taxpayers won’t pay for it,” Mr. Kelly said. Asked if people might reconsider in light of the catastrophe, he said, “I don’t know.”
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This morning's press conference update - 59 confirmed dead in Kerr County, including 21 children - there are still 11 children missing; at least 65 dead across the state. They are still recovering victims & promised they would not stop until every single parent is reunited with their child.
 
More on the history of Camp Mystic. This was no rustic camp like the ones I attended growing up or even counselled at one summer during college.

nypost.com

Christian summer camp where girls went missing during devastating flooding has been attended by daughters of Texas’ political elite for 100 years

Camp Mystic has been a destination for the daughters of Texas’s political elite since it was founded in 1926.
nypost.com nypost.com

It counts among its alumnae the daughters of several former governors, and the daughters & granddaughters of LBJ. Laura Bush was a camp counsellor there while in college.
 
Vash01 said:
I am wondering if there are any laws regarding these types of camps near rivers and flash flood areas? If not, will this tragedy create some?
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Doubtful. There is nothing wrong with having a camp near water. And given that flash floods can happen even not near bodies of water what would such legislation even look like?

I hope though that this will prompt communities without warning systems to spend the money to get them. And maybe rehire some of those fired federal employees who could have helped spread the word.
 
Private Citizen said:
Then please enlighten me: Why do we need 20,000? And not 2000? Or 15,000? Or 47,000? Or 8000? What is the reason why 20,000 is the magic number, and why 15,000+ can't function effectively?
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MsZem said:
The magic number is the one that allows you to ask what the magic number is. You'll find out that you dropped below this threshold when something like this happens:
www.nature.com

Fatal flaw in baby formula sparks reform in Israeli ministry - Nature Medicine

www.nature.com www.nature.com
www.jta.org

Manager at Remedia baby formula firm found guilty in Israeli scandal - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

A manager at the Israeli baby formula firm Remedia was convicted of negligent manslaughter for not revealing that the formula was deficient in vitamin B1.
www.jta.org www.jta.org

IIRC, it was clear at the time that there were not enough health officials to realistically handle all the testing needed, thus the light sentences.
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Sometimes I hate being right (even if it's in a different context).

My heart goes out to the victims' families. I hope they didn't suffer.
 
MacMadame said:
Doubtful. There is nothing wrong with having a camp near water. And given that flash floods can happen even not near bodies of water what would such legislation even look like?

I hope though that this will prompt communities without warning systems to spend the money to get them. And maybe rehire some of those fired federal employees who could have helped spread the word.
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That (warning systems and rehiring) would be optimistic. It will be good if it happens.

Actually I think camps should not be allowed near flash flood areas. Regulations are needed to keep distance/elevation near any body of water while permitting camps. I don’t know if they require permits.

The reason I think like this is that there are rules and regulations for backyard pools (fence or sliding doors that can’t be opened by children) and repeated warnings for parents to watch their children around water. I am a bit surprised that there are camps near rivers.

I guess I don’t know much about such camps, but there must be some kind of regulations.
 
Cachoo said:
A bit of Kerr County history with their warning system (realizing hindsight is 20/20.)

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Sounds like a very difficult situation. Those small counties in the Texas hill country need reliable sirens in multiple locations and that would require a lot of money. I wonder if people in those counties would accept higher taxes to protect themselves after this tragedy? Usually people dismiss tragedies as one time occurrence and they don’t go for long term solutions.

I am thinking of areas that are prone to fires in other parts of the countries. How do they get reliable warning systems? Similarly with tornado areas. They have warning systems. Can any of those be duplicated? The terrain in the hill country is quite different though. So May be not.
 
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