Texas Hill Country’s Lack of Flash Flood Protection Exposed by July 4th Disaster
Ignoring the realities of the reasons behind the Guadalupe River flood disaster to craft the “Trump Katrina” narrative is as dangerous as it is shameful.
By now, most Americans have likely heard about the July 4th tragedy in central Texas.
In the early hours of Independence Day, intense thunderstorms dumped up to 15 inches of rain in parts of Kerr County in just a few short hours. The Guadalupe River surged more than 26 feet in 45 minutes, overwhelming everything in its path. So far, the resulting flash floods have claimed 70 lives.
Families sifted through waterlogged debris Sunday and stepped inside empty cabins at Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp ripped apart by flash floods that washed homes off their foundations and killed at least 70 people in central Texas.
Rescuers maneuvering through challenging terrain continued their desperate search for the missing, including 11 girls and a counselor from the camp. How many more remain unaccounted for across the Texas Hill Country and beyond remains unclear as authorities haven’t given an estimate even though it has been three days since the storm began pounding the state.
Sadly, the Democrats and their eco-activist supporters are politicizing the disaster in an effort to mar President Donald Trump’s magnificent July 4th celebrations as well as to create a narrative that will make the Guadalupe River flood into Trump’s Katrina.
The Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the nation’s atmospheric research programs could set U.S. forecasting back a generation or more, a cadre of retired federal hurricane, weather and ocean scientists warns.
The budget proposed by the White House for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is almost half what it was a year ago, and eliminates all funding for the agency’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, the division that coordinates and conducts weather and climate research across the nation.
“It will stop all progress” in U.S. forecasting, said James Franklin, who retired in 2017 as chief of the National Hurricane Center’s forecast specialists.
Texas Floods are Trump's Katrina. #TrumpsKatrina https://t.co/cx036P3yBw
— @StableGenius (@SOS12017) July 6, 2025
This narrative is built on a foundation of lies. Furthermore, I believe that eco-activism that has led to the destruction of dams and flood protections in order to “save fish” and “preserve nature” may lead to more of these tragedies in the future.
To begin with, the National Weather Service (NWS) had extra staff on duty and issued a series of warnings, including a flood watch at 1:18 p.m. on July 3 and a flash flood emergency in the early hours of July 4, urging immediate evacuation to higher ground.
The NWS office in New Braunfels provides forecasts for Austin, San Antonio, and the surrounding areas. Typically, the office would have two forecasters on duty during clear weather, but during the event, they had up to five staff members present. This increase in staffing is standard practice for significant weather events, with additional personnel brought in on overtime or held over to ensure adequate coverage.
“There were extra people in here that night, and that’s typical in every weather service office — you staff up for an event and bring people in on overtime and hold people over,” [Jason Runyen, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service office] said.
However, it turns out that Kerr County does not have a flash flood warning system in place.
….When asked about how people were notified in Kerr County so that they could get to safety, Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s chief elected official, said: “We do not have a warning system.”
When reporters pushed on why more precautions weren’t taken, Kelly responded: “Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming.”
Timelapse flooding in Texas. Nature is powerful and dangerous pic.twitter.com/nuDf5S0ez3
— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) July 5, 2025
This is an especially troubling lack of emergency preparedness. The Guadalupe River has a substantial floodplain and has been hit with this type of disaster previously.
Flash-flooding of the Guadalupe River was well-known for decades.
Local warning systems could have been implemented, and local land-use restrictions could have prevented risky land-use in the flood plain. https://t.co/RAaGx309wm pic.twitter.com/GHZihQMMJF— Daniel A. Walker 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇬🇱🌻😷💉🚴🏻 (@danwalker9999) July 5, 2025
In addition to missing emergency preparedness opportunities, the region lacks important infrastructure that can be critical to minimizing damage caused by surges in rivers and tributaries caused by massive storms. While the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) operates several dams on the Colorado River, these primarily protect areas downstream, such as Austin, and do little to prevent flash flooding along the Guadalupe and its tributaries.
Additionally, many dams are in need of maintenance.
Currently, there are 181 dams that need repair, and 518 dams that need rehabilitation and upgrade to meet high hazard criteria. The Structural Repair and Rehabilitation Grant Program is addressing this growing backlog by providing state grant funds to provide 95% of dam repair cost and 98.25% of dam upgrade cost, and matching funding for federal projects through the Dam Rehabilitation Program and the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program of the Texas NRCS.
Since fiscal year 2014, TSSWCB has provided approximately $22.5 million in state funding to match approximately $78.2 million in federal funding for repair and rehabilitation activities. Repair and rehabilitation/upgrade of dams is costly. Current estimated repair need in Texas is $135 million, and rehabilitation/upgrade need is $2.0 billion. These numbers are only expected to grow as dams continue to age, and urban development continues to spread throughout Texas. Over the past 6 years, an average of 21 dams per year have been reclassified
from low hazard to high hazard due to urban development downstream.
I would like to wrap up this piece by noting that dams are critical in preventing catastrophic floods. Therefore, when environmentalists celebrate the destruction of these critical pieces of infrastructure, they are setting up communities to face devastating flash floods.
Ignoring the realities of the reasons behind the Guadalupe River flood disaster to craft the “Trump Katrina” narrative is as dangerous as it is shameful. It also leaves Americans vulnerable to policy choices created by those making that accusation, which could lead to more such incidents.
Okay. Let’s talk some facts.
The Camp Mystic flood disaster in Texas is very unfortunate, and I hope that all of the missing girls are found.
The usual suspects are exploiting this tragedy to score political brownie points. Some left-wing activists are blaming this flood on… pic.twitter.com/ODX5Rmpm7G
— Chris Martz (@ChrisMartzWX) July 5, 2025
It is also a bad look that is going to make the Democratic Party look more desperate and weak than it already is.
The Dems are showing their usual compassion for dead children in a red state. pic.twitter.com/spMz0X6Gqx
— mallen2024 (@mallen20243) July 6, 2025
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Comments
It is insane that there was no warning system. They have at least 40 camps along that river in a short area along the Guadalupe River.
That this scenario was allowed to exist, there are just no words
First I would like to state this is an extremely unfortunate event, and my heart goes out to the families.
Wimberely Texas on the blanco river had a huge flood in May 2015. So the risk is known during spring time. However, the summer is a very different story.
I live in the north texas area, Its been 20 years since we have 1″ of rain during any week of June July or Aug. Its probably been 50-60 years since the texas has had 2″ of rain during any week, much less in a 2-3 hour period, in the months of june/july or aug (with the exception of a hurricane).
I doubt any one was monitoring the rain forecast, given the historically low probability of any rain hitting. So whether the NWS fired every meteoroligist or doubled the number of meteorologists, it likely would have made zero difference because the probability was extremely low.
I personally monitor the weather radar extensively since i am an outdoor cyclist, logging 200-250 miles per week. there was absolutely nothing in the rain forecast in north texas. This rain deluge spring up with less than 2 hour warning.
Stop
There were similar floods in 1978, 1987 and another in the late 1990s. The 1987 flood washed away a bus evacuating a church camp, killing 10 kids. Every Central Texan knows how dangerous those rivers can be.
When I lived in San Antonio, low water bridges in the Olmos Park Basin (near the oldest ritziest part of SA) had swinging gates that could be closed to prevent someone from trying to cross rushing water. They also had a depth gauge sign that read – “When This Sign is Underwater – Bridge is Impassable”.
So the 8 and 9 year olds k ew and took a chance you say?
Really?
That’s your reasoning
I’ll send my kid to
Camp amd take a chance they won’t be torn away in the dead of night by a storm “we all knew could happen”
Really?
my mistake – My prior comment was to the effect that significant rain during the summer is very rare. I was surprised to learn the 1987 flood was in july in the same area.
Again my mistake.
Take your own advice
I was here I987, had a friend a street over from the Guadalupe
It was disastrous
We have always known.
I wouldnt have a camp of young girls and
Boys without a safety alert
Just call me silly
The sun came out in central Texas for 10 min, and then the rain again…
When the sun was out, I actually felt guilty
My 39 year old daughter couldn’t stop crying since 7/4
She has a 7 yrs old girl and a 5 year old
They will never go to an overnight camp with water I’m afraid, she did, but it was a lake, Inks Lake, filled by Lake Buchanan, which I believe is filled by tje Colorado River…
The Colorado also flooded, as did the Concho (Tom Green County). Trying to blame this rather unique weather event on Kerr County authorities is short-sighted to say the least. Warnings WERE issued, but there weren’t enough people awake at 2:00 AM to react to them.
Don’t people in Hill Country have cell phones… the kind that go off blaring at 2 AM every other night when Important Officiulz need you to be on the lookout for some Karen’s Junior or Princess, who overstayed their court-ordered visitation with Alimony Daddy by a few hours? I hear you can use those for floods and fires, too… other kinds of things that more than three people statewide might actually care about.
Apparently there is a problem with the “warning” system and emergency procedures
Wouldn’t you agree?👍🏼
Henry: According to KENS Channel 5 in San Antonio, the 1:05 NWS statement contained language that should have triggered cell phone alerts in that area.
When I was that age I went to a camp just over the ridge line from Mystic, and lived in central Texas for college and after in the Army. Flash flooding is a real danger, but like someone here stated. It is rare to have that kind of event in July. The 1987 event was 40 years ago, which makes this a two to three time per century event, and how many people involved the other day were around 40 years ago?
You are wrong about forecasts and warnings in the flood area. The National Weather Service issued flood watches and flash flood warnings well in advance.
Cliff Mass is a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington. He has put together an excellent analysis of the rainfall event and the warnings/advisories that were issued by the NWS.
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-texas-flooding-tragedy-could-it.html
I’m not wrong , even the mayor of kerrville said they don’t have one.
There is a difference between the National weather service and an emergency system connected for the people living on the river, campers, etc.
A dog saved o e RV park on the river by barking his freaking head off. His owner went outside and saw the shit show amd alerted all the campers
We got to do better than one dog
I was not saying that you are wrong.
However, a warning system is not a fail-safe for flash floods. It is not that unusual for localized thunderstorms to grow rapidly upstream to create flash floods before a warning can be issued.
The bigger issue is that the cabins were situated in the flood plain of a river that is prone to flash floods.
He didn;t say they didn’t. The flood didn’t happen in north Texas where he is — it happened in the hill country: central Texas.
Joe:
Kelly:
You are talking about two different areas.
His fourth paragraph seemed to be referring to the flood region.
As a scout leader, I was trained to monitor for severe weather including flash floods and to choose camp sites away from rivers, flood plains, and dry river beds. I would expect leaders/owners at Camp Mystic to do the same thing.
I recently visited Abilene, Kansas. Every few blocks they have tornado sirens. One of the wealthiest areas of Texas thought it was too expensive to provide similar protection to its residents and visitors? Was it more expensive than the lives of 27 little girls?
That would definitely help
I have no objection to communities installing warning sirens. They might have helped in this case.
However, I would not trust my child’s life to a warning system. There are too many examples of poorly maintained/non-functioning sirens, late warnings, and even communities deciding not to sound the alarm (e.g. Maui).
Some of the cabins were too close to the water. This is a high-interest item for me due to prior experience, and so it would have made me too nervous to allow my child to stay at this camp, even if there was a warning siren.
It always boggles my mind that people who know almost nothing assume the mantle of expert and offer their “insight” to the public.
Joe-dallas … First, you are up in Dallas and this happened in South Central Texas … about 300 miles from you. You clearly have no idea about the location first hand and it is entirely different than the plains of Dallas. As to your “its been 20 years since 1″ of rain in June, July, or Aug … that is insane! It was over 2” at least 8 times from 2010-20. And most of those times it was over 3 inches in a single day.
Oh, and the NWS was not only fully manned but it was staffed at 250% of manning during these storms. You know how you would know this? By reading the damn article you are commenting on!
ps. What the heck does your cycling have to do with this story?
The utter stupidity of the American people (using you as a sampe), never fails to astound me.
Mikl – let me state that my prior statements were wrong regarding rainfall in Texas during the summer months. I live in the north texas area and dont recall rain of any significant amount during june july or aug. I was surprised that there were serious floods in 1987 and several other years.
My point on my cycling is that I check weather reports 2-3 times a day for the next week out (primarily projected wind conditions ) and no rain was showing in the forecasts, yet Dallas got hit with a nasty rain storm Saturday afternoon.
My guess is that the storms were not expected and therefore the camp personell were likely not monitoring the situation.
I agree this was very tragic and unfortunate. though it is too early for me to assign blame.
But they don’t have a warning system in the area of the camp in the spring either do they? Even though you say the risk was thought to be higher in the spring.
Arti – I hate to admit it, but I was wrong. I am surprised by the relative frequency of flash floods in the area during the summer. (relative frequency being once every 15-30 years).
The weather forecast did change considerably over the last several days. North Texas had fairly heavy rain the evening of July 4th and the evening of July 5th. Weather dot com showed less than 10% chance of rain less than 8 hours before the rain hit.
That this scenario was allowed to exist, there are just no words
_________________________________________________________
it’s called a flash flood–we’ve been through four of them since ’98
get a grip
Get a grip?
How about a real emergency system
Go to hell
Literally
CALM DOWN!! This is a tragedy but you are going off the rails.
I live in the Bandera, Texas area that is about 30 miles south of Kerrville, Texas. I have been up the Guadalupe River past Hunt, Texas in the past for a visit to a resort so I have an idea of the lay of the land there. A flood warning went out from the NWS about midnight. The floods occurred around 3 AM to 4 AM on Friday morning when most people were asleep and also most of them were asleep when the flood warning went out at midnight. However a number of the camps along the river were evacuated based on the flood warning from the NWS. Individual groups probably didn’t know of the warning. Even with a warning system like they have for tornadoes in some areas of Texas, many people would not have been alerted at that time of the morning. I have experience with the tornado warning sirens in areas where I have lived in Texas and they are often hard to hear even when one is awake.
Maui had a warning system but did not activate it.
Police * just following orders * blocked a road out of the firestorm.. Maui residents who * disobeyed the orders * lived.
Hey, neither common sense nor city hall can fight the will of the Hawaiian Water Goddesses.
When they says you gotta die, you gonna die.
It is odd that a river that has had flash floods for thousands of years would not have a warning system in place but that wouldn’t be Trumps fault, It would be the State of Texas or local governments fault for not only neglecting warning systems but allowing the building in a known flood plain. Don’t the warnings on weather radios automatically squall from the NWS? What more warning to you need and people not buying weather radios is not Trumps fault.
Am I correct in that the cutting at NOAA the left is trying to pin on Trump making him somehow responsible is not set to kick in until October? The people he has terminated are all in the climate and DEI cult having nothing to do with a flash flood.
Agree. People who’ve lived long enough know. Texas Population is growing alot. It’s time for a comprehensive flood protection system in Texas. The Golden Dome cover air threats.
Texas needs a BlueWall to protect against flood risk:
The Ike Dike to protect Houston and Galveston Bay form Hurricanes and a series of large, concrete multi-purpose dams protecting all the rivers that flow through the Texas Triangle – incl the Guadalupe.
The Water system would control floods, provide abundant sources of fresh water to support the growing pop. + ag and generate hydropower to feed the Texas grid. Plus if well designed and executed it would reduce the crazy high Texas homeowners insurance rates.
Let July 4 be the catalyst to get politicians off the dime to protect Texans’ lives
Warnings went out many times. The river rose 35 ft in 45 minutes. At 4am. Apocalyptic. What would you have been doing? Monday morning quarterbacking in this case is unhelpful.
Try to get some funding for 100 year flood mitigation. Good luck.
Yep. Funding is a question of priorities. The immediate, the visible and the causes with the loudest voices get funding, if there’s anything leftover then other projects/needs get some $. Basic maintenance and infrastructure upkeep ain’t sexy.
Kerr County is about 3/4 the size of Rhode Island with a population of just over 50K and a per capita income under $40K. IOW, like many rural Counties it is relatively poor, has a low population density and has a large geographic area worth of infrastructure, roads, bridges to maintain. Would a local early warning siren/alarm(s) have been nice? Sure. Who pays for it? What else goes unfunded if they funded it instead? That’s the reality in rural USA, a series of trade offs in setting funding priorities based on likelihood. The water rose 26+ feet in 45 minutes due to a freakish, concentrated dump of 15 inches of rain in under an hour. Flash flood warnings were issued 12 hours and 3 hours in advance. Weather radios are a thing use them. Same for setting up dangerous weather alert on a cell phone.
And Democrats spend billions on illegal aliens.
I doubt Kerr County has been spending much on them.
The people who are screaming about no warning system are the same ones who screamed about a waste of money to build one before the flood. The Guadalupe is notorious for floods and they have one of this magnitude about every 20 years or so. It could be easily mitigated by building flood control dams upstream from Hunt on both forks of the Guadalupe, but the owners of the resorts and camps would be the first ones to scream when their properties became part of the resulting lakes.
Weather radios are pretty cheap and don’t need local funding. If people are building in a known flood plain that wipes everything out every 20-50 years why don’t they have one and why is the local government letting them build there? Who is issuing building permits?
Another example of 20-20 hindsight.
I pay $2k per year for FEMA mandated flood insurance on a bay area California property that will likely never flood (burn down is another story). It seems to me there are ways to get the funding for areas with obviously higher risk.
I’ve been asking since I first learned of the flood:do they have cell phone service?
Yes but I believe that it went down at some point.
So, the vile, stupid and evil Dhimmi-crats are blaming #47 for rainfall and “acts of God”-type tragedies?
What is the over under on how often they were told that flash floods were a thing of the past due to Global Warming. (or whatever they call it this week)
I don’t think the environuts have ever made that prediction. On the contrary, according to them Glowball Warmening will make every kind of disaster more common and more extreme, from heat waves to polar vortices and from flood to drought. No matter what it is, if it’s harmful there’ll be more of it, if you were to believe them.
Don’t forget meteorite strikes.
Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Look, it’s far too early to place blame, if any blame is to be placed. It’s time to care for the dead and comfort the living. The scale of this event defies imagination except to say that Mother Nature is a (female dog). She should never be trusted.
I recall my first trip to Houston. My brother in law was driving and as we passed over something as wide as an interstate highway but covered with grass I asked him what that was all about. Flooding, she told me. It rains very hard in Texas in spite of the reputation of being bone dry.
And if your first reaction to this disaster is to blame a single man a thousand miles away because you disagree with his politics, it’s you that’s the problem. Not him.
West Texas is definitely dry in comparison to East TX. Heck of a difference in precipitation between Houston and El Paso or even Midland/Odessa some 300 miles East of El Paso. I suspect folks have a false image that all of TX is semi arid from too many spaghetti westerns and bad TV show depictions. The eastern areas have a temperate climate of forests, rivers and lakes.
Even the places that are usually bone dry can get devastating flash floods. It’s one of the things Texans accept as part of the price of living in Texas.
Though, losing kids to such a flash flood is beyond anyone’s tolerance level, even there.
One of the first thing we teach newcomers in New Mexico is to stay the hell out of arroyos. We get about 7″ of actual rain in the summer on average but occasionally, a big thunderstorm during monsoons can drop that much in a day. The ground just can’t absorb it and it has to go somewhere.
Yep. You and McGhee both make an excellent point. Flash flooding can occur nearly anywhere in the USA given the ‘perfect’ weather conditions, especially so in the southwest.
I’m from very temperate south Alabama but attended and graduated NMMI, was later stationed in El Paso. Initially retired there spending a decade in El Paso and had a cabin in Ruidoso to give some context on my experience. The monsoons are no joke, the arroyos fill up and the streets flood. Practically zero flood control and drainage in El Paso…other than mostly leaving it up to water running down to lower lying ground, into the arroyos and towards the river. It’s too cost prohibitive and too much use of eminent domain to push folks off their property to use it to build dams. The environmental extremists would oppose widening or dredging rivers or creating diversion ponds. Then there’s the downstream communities who have water rights that might be impacted.
IOW it’s easy to say ‘build a dam’ but far more difficult to overcome all the resistance to get them built. Folks in these areas understand flash flooding. I can’t understand why the camps didn’t have a weather radio and at minimum someone sitting up listening to it given the prior warning 12 hours out and 3 hours out. so that they might evac. Though the last big episode in ’87 had a bunch of folks who tried to evac get caught in the open, many trapped in trees and some drown.
What is an arroyo?
Northeast TX is a wee bit arid. The Trinity River is often entirely dry along some portions – until one of those Texas T-storms comes along, and then it’s suddenly full.
Sure, though I suppose it.depends on what we choose as ‘North East’ b/c TX is a big ass State and not even close to a rectangle/square shape for ease of description. Is the Panhandle area North of Amarillo the NE b/c it is most northerly or would that be Texarkana b/c it more easterly?
The Eastern portions bordering Louisiana and Arkansas are basically indistinguishable from the bordering States. Same for the Western borders with NM. IMO it would be a fair rule of thumb to describe the areas East and SE of DFW/ I-35 as ‘wet’, the areas between DFW/I-35 and Odessa as more dry than wet and the Western areas from Odessa to El Paso as semi arid.
My late wife was a National Weather Service employee, and I can vouch for the veracity of Leslie’s description of how the agency responds to significant weather events.
Many were the times Mrs. McG was asked to stay on past her normal shift to help cover such an event, or even called in from a day off. It’s an expected part of employment at the National Weather Service.
At one time, when she was seeking a transfer to another office, I found a home for sale less than half a mile from the office in question and touted it as a short commute — but she (jokingly) demurred because it would mean she’d be first on the call-up list. Anyway, she didn’t get the transfer so it didn’t matter either way.
The original “Katrina” narrative was also shameful. Bush and FEMA did all that they were supposed to do and more. The news industry made stories up, and then portrayed the FEMA director as a fool for not knowing about them.
Sadly they couldn’t write a book about the Levee Board as “A Confederacy of Dunces” had already been written about New Orleans. Good read, BTW.
Dem blm part of the “food insecurity” taxrape
said:
no one should care about this
“I know I’m going to get cancelled for this, but Camp Mystic is a white-only girls’ Christian camp. They don’t even have a token Asian. They don’t have a token Black person. It’s an all-white, white-only conservative Christian camp,” Perkins says in the video.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2025/07/06/former-city-official-criticized-for-referring-to-camp-where-girls-went-missing-after-flood-as-white-only-girls-camp/
Don’t think of it as a token-poor Christian camp.
Think of it as a whites-only beach club, the kind rich Democrats join in Rhode Island.
Them beaches in RI get out of hand, too. I lived through a few of those, ferdamshure.
When DW was a kid in 1960, she waited at her family’s lake cottage for quite a long while as Hurricane Donna approached, wondering if her dad would arrive in time to pick them up and bring them back to the sturdy house. Eventually, he did. The next day, they returned to the beach home to find it entirely gone.
It turned out that absolutely none of this was ever Kennedy’s fault, he was totally exonerated. In fact, he was exonerated so fast that nobody even ever thought of it.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire responded as he should to the unhinged, divisive poison spewed by Sade Perkins (above), an African American member of the Houston Food Insecurity Board
… He’s permanently removed her from the post.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/houston/article/whitmire-sade-perkins-camp-mystic-20628967.php
My town has an earthen dam that most people don’t even know about in the foothills to the east. It was built with federal money in the 1960’s after three major floods in the previous 40 years during monsoon season. Without it, the center of town would be wiped out if we got a 500 year flood since all the arroyos were filled in when they built out. The town requested and was given ownership of the dam but they’ve done precious little maintenance since that kind of work doesn’t buy votes. Yes, I live in a town that’s been run by democrats since it’s very existence.
So, how fancy is the marina behind it?
Read about the Johnstown flood. That was also an earthen dam. Well maintained, they’re great. Fail to maintain, and it’s only a matter of time.
“Trumps Katrina”. That disaster narrative was based on the response to Katrina and involved a whole lot of misdeeds by local and state government. This response is ongoing and no one has complained about it yet
The cuts to NOAA don’t take place until October. The people let go so far have been all involved with either the climate cult or DEI and had nothing to do with local weather.
Why are people building in a known flood plain and who is issuing building permits? How are they getting insurance? I bet they don’t.
No one has a weather radio? That system works just fine as mine went off last night for, ironically, a flash flood alert.
I’d say the people already trying to pin this somehow on Trump as if floods don’t happen on that river while all the victims including the girls are unaccounted for have no shame but that is a well known result of TDS. They make me sick.
The bigger problem we have is selective outrage.
I guarantee you that the Democrats getting worked up in to a frothy rage NOW were utterly missing in action during the Maui fires or any other tragedy that occurred under President Present or President Auto Pen.
Democrats once again show us that they absolutely love dead children so they can use them for their own political ends. They actually couldn’t give a flying f88k about children when they are alive but as soon as there is political capital to be made they are everywhere.
So you know what, democrats and their selective outrage can just be ignored. It’s tiring having to listen to them pretending to care when they very clearly do not.
Absolutely correct.
Unfortunately,, just plain wrong. Democrats have been successfully doing similar things forever (a variation of not letting a crisis go to waste)..
So far, I haven’t seen the most obvious solution, and it costs nothing:
New TX law: When NWS sends out a flash flood watch 12 (or whatever) hours in advance, anyone or any organization running a children’s camp WILL evacuate to higher ground, or assume full criminal and civil responsibility for any lives lost among the children in their care. Yes, full criminal means a date with Old Sparky.
Timelapse flooding in Texas.
That is wild. And scary.
And anyone building a summer camp should have rapid evacuation plans and someone on alert all night long to hear the warning and rouse people. Or it should be kept out of the dang flood plain.
Yes!
It probably doesn’t happen often enough for them to think about it much.
I have a Depoe Bay Tsunami Warning T-shirt that states 1) run like Hell 2) Don’t look back.
We have a similar situation here in Oregon with the Illinois River that is carved through rock, and a rain storm 50 miles to the east in the mountains can turn it from calm to raging in a couple of hours.
A more balanced report states that NWS did forecast much less rain than actually fell, something I presume is not unusual.
https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2025/07/07/texas_floods_what_went_wrong_with_forecasting_and_how_to_fix_it_1120984.html
btw, I saw the effects of a flash flood in Washington DC back in 2004. Over 4 inches of rain fell in about 30 minutes. It happened when I was at a show in a club, the only evidence of the rain was all the underpasses in DC were filled with water and had a car floating in them, and I was stuck on the Woodrow Wilson bridge for 4 hours because the Beltway was inundated with mud and the first few exits were under water.
So was Klinton behind the historic Susquehanna and Willamette floods of 1996, or hadn’t man-made global warming started yet?
I’ve spent quite a bit of time along the Guadalupe River at our family’s old compound high on a hill between Ingram and Hunt. I’ve walked the canyons of the two forks forming the headwaters of that river. I swam many miles on that river over 7 decades and wore out the seat of cutoffs sliding down the dam at Ingram.
If you haven’t been there and explored the unique characteristics of this narrow Upper Guadalupe River Valley, you can’t understand how this happens. The river runs through canyons and steep hillsides and when a ton of rain falls there is no place for it to go but up.
In 1987, the thunderstorms formed right over the headwaters in the July heat and there was no way the NWS could have predicted it.
In 2025, the vicious line of thunderstorms, born out of a tropical storm, moved out of northern Mexico across Texas dumping massive amounts of rain well before it reached Kerr County. A couple days prior San Angelo and Tom Green County received 15 inches.
The other thing that must be understood is AM radio, NOAA Weather Alerts, cellular reception is slim to none once you head west out of Kerrville up the river. I can remember lying awake one night above the river and trying to get any station on the radio. The only one I could tune in was the 50KW AM station WWL in New Orleans.
Since landlines and cable lines will go down early in a bad storm, there is no practical way to reach the camps, the visitors and residents except through Starlink satellite cellular service, I believe every camp and campground along the river all the way east past Comfort should be required to have at least one Starlink account.
Most people don’t realize Kerr County has been turned down more than once in applying for $1 million grants to install siren alert towers along the Guadalupe.
My proposition was to start with installing automated rain gauges and volume/flow gauges near the headwaters with cellular uplinks via Starlink to a local emergency management agency. It would also be fed to the NWS and any local first responders. Set criteria at some point at which the warning would go off automatically.
A county-wide comprehensive evacuation plan would also be helpful and each camp would need their own individual plan.
I don’t think this is an issue of communications or warnings – both a flood watch & later a flood warning was issued.
And anyone with a smart phone or weather radio got it.
What will be the solution to people ignoring a flood watch & then a flood warning & then the sirens as well?
No one with a smart phone got anything. If you read my comment above, you understand cellular reception is almost non-existent along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County. Once you get farther up towards Hunt and Camp Mystic there is none at all. AM or FM radio is also virtually non-existent. Landlines and cable lines were the first to go.
It is why I say satellite cellular service, like Starlink, is the only comms way to save lives there.
All of the NWS warnings and watches were relayed by local authorities ONLY on Facebook meaning nobody saw them that needed to.
Also, most of the camps forbid campers and counselors to bring cellphones, tablets, iPads or laptops to camp. The camp experience was to get away from being online. They wouldn’t have had any online access anyway.
OK. A timely warning is issued. Go to higher elevations. Kerr county looks about as flat as a pool table.
Where was everyone supposed to go?
The idea Kerr County is flat as a pool table is absurd. The steep hills lining the upper river valley form almost a canyon effect and that is why the flood waters rise so quickly. Other large rivers in Texas like the Brazos or Trinity flow through most flat plains and when they come out of their banks, it is very different spreading out over flat land rather than a torrent of water rushing down out of headwater canyons.
I live 30 miles to the south of Kerrville near Bandera on the side of a prominent hill. Kerr and surrounding counties are not flat as Texpat states.
There is so much bizarre speculation and wild assumptions about this disaster I’ve tried to disabuse people of the lies being told and also explain the unique geography of the area.
Most people assume the people along the Guadalupe have communications access like a major city. They don’t, period. Forget radio and cellular warnings and watches. It didn’t and won’t happen with typical communication infrastructure. It is why I continue to recommend Starlink cell accounts.
It is rugged, rocky very hilly country and the roads are few, far between and narrow two lanes with no shoulders. Many low water crossings are still in use because bridges are very expensive.
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