History repeats itself!1987 church camp Guadalupe River swept away.

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[AuntB]

Did no one remember this???

I'm sorry for sounding cruel, but the churches, the parents, the county, SOMEONE should have known the danger and history of the area!! This is NOT excusable! This is sheer ignorance and arrogance.

1987! Same river filled with children from a church camp!

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: blindfaith; church; flood; guadaluperiver; history; historyrepeats; texas; tragic

[AuntB]

See the video of the 1987 tragedy at the link

[Texas Eagle]

I thought something sounded familiar about this.

[chud]

Here's an article about it:
https://apnews.com/article/texas-floods-camp-mystic-8b5de175602daabaabe2f3ef425e5bf1<

[yesthatjallen]

Previously:

1987 Flood Tragedy

[CondoleezzaProtege]

*sigh*

It seems to have been a blindspot for sure.

California has been good about earthquake building codes, going so far as to seismically retrofit older structures. But wildfire-wise, it’s ridiculous how densely packed and high up into brushy hills construction of so many new multimillion dollar homes have been. It shouldn’t keep taking catastrophe to wake people up.

But floods seem even more difficult to escape. Prayers.

[TangoLimaSierra]

Every camp counselor should be mandated to carry a NOAA weather alert radio.
Cheap and effective.

[Texas Eagle]

From the maps I've looked at, it appears the river didn't really overflow its banks, it looks like that area is a flood plain. A giant river bed that doesn't have that much water flowing down it on a daily basis.

There's also a road that runs parallel to the Guadalupe River (Highway 39 I think) that the water never crossed. So it appears someone knew that was the true river bank.

So, yes, tragically and stupidly, it appears that camp was situated on a river bed, not next to a river.

[JimRed]

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

[bobbo666]

Would have done no good. The weather alert for the area was at about 4A — and that was applicable to most of central Texas. 20 minutes later the weather folks realized that tons of rain was going to hit that specific area — much too late to wake and evacuate anyone.
Hills and poor predictive technology combine to put this into the same risk category as an earthquake — you know there is an earthquake when it happens. Ditto on flash floods.
The only real “protection” is to limit such camps to large lake shores — where a flash flood dissipates.

[delchiante]

It’s a shame that this area will probably flash flood again and loss of life will happen again.

It seems history shows it.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Bookmark

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Reference.

[2big2fail]

I’m very very critical of camp leadership. They knew they were on a flood plain. Or even a riverbed as someone above pointed out. They knew there were watches and warnings including the last one two hours before the catastrophe. If they didn’t know they should have. In this day and age there are several ways to keep apprised of weather conditions. It sometimes is critical. They chose to ignore the watches and warnings. Apparently they just went to bed. Of course they were surprised when waters rushed in at 400 am. They did literally nothing to prepare. By some means, they should’ve monitored weather in this very volatile time of year. Given history, that is a minimum. They should’ve taken heed before bedtime and by some means monitor the river. Given history, this would be a given. Does everyone really just go to sleep at 1100 pm here?? Jeez. You’re in charge of 700 little girls and you let everyone ignore weather alerts and just go to sleep??

[wbarmy]

This was back in 1987 and a lot changed since then. Plus time increasingly dulls the mind’s perception of what might happen. The camp did have a test of the system seval days before, but I imagine this was one of those “something we have to do but will never have to implement” kind of training”. Very few people stay “frosty” on a day to day basis, especially if the event hasn’t recurred for 40 years.

[alternatives?]

In California the earthquake codes were put in a long time ago. The lack of wildfire control is a recent event. They want to reinvent how people live. Wildfires are a tool.

[KC_for_Freedom]

Yes, I’m sure that an after action report will sort all these things/events out but as a Safety Engineer, I can see that attention to this was not taken. Captains have people standing watch at night, all it would have taken.

[TangoLimaSierra]

Would have done no good. The weather alert for the area was at about 4A

There were earlier alerts that sould have gotten them moving in time. Listen to this:

A meteorologist talks about the floods.

[9YearLurker]

Agreed. And as unpopular as it may sound, the state IMO shouldn’t be on the hook for a million-dollar warning system for a handful of camps. Federal bailouts incentive people to build in precarious areas.

[Zathras]

It sounded familiar to me as well.
Good job AuntB

[eastexsteve]

Although this is an account of another bad one, dangerous floods happen in central Texas all the time. The only way you don’t know this is if you haven’t been in the area very long.