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Posted
16 hours ago, alexis texas said:

Here are a few flood maps that should help clarify the layout of the camp.

1 - Mystic Overall.jpg

2 - Mystic Guadalupe.jpg

3 - Mystic Cabins.jpg

Here is a "timelapse" video of the water elevations in 1 meter increments. The FEMA flood map has the base flood elevation between 1840' ASL near the Hwy 39 river crossing and 1835' ASL near the Mystic dam. As best as I can tell based on the ground elevations and pictures of the water level in some of the cabins, this seems to be more than a 100 year or 500 year flood event. For example, the ground elevation around Wiggle Inn cabin is at least 1860' and the water level was a foot below the door (1865' ASL or higher). That's at least 15ft higher than the 100 year base flood elevation.

Disclaimer: I am not claiming to be a flood expert. These are just my observations based on the info that is currently publicly available (FEMA flood maps, Google Earth, and photos from after the flood.)

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Posted
11 minutes ago, Chopper said:

I don't think that's the case anymore. Either way many people have stopped using it over the years -- or if they're less than 50 years old they may never have used it -- and the site is antagonistic at best towards its users and real information, anyway.  

One would think that. Around this time last year, I made the permanent move away from Austin, where I’d lived for 28 years, to a rural area. My long-dormant Facebook account has become a lifeline for getting information about what’s happening around town.

There are no local TV stations. We do have a handful of local radio stations BUT they're mostly canned iHeartMedia stations that pipe in shitty country or classic rock with a local person only coming on air in the morning or at noon to talk about the happenings at the dry feed store or that someone's dog got loose. The local newspaper? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Out here, FB really is treated like some combination of Next Door/Reddit/Xitter/eBay all rolled into one with a few groups people have put together to rant and rave about shit or rumor monger. Still, everyone also turns to it for crises. It's not an exaggeration to say that the site plays a critical role in official city and county communications, which is kinda fucked up.

That's why the emergency cellphone system that the state has, or some sort of alarm system, would've been the best way to warn people. Well, that or having one of those NOAA radios out at the camps.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, alexis texas said:

Here is a "timelapse" video of the water elevations in 1 meter increments. The FEMA flood map has the base flood elevation between 1840' ASL near the Hwy 39 river crossing and 1835' ASL near the Mystic dam. As best as I can tell based on the ground elevations and pictures of the water level in some of the cabins, this seems to be more than a 100 year or 500 year flood event. For example, the ground elevation around Wiggle Inn cabin is at least 1860' and the water level was a foot below the door (1865' ASL or higher). That's at least 15ft higher than the 100 year base flood elevation.

Disclaimer: I am not claiming to be a flood expert. These are just my observations based on the info that is currently publicly available (FEMA flood maps, Google Earth, and photos from after the flood.)

In one of the articles that someone posted yesterday, there was a comment that the camp had become like a whirlpool of water. With that creek flowing into the river at the campsite, you can easily see how it could become a raging, swirling torrent right there.

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Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

Why?

Because we had a weather thread, the weather event is over and now we have morphed this into a girls are dead thread. They aren’t the same. 

Edited by troph
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Posted

SIAP but this is just one piece of the puzzle in this unfathomable weather tragedy. 
 

From The NY Times:

In an interview, 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.”

——————————

Kelly is the individual who early on Friday said all Mystic campers were accounted for. 

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Posted
10 minutes ago, bolverk said:

One would think that. Around this time last year, I made the permanent move away from Austin, where I’d lived for 28 years, to a rural area. My long-dormant Facebook account has become a lifeline for getting information about what’s happening around town.

There are no local TV stations. We do have a handful of local radio stations BUT they're mostly canned iHeartMedia stations that pipe in shitty country or classic rock with a local person only coming on air in the morning or at noon to talk about the happenings at the dry feed store or that someone's dog got loose. The local newspaper? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Out here, FB really is treated like some combination of Next Door/Reddit/Xitter/eBay all rolled into one with a few groups people have put together to rant and rave about shit or rumor monger. Still, everyone also turns to it for crises. It's not an exaggeration to say that the site plays a critical role in official city and county communications, which is kinda fucked up.

That's why the emergency cellphone system that the state has, or some sort of alarm system, would've been the best way to warn people. Well, that or having one of those NOAA radios out at the camps.

The last three feet to the audience are always the most critical and most difficult. If you’re not on Facebook at 2AM, then a Facebook or Twitter post doesn’t help you. Radio is the gold standard. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The last three feet to the audience are always the most critical and most difficult. If you’re not on Facebook at 2AM, then a Facebook or Twitter post doesn’t help you. Radio is the gold standard. 

Again, you have 700 little girls (or boys) that close to a flood prone river and known remnants of a tropical storm parking over the hill country you are up at 1am. Weather radio, local tv, Facebook, shit man, you get that warning 3 times in 10 minutes. You wake everyone up, you call 911 and ask for help and you get shit moving. Last three feet is the camp’s fault here 100%.  A cell phone wake up at 1am woulda been nice but that’s for families and RVers etc, you have 700 little girls entrusted to you, you are the warning system. 

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Posted
21 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:

@immamacand @blacklab

Considering we have a CR subject and the likely rescue and fallout that this matter will cause, I think we should have a July 4th Hill Country subject in the DT.

But that’s totally IMO and this is y’all’s rodeo.

 

No one is stopping anyone from making threads. I didn't delete anything yesterday and the conversation wasn't stifled of even impacted based on the move of about 3 pages of posts that were clearly easily a standalone topic. 

Its not hard to find threads. 

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Posted
5 minutes ago, bolverk said:

One would think that. Around this time last year, I made the permanent move away from Austin, where I’d lived for 28 years, to a rural area. My long-dormant Facebook account has become a lifeline for getting information about what’s happening around town.

There are no local TV stations. We do have a handful of local radio stations BUT they're mostly canned iHeartMedia stations that pipe in shitty country or classic rock with a local person only coming on air in the morning or at noon to talk about the happenings at the dry feed store or that someone's dog got loose. The local newspaper? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Out here, FB really is treated like some combination of Next Door/Reddit/Xitter/eBay all rolled into one with a few groups people have put together to rant and rave about shit or rumor monger. Still, everyone also turns to it for crises. It's not an exaggeration to say that the site plays a critical role in official city and county communications, which is kinda fucked up.

That's why the emergency cellphone system that the state has, or some sort of alarm system, would've been the best way to warn people. Well, that or having one of those NOAA radios out at the camps.

The only thing about the cell phone emergency system is the tendency now for people to shut that off themselves like I have because of the way it’s used for things like Amber or Silver Alerts.  I’m not sure it was a good idea for the Emergency Alert System to be used for this  in retrospect.   There is nothing close to giving a person a heart attack or a step rise in blood pressure than having that alarm go off at four in the morning and find out it was missing persons report at the opposite end of the state.  Please don’t take that as me minimizing that sort of event.

What might be a good alternative moving forward is some sort of  direct alerts that are transmitted directly to the camps and other interest along the rivers facilitated though the emergency management agencies.  Make sure it gets to multiple people in charge of the facilities with the information updated every year before the peak season.  

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Cajun said:

That stick was at water's edge yesterday morning...

IMG_7070.jpeg

My mom is house sitting for us and can’t take a pic for shit or I’d show venture point island disappearing still might later today. Terrible pics and such a great opportunity to time lapse.

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Posted
1 minute ago, troph said:

Again, you have 700 little girls (or boys) that close to a flood prone river and known remnants of a tropical storm parking over the hill country you are up at 1am. Weather radio, local tv, Facebook, shit man, you get that warning 3 times in 10 minutes. You wake everyone up, you call 911 and ask for help and you get shit moving. Last three feet is the camp’s fault here 100%.  A cell phone wake up at 1am woulda been nice but that’s for families and RVers etc, you have 700 little girls entrusted to you, you are the warning system. 

We have no idea yet what happened in the camp in those hours and what they knew; it’s far too early to make them the primary point of failure and there will have been multiple points. 

Posted (edited)

I agree we should split the threads, this is no longer a rain thread (which we should still have). 

Also the title is just wrong for those looking for info. 

Edited by hornbri
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Posted
3 minutes ago, troph said:

Again, you have 700 little girls (or boys) that close to a flood prone river and known remnants of a tropical storm parking over the hill country you are up at 1am. Weather radio, local tv, Facebook, shit man, you get that warning 3 times in 10 minutes. You wake everyone up, you call 911 and ask for help and you get shit moving. Last three feet is the camp’s fault here 100%.  A cell phone wake up at 1am woulda been nice but that’s for families and RVers etc, you have 700 little girls entrusted to you, you are the warning system. 

yes, by now we know how you would have done things differently. 

Posted
7 minutes ago, troph said:

Because we had a weather thread and now we have morphed this into a girls are dead thread. They aren’t the same.

This.

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Posted

You’re entitled to your opinion and there can be multiple points of failure from a policy perspective but I know you well enough to know this wouldn’t have happened to you if you were the camp leader - now you mighta called local LE and their response may have been shit. But you would have been up analyzing the situation at 1230am-1am… I know I would have been. The lack of vigilance on the river bank is where this started. The local and state governments were not the fail safe they are supposed to be.

2 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

We have no idea yet what happened in the camp in those hours and what they knew; it’s far too early to make them the primary point of failure and there will have been multiple points.

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Posted

Oh, *MCV is a meso convective vortex - just another name for a type of low that has a strong circulation which is prone to more intense weather (rain amounts in this case).

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Posted (edited)
21 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

The only thing about the cell phone emergency system is the tendency now for people to shut that off themselves like I have because of the way it’s used for things like Amber or Silver Alerts.  I’m not sure it was a good idea for the Emergency Alert System to be used for this  in retrospect.   There is nothing close to giving a person a heart attack or a step rise in blood pressure than having that alarm go off at four in the morning and find out it was missing persons report at the opposite end of the state.  Please don’t take that as me minimizing that sort of event.

What might be a good alternative moving forward is some sort of  direct alerts that are transmitted directly to the camps and other interest along the rivers facilitated though the emergency management agencies.  Make sure it gets to multiple people in charge of the facilities with the information updated every year before the peak season.  

I am reminded of the scene in True Lies when the bomb is going to go off in the Keys.  Now, I realize that nuclear bomb is a little bit more intense but the overall point remains the same...   You put out weather alerts on FB, X, local radio/TV, state wide alerts, smoke signals, whatever the fuck works.   Sirens in the most suspectible places (at a minimum.)   I don't fucking care that it was July 4th, local PD AND the state troopers should have been out warning the camps and campgrounds.   Instead, we get videos of state troopers standing and gawking at the flooding.  

Will some of these storms be nothing burgers?  Absolutely.   Will people still die  Yep.   Will 50 die needlessly?   I'd bet Greg Abbott's wheels that they wouldn't.  Does anyone think Greg Abbott was woken up at 4:00 when the shit hit the fan?   Roller Boy was probably sleeping soundly in his Trump PJs dreaming of mushrooms.  

GIB --you tell the son of bitch this is Bright Boy Alert. Repeat, a Bright Boy Alert. And I need a patch of the White House ASAP. That's right--

HARRY (overlapping) ... the Coast Guard has to clear them back to a twenty mile radius. Anybody that can't make the minimum safe distance we need an airlift on, immediately--

Gib whips around to Harry, lowering his headset mike.

GIB I can get 3 Marine Corps Harriers here in about 12 minutes. They're on maneuvers out of Boca Chica.

 

Edited by Macanudo
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Posted
2 minutes ago, phdhorn said:

Oh, *MCV is a meso convective vortex - just another name for a type of low that has a strong circulation which is prone to more intense weather (rain amounts in this case).

Is it gonna pour on us (Austin area) a bit today? 

Posted
21 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

The only thing about the cell phone emergency system is the tendency now for people to shut that off themselves like I have because of the way it’s used for things like Amber or Silver Alerts.  I’m not sure it was a good idea for the Emergency Alert System to be used for this  in retrospect.   There is nothing close to giving a person a heart attack or a step rise in blood pressure than having that alarm go off at four in the morning and find out it was missing persons report at the opposite end of the state.  Please don’t take that as me minimizing that sort of event.

What might be a good alternative moving forward is some sort of  direct alerts that are transmitted directly to the camps and other interest along the rivers facilitated though the emergency management agencies.  Make sure it gets to multiple people in charge of the facilities with the information updated every year before the peak season.  

I agree that the EAS with silver and amber alerts is overwhelming.  But, an NOAA weather radio is pretty damn good and in this case broadcast a life threatening flash flood warning at 0116.  The questions are what people did with that info and who had the radios.  A weather radio will automatically alert even if its not in use. 

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Posted (edited)

The Guadalupe is still flowing quick.

Just saw something like 4300 cu ft / s… which is like 6 acre ft/ minute. 
 

That’s still a lot of water. 
 

The amount of water that has fallen this weekend is hard to wrap your head around.

 

Edited by Dnaguy
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Posted

Yeah but u saw how many couldnt handle wearing a mask for a little bit a few years ago.

 

People dont change until sentinel events. See 9/11, numerous hurricanes, wars, etc. Even if you pinged phones and had alerts and such, im not sure it would have impacted the death toll much

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Posted
33 minutes ago, Cajun said:

That stick was at water's edge yesterday morning...

IMG_7070.jpeg

I realize the massive amount of rain to took fill that much of the lake, but man, it feels like it didn’t make much of a dent. 

24 minutes ago, immamac said:

No one is stopping anyone from making threads. I didn't delete anything yesterday and the conversation wasn't stifled of even impacted based on the move of about 3 pages of posts that were clearly easily a standalone topic. 

Its not hard to find threads. 

It’s not hard to find threads. It’s also easy to ignore threads that hurt your feelings because politics. But it’s impossible to change minds or even mildly persuade people of anything when you can’t confront people where they WILL post under the guise of “news” and “politics” as if those things aren’t the fucking same 80% of the time these days. 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

Is it gonna pour on us (Austin area) a bit today? 

If I'm reading my radar right, the center of this storm has moved a good deal W to just north of Llano. So the brunt of the rain right now is actually pretty far north (Kileen, Waco, Stephenville, into SW Dallas) - the western component that flooded Mason Co. this a.m. is actually diminishing. So for the first 1/2 of the day, the worst of it seem to be north of the worst areas the past 48 hrs. I don't think anything will happen around here this a.m. Probably start looking after lunch to see what the sun fires up in our area. Impossible to know where it'll bubble up though. So if it's gonna rain in our area, probably later today.

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Posted
1 minute ago, troph said:

You probably would have too even though I think your critical thinking skills are often lacking. Sorry I’m fucking pissed. It wasn’t negligence it was gross negligence. 

Yeah, I don't think there's any way of getting beyond the conclusion that the camps likely fucked up. You would think, given the awesome responsibility to take care of 750 children, that someone(s) should've been assigned night duty to make sure the camp was safe at night, watching the gates, being weather aware, guarding the grounds, etc.

I'm sure someone had that assignment, but it's clear they were not the right person for the job. As you've reiterated, anyone taking that job seriously should've had the wherewithal to know the terrain, the history of flooding, and what the weather was doing to not have a bunch of kids crammed into low-lying cabins during a flash flood watch/warning.

At the same time, everyone -- including those at the RV campsites -- was failed by local and state authorities for not having a warning system in place, along with the DOGE's haphazard hack of NWS funds.

Systematic failure all the way down the line.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Yeah but u saw how many couldnt handle wearing a mask for a little bit a few years ago.

 

People dont change until sentinel events. See 9/11, numerous hurricanes, wars, etc. Even if you pinged phones and had alerts and such, im not sure it would have impacted the death toll much

You still have to do it. At a minimum, it’s CYA. But it’s truly using the warning system put in place to alert people. It’s then up to then if they care enough to do something about the warning alerts 

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Posted
1 minute ago, SydneyCarton said:

I realize the massive amount of rain to took fill that much of the lake, but man, it feels like it didn’t make much of a dent. 

It’s not hard to find threads. It’s also easy to ignore threads that hurt your feelings because politics. But it’s impossible to change minds or even mildly persuade people of anything when you can’t confront people where they WILL post under the guise of “news” and “politics” as if those things aren’t the fucking same 80% of the time these days. 

If you go look what I left you will see the difference pretty easily. 

I was also talking about if someone wanted to make a new thread for this event in DT they can easily do it.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Yeah, I don't think there's any way of getting beyond the conclusion that the camps likely fucked up. You would think, given the awesome responsibility to take care of 750 children, that someone(s) should've been assigned night duty to make sure the camp was safe at night, watching the gates, being weather aware, guarding the grounds, etc.

I'm sure someone had that assignment, but it's clear they were not the right person for the job. As you've reiterated, anyone taking that job seriously should've had the wherewithal to know the terrain, the history of flooding, and what the weather was doing to not have a bunch of kids crammed into low-lying cabins during a flash flood watch/warning.

At the same time, everyone -- including those at the RV campsites -- was failed by local and state authorities for not having a warning system in place, along with the DOGE's haphazard hack of NWS funds.

Systematic failure all the way down the line.

The first ten seconds of this clip....

 

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Posted

Rough start times for press conferences this morning:

10 AM Kerr County

10:30 AM Travis County

11 AM Williamson County

 

KXAN will carry "as much of each as they can".  Nothing has started yet.

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Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, immamac said:

If you go look what I left you will see the difference pretty easily. 

I was also talking about if someone wanted to make a new thread for this event in DT they can easily do it.

I can see the difference. Yes. But as another poster said, it takes monumental events to change minds, and sanitizing even the worst of political rants, which are tangentially tied to the deaths of children, is an opportunity to wake people the fuck up. But instead we make it emotionally easy for people to not have to be accountable for their own decisions, to say “thoughts and prayers” and go back to just looking at tweets of rising water. I understand the difference. I understand why you do it. Im arguing it’s a disservice. 

Edited by SydneyCarton
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Posted
43 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

SIAP but this is just one piece of the puzzle in this unfathomable weather tragedy. 
 

From The NY Times:

In an interview, 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.”

——————————

Kelly is the individual who early on Friday said all Mystic campers were accounted for. 

I think that’s a significant point.  You see it all over Colorado, too.  The rural, non-resort areas have very low taxes, very few services and three out of every four people that live there likes it that way.  The right (wrong?) wildfire event would play out in much the same way in these areas.

These local government officials are mostly guilty of providing the local government that locals want to pay for.  So who is negligent and responsible here?  That’s a debate for a different part of this site, but maybe people who disagree that emergency services are a cuttable cost should look to different areas for a sleepaway camp for their kids.

Posted (edited)

Kerr County Sheriff:

-- 59 deceased, 21 of which are children

-- 11 Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, and 1 counselor

Edited by jimmyjazz
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Posted
5 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

59 deceased, 38 adults, 21 children. Eleven children still unaccounted for from Mystic.

KERR COUNTY, Texas  UPDATE AT 10 A.M. SUNDAY: At least 59 people were killed in Kerr County flooding, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said in a Sunday morning press conference.

Of those killed, 21 are children, Leitha said. Eighteen adults and four children are pending identification.

Leitha said 11 girls from Camp Mystic and one counselor are unaccounted for.

Posted
41 minutes ago, troph said:

If our leadership had a true culture of servant hood and taking responsibility and solving real problems instead of blaming people like ME then I wouldn’t go on repeat.

please don’t make this about you. 

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Posted (edited)
26 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I realize the massive amount of rain to took fill that much of the lake, but man, it feels like it didn’t make much of a dent. 

 

Oh, it's a dent.  From 46.6% to over 63% in 24 hours.  

That said, still a loooooong way from full.  

Edited by Cajun
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Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Kerrville City Manager:

-- idiots are flying personal drones, cut it out

-- 830.465.4794 to volunteer or donate (mayor said "4797" so who knows, but I think the latter is Salvation Army and is actually different)

 

Edited by jimmyjazz
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Posted
14 minutes ago, Goredho said:

I think that’s a significant point.  You see it all over Colorado, too.  The rural, non-resort areas have very low taxes, very few services and three out of every four people that live there likes it that way.  The right (wrong?) wildfire event would play out in much the same way in these areas.

These local government officials are mostly guilty of providing the local government that locals want to pay for.  So who is negligent and responsible here?  That’s a debate for a different part of this site, but maybe people who disagree that emergency services are a cuttable cost should look to different areas for a sleepaway camp for their kids.

Multi county risk as many as a dozen, that’s 5% of the state, known risk, fatality risk, one of the highest in the country. This is a state problem to solve even before you put it in the climate change risk bucket. 

3 minutes ago, Cajun said:

Oh, it's a dent.  From 46.6% to over 63% in 24 hours.  

That said, still a loooooong way from full.  

That’s just how low Travis and canyon were. 

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Posted
55 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

The only thing about the cell phone emergency system is the tendency now for people to shut that off themselves like I have because of the way it’s used for things like Amber or Silver Alerts.  I’m not sure it was a good idea for the Emergency Alert System to be used for this  in retrospect.   There is nothing close to giving a person a heart attack or a step rise in blood pressure than having that alarm go off at four in the morning and find out it was missing persons report at the opposite end of the state.  Please don’t take that as me minimizing that sort of event.

What might be a good alternative moving forward is some sort of  direct alerts that are transmitted directly to the camps and other interest along the rivers facilitated though the emergency management agencies.  Make sure it gets to multiple people in charge of the facilities with the information updated every year before the peak season.  

 

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