What would have prevented the amount of Flood Disaster loss of life?

Another big issue I believe with this event is that when you live in some areas of the country, families have been rooted in those areas for generations and people have great knowledge of their entire area hydrology, terrain, weather experiences, etc. People in south Louisiana tend to be rooted to the area so it’s generations of knowledge about the area and you see its residents usually ready for weather events and the following aftermath as an effect. It’s just a second nature. A lot of the population knows so much about the areas waterways and such that even with something like the 2016 floods people just knew where the water was going and you didn’t hear about people needing to be rescued because they stayed in the drainage areas.

I wonder if areas like Texas have so much influx of transplants that you get so much of this type of knowledge and experience lost. Even the elected officials end up not being around from a prolonged family of experience so despite these type of issues really not being all that uncommon, it starts to become ignorant to the population due to population turnover and lack of experience of the area.

Everything changes when you put children, other people's children, in the mix. You're not going to get much grace in the decision making process when you have that kind of responsibility and liability.

Ample warning was given. If those in charge at the camp do wind up saying that they didn't get the warnings, that is a problem, because not having a way to get those warnings is negligence in itself. They will have to answer those questions.

Also, there have been people pointing out just how close to relative safety those girls actually were. A 4-6 minute walk up a hill would have gotten them out of immediate danger. The camp's emergency response plan(s) were, evidently, just signed off on by the state just days before the flood. Did that plan not involve this scenario? If not, why didn't it?

As to the response of state and local authorities, well......they have some tough questions to answer, as well. Governor Abbott has stated publicly that they dispatched ample state and even Texas A&M resources and manpower to the area "days" ahead of the flood. He stated that they even repositioned those resources once they had an idea where the biggest threat was. If that is true, and they were in the area, why the hell did that evacuation come down to relying on teen girls and a couple of guys in pickup trucks? They had over two hours of lead time from the first flash flood warning to when the situation became dire. Where was the help from the state and other resources? They're going to have to answer those questions.

The NWS Austin/San Antonio office has stated that they were in near constant contact with Kerr county and Kerrville authorities/EMA officials leading up to and during the flood. Yet, the mayor said the first word he got about the flooding came at 5:30am. Who was in contact with the NWS office prior to that (I believe maybe the deputy mayor of Kerrville), and what decisions did they make?

There are lots of questions that need to be answered, despite so many people with high emotions saying that no one is to blame. That isn't the reality of the situation. Whether you like it or not, those questions will be asked and will have to be answered.

Adults who had situational awareness. Some folks and at least one camp moves to higher ground.

You can't rely on the government for everything.

Not sure about cell signals, but you figure a camp counselor would check the radar if they saw a storm brewing.

That being said, I will withhold blame until they complete the investigation.

quote:

---

even with something like the 2016 floods people just knew where the water was going and you didn’t hear about people needing to be rescued because they stayed in the drainage areas.

---

There's some of that, but the 2016 flooding wasn't nearly as rapid. The video from the bridge where the water rose 25 feet in 30-40 minutes really underscores how much of an extreme outlier this event was.

That said, there is a similarity I think state and local governments can take note of and that's the instance of what was essentially a stalled tropical storm dropping a massive amount of rain on roughly a single area over an extended period of time. No one builds for that level of a watershed event when it's so rare for their area but now with us firmly into the Information Age, those whose jobs it is to track the weather should start keeping more of an eye out for these rare occurrences.

Accountable - DO NOT build in a flood plain. People are so money hungry they build anywhere to make a buck. This is prevalent in Phoenix.
Washes don't have water in them much - every few years or decades. Build and then the time comes for a flood.
Unnecessary devastation.

quote:

---

What would have prevented the amount of Flood Disaster loss of life?

---

Perhaps flood sirens combined with published evacuation routes?
A better understanding of risk by weather professionals?

But reality is this episode was the type of unavoidable catastrophe that we see with rapid tornado formation, massive earthquakes, etc.

A 3:46 video showing the 20 ft floodwater rise over 37 minutes.

I can't beleive that people are mentioning this more: How about the responsibility of the ownership and staff of the summer camp? Due to the loss of 10 lives from the flodding in 1987 from the same river, they should have been better prepared for this. By accepting these campers into the camp, they had the moral and legal obligation to protect those poor girls.

The thing is, there are millions of people living within a two hour drive of Kerrville and the Guadalupe. At the next large flood in 100 years there will be millions more. There will always be people recreating in the valley. It is the responsibility of our generation to solve this problem for the future.

Do not put a structure in the floodplain and do not let people dam up the creek to make a swimming hole like they did. Use a warning system that will alert everyone on their phone like Amber alerts.