SOURCE: BBC
Posted on 07/07/2025 3:04:48 PM PDT by Miami Rebel
Eight years ago, in the aftermath of yet another river flood in the Texas Hill Country, officials in Kerr County debated whether more needed to be done to build a warning system along the banks of the Guadalupe River.
A series of summer camps along the river were often packed with children. For years, local officials kept them safe with a word-of-mouth system: When floodwaters started raging, upriver camp leaders warned those downriver of the water surge coming their way.
....
In the end, little was done. When catastrophic floodwaters surged through Kerr County last week, there were no sirens or early flooding monitors. Instead, there were text alerts that came late for some residents and were dismissed or unseen by others.
The rural county of a little over 50,000 people, in a part of Texas known as Flash Flood Alley, contemplated installing a flood warning system in 2017, but it was rejected as too expensive. The county, which has an annual budget of around $67 million, lost out on a bid at the time to secure a $1 million grant to fund the project, county commission meeting minutes show.
As recently as a May budget meeting, county commissioners were discussing a flood warning system being developed by a regional agency as something that they might be able to make use of.
..........
The idea of a flood warning system was broached in 2015, in the aftermath of a deadly flood in Wimberley, Texas, about 75 miles to the east of Kerrville, the Kerr County seat.....
People living near the Guadalupe in Kerr County may have little time to seek higher ground, especially when flash floods come through late at night when people are asleep. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Yes, very easily could have. With that much notice, a warning siren and everybody walking uphill, they would survive.
A very good question - and one they will now be forced to answer.
I heard the Sheriff say it right out loud: “There’s no alarm system because people won’t spend the money”.
I replied on an earlier thread when the picture was posted of the actual NOAA weather radio, that I have had one for 20 years...in Metro Atlanta, we get warnings about everything; flash flood warnings, severe thunderstorm, hurricanes, tornadoes - you name it....It will sound warnings any time of the day or night with an unmistakable NOISE - pretty much like a firetruck siren on the way to a fire. If people aren’t paying attention or pooh pooh the warnings, that’s their problem but the WX radio definitely would have helped on Friday in TX.. No one would have slept through the warning! The briefings in TX today have talked about those radios and hopefully, they will be taken seriously.
I’ll tell you about the early warning system with Duke when the river goes up 26 feet. The early warning system to Texas upstream, blood gauges register the sudden increase, sirens go off five 1015 and 20 miles downstream. And people traveled the distance between a couple of hundred yards, or maybe a half mile up the hill for safety. And no meteorologists are needed to monitor the river flow. Texas screwed the pooch on yet another emergency. They failed in Covid, they failed in the Texas freeze out, they failed at Uvalde. And now this.
But they do put on a great press conference 15 or 20 guys on stage, every politician you can think of, everyone wearing cowboy hat and invoking the deity.
“”Could have bought them all $20 NOAA weather radios.””
Hopefully NOW they’ll listen and make that decision!!! I saw Senator Cruz speaking at the briefing earlier today and the powers that be recognize now the need for warning signals of some kind - even if they are only the NOAA WX radios...which do the job!!!! Mine goes off with any warning of bad weather on the way - tornadoes, hurricanes, flash flooding. Happens a lot in Metro Atlanta...No kidding - the noise would wake the most sound of sleepers!!!
During the1993 floods inWest Des Moines, IA, I was part of the first responders who went house to house warning residents to evacuate before the temporary levee broke. I don’t understand why local emergency officials in Texas could not have both called the camp leaders and driven to the camps with PA and sirens to force evacuation.
Oh did I mention it was 1:30 in the morning in the dead of night. So once again the river went up 26 feet in under an hour this isn’t humanly possible.
Yep, Now I find that they need a 3 watch sentry operation.
Maybe just 2. Evening and Night.
Sirens mean stay in place or find a storm cellar.
lawsuits gonna fly all over the place- warnings known but ignored-
Considering their history of floods, 1972, 1973, 1978, 1987, 1991 and 1997, they should have built a 32 ft. seawall along both sides of the Guadalupe River. 20 miles upstream and 20 miles down stream........That would have fixed it.....or not.
The people that run those camps have TV, radio and cell phones. There were super heavy rain and flooding warnings out.
The folks who run those camps should have been paying attention and took those kids down near the river to high ground before bedtime to be on the safe side.
I feel sad because the man who owns the camp died trying to save them but was too late.
It was a tragedy but there were many people who had no idea it was coming because they were asleep.
Too expensive? Those lawsuits will wipe the city out. They should have begged the state to pay for it or at least help with it. It’s not like it never happened before.
The article said that cellphone reception is somewhat sketchy in this area. It’s likely that a siren system (as had been proposed) could have saved lives.
It might have helped. Sometimes though during major storms even those systems aren’t always heard very well. Particularly when there is thunder and lightening in the middle of the night.
Cop out. Elected officials get elected to make decisions as best they can.
This isn't the demos at Athens. If people didn't like the money spent on such a system, they could vote their elected officials out. But elected officials should not shirk from making purchases regarding life safety systems.
The ones that were lost were down closest to the river. They could have gotten them out before bedtime. Most of the girls survived.
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