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Posted
1 hour ago, Texas Fight said:

So, you didn’t really care that much? Your reaction on what you would do otherwise doesn’t seem to match your desire for any due diligence. You can’t have it both ways. I mean, you knew this camp was in a flood plain, no? You can’t see where the cabins are, no? Any moron can see this coming 100 miles away, no?

I think you missed my point. I was trying to communicate the general mindset of summer camp parents. We didn't deeply investigate the various facilities 'cause we assumed that they were safe. "They're expensive and all my friend's kids have been going for years, so they must be fine, yes?"  

In retrospect, that maybe wasn't the best mindset. But it's also not uncommon to assume that a camp facility would evacuate kids in a bad rain situation, or at least, investigate and keep an eye on all warning signs. And this one, apparently, was built on a flood plain. 

As I mentioned, a camp in Marble Falls, maybe Camp Champions, did evacuate last summer as a storm approached. Looks like the camp management at Mystic really dropped the ball.   

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Posted
56 minutes ago, Texas Fight said:

How do you know Camp Mystic leadership was not awake at 1am or actively monitoring?

Maybe 'cause they all died including the Camp Mystic leadership? 

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Posted
I'm supposed to be mad about a non-deployment decision from June 2 that might have improved rescue operations on June 4? How long does it actually take to bring out swift boats from Austin to Kerr County? Wouldn't Baker needed to have known, ahead of time, exactly where along the Guadalupe to send those boats? Is that even possible? And if he'd done that and the rain bomb had landed in the City of Austin how would Baker explain that the swift boats were several counties away?
I'm sorry I just don't understand the accusation here.

0c1e2a05626f8ac773d96d6a692938b8.jpg

Any more questions?
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Posted

Yeah, I'm friends with a station captain in Round Rock but I'm not so naive to think that firefighters in general might not lean just a smidge to the anti-DEI (nudge nudge, wink wink) side of the ledger.  Even Austin firefighters.

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Posted

uh oh

this is the same kerr county stuff from yesterday but dramatically expanded

in addition to refusing free sirens paid for with obama money, they turned down free biden money in 21

https://www.reddit.com/r/TexasPolitics/comments/1ltnjf8/we_have_floods_all_the_time_and_small_town/

welp, just in case the regime hacks reddit i'm going to go ahead and copypasta the content

Spoiler


r/TexasPolitics

14 hr. ago
timubce
We have floods all the time and small town politics
Discussion

Edit/ ** Additional information provided from redditor comments below***

I also want to point out that a man named John Cornyn is referenced by Rob Kelly in connection with ARPA funds. The only lawyer named John Cornyn I’ve been able to identify in the state of Texas is the current senior U.S. Senator. Additionally, just last year—on July 25th, 2024—Rob Kelly requested that Governor Abbott declare a state of emergency for Kerr County due to severe storms and flooding.

u/throwawayatxaway added additional context to the timeline of these discussions. The Wimberly flood in 2015 killed several people. Wimberly is approximately 80 miles east of Kerrville.

Pen-cap provided an additional conversation that occured prior to the point where I started this and frankly it is damning.

Commissioners' Court Regular Session 06/27/16

COMMISSIONER BALDWIN:  You know we had a baby flood a couple weeks ago, a month or so, whatever it was.  And I keep hearing these reports of the old, old system, and I know we're not going to deal with that though.  Expect that to be gone where the Jones call the Smiths, and the Smiths call Camp Rio Vista, and Rio Vista blah, blah, blah, along down the line.  But it's still there and it still works.  The thought of our beautiful Kerr County having these damn sirens going off in the middle of night, I'm going to have to start drinking again to put up with y'all.

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  I think -- I think this and that's what the committee is going to look at and how to do it.  I think the going in position is that we don't need to change anything, and is there a need to improve what we have.  And if there's a need to improve how much is improved.  And what the options for doing that and what it would cost.  And I think the first thing to do is say why change anything.  It worked this long and maybe we don't need to do a thing.  And then it gets into the thing we talk about earlier today, and that's risk mitigation.  And you know there's still people drowned and you know --

COMMISSIONER BALDWIN:  And I hope you ask the question like who are we notifying, or who are we trying to get the message to?  Are they these crazy people from Houston that build homes right down on the water?

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  Well, I think the thing is you say it's for the general public and the crazy people from wherever they are, from Houston, okay, and then the camps, and then how do you get the message out to those, that's all part of it, so it's a pretty complex project.

COMMISSIONER BALDWIN:  I'm sure it is.

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  And the question is do we need to do anything.  And what do we want to do and what can we afford.

MRS. STEBBINS:  Commissioner Moser, will you put it on the next agenda for discussion after you have this meeting on Thursday?

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  Oh, absolutely, right.

MRS. STEBBINS:  Okay, thank you.

JUDGE POLLARD:  I would comment that we don't hardly have any crazy people that live here.  The few that we do have we handle them through CSU.

COMMISSIONER BALDWIN:  Or they serve on this board.

JUDGE POLLARD:  I'm just trying to keep us out of trouble here, okay.  The media's still here.  All right.  Any other reports?

************ /end edit

In 2016 Kerr County contracted for an engineering study on their current warning system and were told it was antiquated and inadequate. 

Commissioners' Court Regular Session 8/22/16

COMMISSIONER MOSER: We had at our steering committee meeting we invited also TxDOT to participate in that.  So the original engineer, and both of them as a matter of fact showed up at that meeting.  Their assessment was what existed today, and the Sheriff may want to comment on it, is antiquated and it's not reliable.  So we said okay with that, you know,  not just that, but we thought that there was a pretty ill-defined system that we have.  So the engineering study we thought would be appropriate.  If the result of the engineering study says that -- recommends that we enhance the system, okay, buying additional sensors, kind of like Comal County did.  Comal County spent a little over three hundred thousand dollars, where they had add 8 locations to monitor the rate of rise of the river and streams.

COMMISSIONER REEVES: And while I agree with Commissioner Letz, that if we have a system that's not working, we need to certainly look at that, technology is great, but still one of the best things, and you may disagree with me is the people up river calling. Because you're probably going to get a call.  I've received just this year from calls before it's even had time for a warning to go off, I'm getting texts from Divide Fire Chief, and I think -- where'd the Sheriff go?  I sent you a text the other night, you may have got it too from him, but we're knowing probably before, and  I know with one flood that we had earlier in the year, by the time you got the warnings going off, it had been too late.  Because it was coming out of just some draws that took too long to get downstream.

COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have one.  I'm going to vote no because of numerous reasons.  I think this whole thing is a little extravagant for Kerr County, and I see the word sirens and all that stuff in here.  And of course, you say that these are steps that will be taken through the years.  But that's where you're headed, there's no question in my mind that's where you're headed.  And you're determined to do that. But step one of taking these funds out of special projects, out of Road and Bridge, that ticks me off a little bit.

 Commissioners' Court Regular Session 10/24/16

Mr. Hewitt: Sirens did not seem to get very much support.  The thought was that sirens are better for tourists than local residents.  The sirens would only be beneficial for someone that's not familiar with the area, and wouldn't know what to do.

The second part of the study contained recommendations for updating the system and sirens were purposely left out even though other areas had implemented them.

Regular Commissioners' Court Agenda 01/09/17

Comal County has implemented a river guage and siren system that includes New Braunfels, Guadalupe County and the Water-Oriented Recreation District (WORD) as funding partners. When gauge heights reach a certain level, emergency management personnel are notified and the siren is automatically activated. Emergency personnel can also activiate the sirens remotely if they know flood water is headed downstream. The data from each gauge, including river height and rainfall, is avaiable online for anyone, including residents, to access.

The filed for federal assistance via a Hazard Mitigation Grant for 976k.

Commissioners' Court Regular Session 01/09/17 Discussing the recommended warning system

COMMISSIONER MOSER: The cost of that whole thing is going to be like 976 thousand dollars.  That's a lot of money.  All of it, and the reason we're here today and moving so quickly is that there is a FEMA grant that's available until as long as we apply by January the 20th.

JUDGE POLLARD:  Which is when President Obama goes out of office.

(Laughter.)

JUDGE POLLARD:  Well, the reason I mention that is because he authorized this particular thing, and it's going to --

MS. KIRBY:  It's a coincidence.

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  Going on the record with that it's a coincidence.  And so there has to be a presidential declaration of disaster to be able to have these kinds of funds available.  So it goes away just so happens to be when he leaves office.

 COMMISSIONER MOSER:    So we've talked about, you know one of the things we said sirens and we said we don't want sirens, too many many people said they did not want sirens when they had these -- when we had these gatherings.  Code Red, and I don't know if Dub wants to chime in on this, but Code Red is the same that's going to get information to a lot of people; not to everybody, okay.  One of the things that we'll do is identify a point of contact in all of  the camps, we won't communicate with everybody in the camp, but we have a point of contact at the camp so that they can disseminate people within -- to people within the camp, like during the summer when kids are there, or to RV parks.  Now, if the RV parks want to have a siren themself when something goes up that's up to them. That's not part of our thing.  So getting the information to the public is the end item of this whole thing. The first thing is sense a flood, then communicate that information to the local authorities, to the right authorities, and then for them to have a system by with which to disseminate the information to the public.

SHERIFF HIERHOLZER:   The only thing I have to remind people, unfortunately, I guess I'm one of the ones that – Harley maybe has been around here to see some very devastating floods and quite a bit of loss of life.  No matter what we do it's going to be up to the public, okay.  The notification is great.  I think the -- just the markers, the posts at the crossing is one thing, but it actually oughta state that at that level that your car may wash off, get people's attention at that crossing.  The only other thing is, and as Bob can attest to, most of the time it has been informal where we call people.  Unfortunately, the time we had the most devastating one down on the east end of the County down at the camps, I was working that night, spent 72 hours pulling kids out of fences.  But we call people, we called camps, they made the decision that they thought they could beat that ride, and then that no matter what we do and no matter what we install there's going to be loss of life.  It's educating people. 

COMMISSIONER REEVES:  And I will say and, Sheriff, you can correct me if I'm off base on this, the camps have had a very good system of letting down river if there's a rise, they're phoning their competitors or colleagues down river and letting them know what happened.  It's informal as you said, but it's been a very good system to let them know over time.

SHERIFF HIERHOLZER:  Right.  The camps and they do, they notify each other, we notify them, they notify -- there's a lot of informal things that really do work real well.  It's not totally those unless they try to get them out too quick in trying to beat it. Because this river can come up in a instant, we all know that with the drainage.  But it will go down just as quick if they just hold tight with what they've got. But the whole key is just getting people that are traveling up here from somewhere --

 COMMISSIONER REEVES:  That's my concern is ones that don't live here.

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  That's everybody's concern.

JUDGE POLLARD:  So this is kind of an offer, or to see if it's accepted by and also agreed to by UGRA and the City.

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  Correct.

JUDGE POLLARD:  And if they don't then where are we with this?

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  If they don't then we just forget the whole project.

 JUDGE POLLARD:  Just dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  Dead in the water, right.  It's dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER REEVES:  Question --

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  Or the pun for the Flood Warning System.

JUDGE POLLARD:  Dead in the water.

After failing to secure a grant, they continued to kick the can down the road.

2021 rolls around and they have over 5 mil in ARPA funds in their bank and wind up with a grand total of over 10 mil. 

Commissioners' Court Regular Session 10/25/21 discussion of communication systems

COMMISSIONER LETZ:  Well, I think that's  good. I just think that -- you know, I'd like to get an idea of what the Sheriff's radar systems are going to cost.  I mean I just don't want to send -- go out and get public input on something and then us just not be able to follow up because we have a priority that's different and we have additional information.

 JUDGE KELLY:  Well, but let me just explain. What all of these are intentioned to do is to initiate the education system.  We need to get the Court educated.  We need to get the public educated.  Everybody knows that we have over $5 million sitting in our bank account that the Federal Government sent us for these ARPA funds.  And they're not really grants, they're funds.

MRS. LAVENDER:  And as the Judge said, there's a huge category.  There's a bunch of things that you can spend the money or -- or secure the money to spend.  And when we use the term grant, grant is not really what this is. It's just funding that's been made available through this American Rescue Plan Act.  It doesn't require a match.  It doesn't require, you know, that kind of structure.  But it does have strings attached.  It's not  free money.

COMMISSIONER LETZ:  And that's my concern, Judge.  My concern is that from my understanding what  the -- well, I won't say LCRA because I know what their number is.  The number from the Sheriff's Department, the number from internal communications, we're already over 5 million dollars, so I don't want to go out to the public requesting -- we have no money to do it.

 COMMISSIONER BELEW:  Well, at least we make  the determination that that's the first --

COMMISSIONER LETZ:  Right.  But --

COMMISSIONER BELEW:  Then it's done.  But we  haven't made that determination.

COMMISSIONER LETZ:  That's why I think we need to get discuss that phase.  We need to get those  numbers -- I mean, my opinion is law enforcement and the internal communications are the number one and two.  I'm not sure which order.  Probably law enforcement first. And -- and I haven't heard the rest of the Court say what their top two priorities are but --

COMMISSIONER HARRIS:  Well, that's mine.  Because not only does it cover that, it -- the Sheriff's office, communications, getting it up to speed, and also the Volunteer Fire Departments and making sure that we can communicate with other counties. As we saw last winter, I mean, communications is one of our biggest weaknesses and there's the Sheriff up.  I'm sure he'll back me up on  that.  Communications was a problem.  Go ahead, Sheriff.

SHERIFF LEITHA:  Yeah, I kind of agree with Jonathan, if you go that direction.  Now, we had a  meeting, did attend with LCRA, a very good meeting, just preliminary.  Preliminary, I'm looking at $3 million for just me.  That's just us and -- the Sheriff's Office. That's not including we have the constables, we have Animal Control, we have the fire department.  There's a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be checked into.  Are we going to provide radios or not.  But I can tell you, I mean, it kind of shocked me.  But that was three million right off the  bat.  And -- and that's not even going into all the other agencies.  Are we going to supply those radios, they're very expensive, to all the fire departments or not.  So this is something we really need to look into, if we want to go that direction with the new infrastructure.  Also, visiting with the Chief on a daily basis, you know, that's kind of the direction they're going.  I've requested to be on the same radio system they are.  Only because the fire department dispatch is out of the County.  But the radio system will be very  expensive.

COMMISSIONER BELEW:  And -- but if we upgrade, we will also be able to communicate with the surrounding counties.

SHERIFF LEITHA:  Yes.  We will be.  And it's a very big project.  You know, something that's going to take some time.  Very costly.  And there's a lot of questions, you know.  We're opening a can of worms, you  know.  We discussed we really need the volunteer fire department input.  We've already gotten some kickback --I mean some -- some -- you know, and that's why I didn't open this can of worms. It's going to be a long, drawn out process, you know, to do this.  It can be done.  But like I said, it's very costly.  Something I can say like Don asked me, I mean, in the long run in the five year we can save money.  We pay over $300,000 a year in tower leases.  So there is going to be some savings down the line, just to let you know.

And they still don't update their flood warning system.

The people also didn't want to spend any of the ARPA money because it was tied to the Biden administration. Even the Judge suggests just holding on to the money so that it can’t be sent to states that don’t share their same values. And now we have 10s of people who have died and many might have lived if the county had updated their flood warning system and installed flood sirens along the river like the multiple counties/towns around them did. 

Commissioners' Court Regular Session 11/08/21

Resident: Are you accountable to anyone for how you spend it?  Or is it a, kind of, a reward and shows your support for this particular program? It's not free money.  Being present as we  talk.  How do we know this?  Immediately.  Unless you want it on the COVID lies and vaccination pressure, you have to send it back.  Those are heavy strings.  And those are strings. The deep state harangue and vilified President Trump for calling COVID for what it was and then suggest responses that were non-draconian, and then when Biden took office, the leftist government took its gloves off.  It has lied and lied more about this COVID -- about COVID. 

The temptation is great, you're accountable, and we would like to know where your allegiance is.

Resident 2: And I'm here to ask this Court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House.  And Kerr County should not be accepting anything from these people.  They're currently facilitating an invasion of our border, and we're going to support these people?  So that's what I have to say.  Thank you.

Resident: I happen to know that there is no such thing as free money.  It's never government-funded; it's tax-payer funded.  So they're taking our money and they're putting strings attached to it and then they're giving it back to us.  And they're going to get their foot in the door in this county.  We don't want their  money.  I feel like the people have spoken and I stand with the people.  Thank you for your time.

COMMISSIONER BELEW:  We have money in the bank, $5.1 million, that was sent to Kerr County.

JUDGE KELLY:  We didn't ask for it.  They sent it.

COMMISSIONER BELEW:  They sent it.

MS. DEWELL:  Exactly.

COMMISSIONER BELEW:  The money is in the bank right now.  Hasn't been spent.  In the event that you don't spend it, you send it back.  That's part of the Treasury's rules on it.  If you do spend it, whatever percentage, there would be no expense to the  taxpayers in Kerr County.  It would all come out of that account, no matter what you do with it.

JUDGE KELLY:  And GrantWorks has been very helpful in -- in getting us focused on what colors between the lines and what doesn't.  As of last Thursday, when I got a call from Bonnie White telling me about this -- the problem that y'all were going to present at the meeting, I went and got on the telephone to their Senior Vice President from GrantWorks.  And there -- there are discussions that they want to have with us and so we want to sit down and listen to them. And we want -- we want you to hear them, too.  Because you're the public.  But we -- we need to know and get very comfortable with where we are with this grant before we start taking that money.  And the claw back was the first thing. As far as where that money sits for the next year or two, my old law partner John Cornyn tells me that if we send it back it's going to New Jersey or it's going to New York or it's going to --

MRS. LAVENDER:  Or California.

 JUDGE KELLY:  -- or California.  And so I don't know if I'd rather be the custodian of the money  until we decide what we have to do with it rather than giving it back to the government to spend it on values that we in Kerr County don't agree with.  So --

COMMISSIONER BELEW:  And any spending of it would have to be done in Commissioners' Court so you'll be able to see it and know it.

They eventually signed a 7.5 mil contract with Motorola in 2022 for a county emergency communications system. The system would provide 95% radio coverage to firefighters, EMS and law enforcement. 

But hey at least the USGR has had developing a flood warning system on their Strategic Plan doc since 2022 which they kept rolling to the next year plan.

USGR Strategic Plan 2025

B-2. Work with local partners to develop Kerr County flood warning system 

• In January 2017, UGRA partnered with Kerr County in a FEMA flood warning implementation grant request for $980,000. The project was not selected for funding and most of the funds went to communities impacted by Hurricane Harvey. 

• In FY18 the USGS installed a high intensity precipitation gauge at the streamflow site on the Guadalupe in Hunt included in the agreement with UGRA. 

• During the previous reporting period, a pre application for a county wide flood warning system was submitted to the Texas Water Development Board Flood Infrastructure Fund. The project was invited to submit a complete application, but UGRA declined due to the low (5%) match offered through the grant. 

• UGRA participated in the update to the Kerr County Hazard Mitigation Action Plan which addresses hazards including flooding. The final plan was submitted to FEMA in April 2025. 

• During this reporting period, UGRA requested bids for a flood warning dashboard that combines multiple sources of data into one tool. The project will also recommend future improvements to monitoring equipment related to flood warning. Information from this dashboard will be used by UGRA staff and local emergency coordinators and decision makers. A contractor for this project was selected in April 2025.

 

 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Chopper said:

Oh...rafael cruises again

 

i saw a clip from this morning where he said "we need to stand down on partisan attacks while recovering and grieving" etc.

again, the regime is now 31 years in to complete and total power in this state

it is impossible to question leadership in texas WITHOUT it being labeled "partisan" by the regime because they are 100% of the leadership

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Posted
6 hours ago, Texas Fight said:

Where did they rebuild New Orleans?

You’re an idiot. Are you some banned troll re-registered under a new name? Or are you a new moron we haven’t met before?

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Posted
6 hours ago, Brisketexan said:


Moran, was the head of Conoco. Eventually donated to the church (ironically, Moran was a BIG Catholic, there’s a whole story).
The slide is absolutely still there, the sleds, the whole deal. It’s legendary. They do a big polar bear fundraiser thing on it in the winter.
Also, found out today someone close to me had a daughter at Mystic. She was at the Cypress camp, so she’s fine. But goddamn.

image.jpeg.b6b90b89aa7c3cda31ca2c6eff697687.jpeg

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Posted

A couple of points about Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice claim (in the press conference) that he went out for a morning run at 3:30am Friday morning while the flood was happening:

1. That seems...weird

2. Why wasn't he alerting people to the potential danger? Surely he had gotten the 1am flash flood alert.

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Posted
2 hours ago, South Austin said:

Same here.  My kids have attended Camp Champions for years, which is on Lake LBJ.  They've stayed in cabins that are right at the shore's edge, and I've never before thought that anything bad might happen.  And I know that lake is a lot different than the Guadalupe or Llano Rivers, but I'm guessing from now on Camp Champions will publish to any current and prospective parents a detailed disaster response plan, even if the odds of a catastrophic event like this are miniscule.  All waterfront camps are going to develop a "we will not let that happen to your child" type of marketing plan.  Too many parents won't view what happened at Camp Mystic as a lightening strike.

Then there's the matter of LBJ's being a constant-level lake, which, when I see pictures of the flooding on the Llano arm, really confuses me, but maybe that isn't noticed on the lake-proper as much.  Anyway, your point is well-taken, but I was thinking about this earlier since Inks is constant level/pass-thru to a degree, but definitely rose several feet last weekend. 

Posted
2 hours ago, Gap03 said:

Umm ... this is ridiculous.  Will all of these rivers flood at some point?  Sure.  For 80% of them, you'll have lots of lead time.  The siren idea is only really necessary for the Hill Country and other areas where there is extreme flash flooding.  Trying to make this out as a problem that requires a $300m solution is a bit insane.

300m is peanuts when we have a 30b rainyday fund and texas averages 137 tornados a year - 75% of which are EF1/0 - which leaves 2500 tornados since 1950 of EF2 or higher, which means 34 times a year somewhere in texas a storm siren is the last line of defense to keep you alive if the power is out or your cell is dead or you don't have coverage

and since every big urban connurbation has sirens already, the kerrvilles of the world get to use our urban tax dollars to help themselves (and 'crazy people from houston') stay alive while spending money in their economy - seems like a good deal to me

total tornado deaths in texas 1950-present: 594

total flash-flood deaths in texas 1959-present: 1069

hmmm..... 

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Posted
16 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

COMMISSIONER MOSER: The cost of that whole thing is going to be like 976 thousand dollars.  That's a lot of money.  All of it, and the reason we're here today and moving so quickly is that there is a FEMA grant that's available until as long as we apply by January the 20th.

JUDGE POLLARD:  Which is when President Obama goes out of office.

(Laughter.)

JUDGE POLLARD:  Well, the reason I mention that is because he authorized this particular thing, and it's going to --

MS. KIRBY:  It's a coincidence.

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  Going on the record with that it's a coincidence.  And so there has to be a presidential declaration of disaster to be able to have these kinds of funds available.  So it goes away just so happens to be when he leaves office.

 COMMISSIONER MOSER:    So we've talked about, you know one of the things we said sirens and we said we don't want sirens, too many many people said they did not want sirens when they had these -- when we had these gatherings.  Code Red, and I don't know if Dub wants to chime in on this, but Code Red is the same that's going to get information to a lot of people; not to everybody, okay.  One of the things that we'll do is identify a point of contact in all of  the camps, we won't communicate with everybody in the camp, but we have a point of contact at the camp so that they can disseminate people within -- to people within the camp, like during the summer when kids are there, or to RV parks.  Now, if the RV parks want to have a siren themself when something goes up that's up to them. That's not part of our thing.  So getting the information to the public is the end item of this whole thing. The first thing is sense a flood, then communicate that information to the local authorities, to the right authorities, and then for them to have a system by with which to disseminate the information to the public.

SHERIFF HIERHOLZER:   The only thing I have to remind people, unfortunately, I guess I'm one of the ones that – Harley maybe has been around here to see some very devastating floods and quite a bit of loss of life.  No matter what we do it's going to be up to the public, okay.  The notification is great.  I think the -- just the markers, the posts at the crossing is one thing, but it actually oughta state that at that level that your car may wash off, get people's attention at that crossing.  The only other thing is, and as Bob can attest to, most of the time it has been informal where we call people.  Unfortunately, the time we had the most devastating one down on the east end of the County down at the camps, I was working that night, spent 72 hours pulling kids out of fences.  But we call people, we called camps, they made the decision that they thought they could beat that ride, and then that no matter what we do and no matter what we install there's going to be loss of life.  It's educating people. 

COMMISSIONER REEVES:  And I will say and, Sheriff, you can correct me if I'm off base on this, the camps have had a very good system of letting down river if there's a rise, they're phoning their competitors or colleagues down river and letting them know what happened.  It's informal as you said, but it's been a very good system to let them know over time.

SHERIFF HIERHOLZER:  Right.  The camps and they do, they notify each other, we notify them, they notify -- there's a lot of informal things that really do work real well.  It's not totally those unless they try to get them out too quick in trying to beat it. Because this river can come up in a instant, we all know that with the drainage.  But it will go down just as quick if they just hold tight with what they've got. But the whole key is just getting people that are traveling up here from somewhere --

 COMMISSIONER REEVES:  That's my concern is ones that don't live here.

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  That's everybody's concern.

JUDGE POLLARD:  So this is kind of an offer, or to see if it's accepted by and also agreed to by UGRA and the City.

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  Correct.

JUDGE POLLARD:  And if they don't then where are we with this?

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  If they don't then we just forget the whole project.

 JUDGE POLLARD:  Just dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  Dead in the water, right.  It's dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER REEVES:  Question --

COMMISSIONER MOSER:  Or the pun for the Flood Warning System.

JUDGE POLLARD:  Dead in the water.

 

joker-very-poor-choice-of-words.png

 

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Posted
19 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

free biden money in 21

this was probably the same money Durant OK used to build its own doppler radar. Party line vote in Congress by the way.

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Posted
6 hours ago, South Austin said:

I don't believe anything changed about that.  You just can't relocate a city like that.  Instead, they improved the levee system and other flood control improvements.  

I don’t think Texas Fight is a serious poster. 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

and since every big urban connurbation has sirens already, the kerrvilles of the world get to use our urban tax dollars to help themselves (and 'crazy people from houston') stay alive while spending money in their economy - seems like a good deal to me

 

They literally had >$5M dropped into one of their accounts and they refused to spend it because it was from the Federal Government and they would do a COVID on them. I'm not fucking kidding

Quote

Resident: Are you accountable to anyone for how you spend it?  Or is it a, kind of, a reward and shows your support for this particular program? It's not free money.  Being present as we  talk.  How do we know this?  Immediately.  Unless you want it on the COVID lies and vaccination pressure, you have to send it back.  Those are heavy strings.  And those are strings. The deep state harangue and vilified President Trump for calling COVID for what it was and then suggest responses that were non-draconian, and then when Biden took office, the leftist government took its gloves off.  It has lied and lied more about this COVID -- about COVID. 

The temptation is great, you're accountable, and we would like to know where your allegiance is.

Resident 2: And I'm here to ask this Court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House.  And Kerr County should not be accepting anything from these people.  They're currently facilitating an invasion of our border, and we're going to support these people?  So that's what I have to say.  Thank you.

Resident: I happen to know that there is no such thing as free money.  It's never government-funded; it's tax-payer funded.  So they're taking our money and they're putting strings attached to it and then they're giving it back to us.  And they're going to get their foot in the door in this county.  We don't want their  money.  I feel like the people have spoken and I stand with the people.  Thank you for your time.

COMMISSIONER BELEW:  We have money in the bank, $5.1 million, that was sent to Kerr County.

JUDGE KELLY:  We didn't ask for it.  They sent it.

COMMISSIONER BELEW:  They sent it.

MS. DEWELL:  Exactly.

COMMISSIONER BELEW:  The money is in the bank right now.  Hasn't been spent.  In the event that you don't spend it, you send it back.  That's part of the Treasury's rules on it.  If you do spend it, whatever percentage, there would be no expense to the  taxpayers in Kerr County.  It would all come out of that account, no matter what you do with it.

JUDGE KELLY:  And GrantWorks has been very helpful in -- in getting us focused on what colors between the lines and what doesn't.  As of last Thursday, when I got a call from Bonnie White telling me about this -- the problem that y'all were going to present at the meeting, I went and got on the telephone to their Senior Vice President from GrantWorks.  And there -- there are discussions that they want to have with us and so we want to sit down and listen to them. And we want -- we want you to hear them, too.  Because you're the public.  But we -- we need to know and get very comfortable with where we are with this grant before we start taking that money.  And the claw back was the first thing. As far as where that money sits for the next year or two, my old law partner John Cornyn tells me that if we send it back it's going to New Jersey or it's going to New York or it's going to --

MRS. LAVENDER:  Or California.

 JUDGE KELLY:  -- or California.  And so I don't know if I'd rather be the custodian of the money  until we decide what we have to do with it rather than giving it back to the government to spend it on values that we in Kerr County don't agree with.  So --

COMMISSIONER BELEW:  And any spending of it would have to be done in Commissioners' Court so you'll be able to see it and know it.

 They eventually signed a $7.5M contract with Motorola for emergecny comms which just serve fire fighters, cops, and EMS.

 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Captainant said:

just serve fire fighters, cops, and EMS.

Okay but did you think of all the facebook likes these departmental pages got for each picture they post of their badass new tacticool toys? You wouldn't want those funds to be spent on soy DEI health departments or weather alarms.

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Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Okay but did you think of all the facebook likes these departmental pages got for each picture they post of their badass new tacticool toys? You wouldn't want those funds to be spent on soy DEI health departments or weather alarms.

welp, that's it

game over

sirens are woke

Edited by Hagbard Celine
derp
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Posted
18 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

This is the big one. No one even conceptualizes something like this until it happens, even in a place like that.

Yep. I'm a firefighter who's had fairly extensive swiftwater rescue training and has made a few rescues in my time. Even so, I was utterly shocked by what I saw in the video of the water rising at the Center Point bridge over the Guadalupe. I've heard of and even seen some 'walls of water', but I had no idea something like that was even a thing. That video and these events have changed forever my view of flash flooding situations.

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Posted
1 minute ago, troph said:

the accusation isn't really about the AFD, it's about the State's knowledge of the potential for a disaster. The State knew the situation was serious, had started mobilizing (including the admin aspects of that) on July 2nd and it remains to be seen but it does not appear that the State and local counties and municipalities were talking to each other as they should have been.  Cuts against the notion that this was unforeseen and nothing else could have been done. Everyone was caught flat footed for reasons. negligence, gross negligence, all the while they lie about the causes of the EXCESS loss of life. and again, nothing will come of it.

The thing I was responding to was the union facebook page trying to throw Austin's (Black) fire chief under the bus, but I agree with you that the real story is the July 2 part.

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Posted

i've seen it on 385 heading from fort stockton to marathon

heading west on 10 watched a giant anvil form on the horizon, at least 30 miles wide, drove around it on the north on 10, then on the west side of it on 385 and came up on a low water crossing where the sign said "watch out for flash floods" and we slowed to a crawl and 8 feet of water 100' wide came down the arroyo

we got out and fired one up to thank our stars, and the water was gone in less than 5 minutes

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Posted
Just now, chainsaw said:

The thing I was responding to was the union facebook page trying to throw Austin's (Black) fire chief under the bus, but I agree with you that the real story is the July 2 part.

ah sorry, saw you quoted and I had made a post about this so I wanted to respond. this is gonna get real ugly for Texas officials, it won't do anything, but once again, complete incompetence.

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Posted
7 minutes ago, wood said:

Yep. I'm a firefighter who's had fairly extensive swiftwater rescue training and has made a few rescues in my time. Even so, I was utterly shocked by what I saw in the video of the water rising at the Center Point bridge over the Guadalupe. I've heard of and even seen some 'walls of water', but I had no idea something like that was even a thing. That video and these events have changed forever my view of flash flooding situations.

meant to quote this

Posted
Just now, Hagbard Celine said:

i've seen it on 385 heading from fort stockton to marathon

heading west on 10 watched a giant anvil form on the horizon, at least 30 miles wide, drove around it on the north on 10, then on the west side of it on 385 and came up on a low water crossing where the sign said "watch out for flash floods" and we slowed to a crawl and 8 feet of water 100' wide came down the arroyo

we got out and fired one up to thank our stars, and the water was gone in less than 5 minutes

we hiked through a slot canyon in Utah once that was notorious for flash floods and death. not a cloud in the sky and i was nervous.

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Posted
41 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Parents, counselors, and campers are victims in all of this. State and local leadership are the ones responsible for this mass casualty event

I generally agree, but I think you left out one culpable party -- voters.  People that vote for the leadership who say they are going to keep government expenditures as small as possible.  The leadership that decided $1 million was just too much for an emergency warning service in Kerr county.  You can say that leadership is negligent and the guilty party, but really, they are just carrying out the desires of the majority of their constituents.  The people in these areas putting this leadership in place are ultimately to blame for the leadership you all suffer under.

This is an uncomfortable conversation that needs to happen with people you know that vote for that leadership.  Otherwise, you're just gonna keep getting underfunded incompetence at the state and local level every time shit gets real.  Or you can avoid places like Kerr County and Texas as a whole and go to where the majority of people value funded competence in their local and state government.

I wish it was different, but it is what it is.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, troph said:

...but it does not appear that the State and local counties and municipalities were talking to each other as they should have been.

The thing is, this is EXACTLY what government is supposed to be here for, but no, we have to legislate against the boogeyman and do performative bullshit instead.

Not surprising at all. In fact, government entities not speaking to each other seems to be the norm, rather than the exception. During 911, the NY Fire Dept and the NY Police Dept had no way of communicating with each other in place. Zero. They have supposedly remedied that problem.

More incredible, the Army and Navy didn't communicate w/ each other before the Pearl Harbor attack, and both assumed the other was flying far-reaching patrols, when in reality, neither was. 

 

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Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

Not surprising at all. In fact, government entities not speaking to each other seems to be the norm, rather than the exception. During 911, the NY Fire Dept and the NY Police Dept had no way of communicating with each other in place. Zero. They have supposedly remedied that problem.

More incredible, the Army and Navy didn't communicate w/ each other before the Pearl Harbor attack, and both assumed the other was flying far-reaching patrols, when in reality, neither was. 

 

that failure can almost be forgiven but for the repeated failures up and down. to me redundancy is the key in disaster prep. there were 3 failure points though in this situation with zero redundancy. NWS and local meteorologists either did their job as required or they did a good enough job. okay now the info is available. from there at least 3 failure points and then the lies about it.  anyway, I'm just on fucking repeat. I think i'll put this shit down for a while. I think it's been beaten to death and I think it's going to come out in the wash, once again. conservatives in charge up and down the chain DNGAF and in the end as long as god almighty is invoked and state leaders look like they are prepared then the good people of the state of texas will believe it because they eat that performative shit up with a spoon.

Edited by troph
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Posted
Just now, GhostOfTomJoad said:

That Kerr co. commissioner Moser from 2016 sounds like a grade A fucktard. I hope he's still alive & is wracked with grief & pain over the consequences of his decisions.

lol good one

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Posted
3 hours ago, bolverk said:

Someone, maybe Troph (not sure), mentioned multiple times that overnight camps are required to be certified/inspected by the State of Texas in some manner. I have no knowledge beyond that statement, if true.

But, it would undoubtedly be good to know what that certification process entails, how rigorous it is, and to what degree and how frequently inspections occur. Absolutely no idea (but doubtful) that the county requires any sort of inspection since the State doesn't allow for many regulations of properties outside of ETJs, except in limited circumstances.

That was me. And before this got moved to CR I believe. 

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Posted

then the cbs head talked about his conversation today with i think moser "we tried to get a grant boo hoo us waah waah" cbs totally letting the kerr county fuckers off the hook or completely ignorant of what's been uncovered online in the last 24 hours

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Posted (edited)
12 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

That was me. And before this got moved to CR I believe. 

https://www.dshs.texas.gov/youth-camp-program

Quote

All DSHS qualifying youth camps must obtain a license prior to operating. Any youth camp may be inspected during operation to determine compliance with the Youth Camp Safety and Health Act and the Youth Camp Rules.

Quote

To determine if an operation is a youth camp, the operation must meet the following criteria:

  1. Provides supervision, instruction, and recreation
  2. Accommodates at least five minors during each camp session
  3. Operates as a youth camp for no more than 120 days each calendar year
  4. Hosts children who are apart from parents or guardians
  5. Operates as a youth camp for a period of four or more consecutive days
  6. Operates as a youth camp four or more consecutive hours per day
  7. Operates as a youth camp only during school vacation periods
  8. Offers, during each camper session, at least two youth camp specialized activities in an outdoor setting such as: waterfront activities, archery, horseback riding, challenge courses, or riflery that requires special technical skills, equipment, or safety regulations supervised by a qualified adult at all times.

 

The laws I found from there:

https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/HS/htm/HS.141.htm

https://texas-sos.appianportalsgov.com/rules-and-meetings?chapter=265&interface=VIEW_TAC&part=1&subchapter=B&title=25

https://www.dshs.texas.gov/sites/default/files/youthcamp/pdf/TAC_25-1-265 JM 10242024.pdf

I poked around but didn't see anything about weather or evacuations

Actually:

https://www.dshs.texas.gov/sites/default/files/youthcamp/pdf/TAC_25-1-265 JM 10242024.pdf

Quote

(k) Emergency plans required. A written plan of procedures to be implemented in case of a disaster, serious accident, epidemic, or fatality shall be formulated and posted in the camp's administrative on-site office or location and in each permanent and semi-permanent occupied building. The plan shall include procedures for emergency shelter and for evacuation of each occupied building and the facility. Campers shall be instructed as to their actions in the event of fire, disaster, or the need to evacuate. These procedures shall be reviewed by the staff with specific assignments made to each staff member and counselor. All camp staff and volunteers shall be made aware of this plan during the staff-training program or volunteer briefing. Documentation of this training shall be kept at the camp's administrative on-site office or location.

So in theory they needed to have something written down to get their license. I'd love to know what it says and if the plan was followed.

Edited by chainsaw
actually
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Posted
38 minutes ago, wood said:

Even so, I was utterly shocked by what I saw in the video of the water rising at the Center Point bridge over the Guadalupe.

A friend sent me the link with the message, "watch all the way to the end." Thirty minutes. I watched the first few and go impatient. I skipped to about the 15 minute mark and assumed the camera was not at a new location. Then I recognized something and thought, "holy shit."

I watched it all the way through from the start. Thirty minutes and it rose from stream to flooding over the center of the bridge. 

Not to be maudlin, but I just kept thinking of those poor sleeping little girls. Hard fucking world.

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Posted
9 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

then the cbs head talked about his conversation today with i think moser "we tried to get a grant boo hoo us waah waah" cbs totally letting the kerr county fuckers off the hook or completely ignorant of what's been uncovered online in the last 24 hours

One of the tragedies with a lot of stuff (not just Kerr County) is seemingly otherwise intelligent, educated people like Moser behaving like complete dumbfucks when they get into politics.

Moser, who was first elected to the Precinct 2 county commissioners seat in 2012, previously had a long career in the aerospace industry. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and Ph.D. studies at Rice University. At the NASA Johnson Space Center from 1963 to 1986, he served in key management positions including as chief engineer, program manager of the Space Shuttle and Space Station. Upon returning to Texas from Washington, D.C., in 1997, he served as the executive director of the Texas Aerospace Commission, where he established Texas Spaceport Authorities.

https://dailytimes.com/news/county-commissioner-tom-moser-to-retire/article_be0e203a-d83b-11eb-8399-db048532ed79.html

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Posted
32 minutes ago, troph said:

that failure can almost be forgiven but for the repeated failures up and down. to me redundancy is the key in disaster prep. there were 3 failure points though in this situation with zero redundancy. NWS and local meteorologists either did their job as required or they did a good enough job. okay now the info is available. from there at least 3 failure points and then the lies about it.  anyway, I'm just on fucking repeat. I think i'll put this shit down for a while. I think it's been beaten to death and I think it's going to come out in the wash, once again. conservatives in charge up and down the chain DNGAF and in the end as long as god almighty is invoked and state leaders look like they are prepared then the good people of the state of texas will believe it because they eat that performative shit up with a spoon.

Hey we kept the drag queens out of story time and built 3 miles of wall to protect our kids against the brown people trying to make a living. What more do you want? 

Coulda been worse. Why have you not thanked us?

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Posted
6 minutes ago, bolverk said:

One of the tragedies with a lot of stuff (not just Kerr County) is seemingly otherwise intelligent, educated people like Moser behaving like complete dumbfucks when they get into politics.

Moser, who was first elected to the Precinct 2 county commissioners seat in 2012, previously had a long career in the aerospace industry. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and Ph.D. studies at Rice University. At the NASA Johnson Space Center from 1963 to 1986, he served in key management positions including as chief engineer, program manager of the Space Shuttle and Space Station. Upon returning to Texas from Washington, D.C., in 1997, he served as the executive director of the Texas Aerospace Commission, where he established Texas Spaceport Authorities.

https://dailytimes.com/news/county-commissioner-tom-moser-to-retire/article_be0e203a-d83b-11eb-8399-db048532ed79.html

It's crazy to read his background, then go back and re-read his comments from those meetings and think that a guy that has had the career he did was completely cool with continuing to rely on a game of telephone as your warning system to prevent loss of life. 

It's fascinating. 

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Posted
24 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

paxton just announced 'if they can't afford it we will give them the sirens"

Just in time, you wonk-eyed piece of shit.

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Posted
1 minute ago, pacman said:

It's the government we get when we have an apathetic population that refuses to hold government accountable.

Accountability is CR

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Posted
2 minutes ago, pacman said:

It's the government we get when we have an apathetic population that refuses to hold government accountable.

The citizens of Texas actively reward corruption, bribery, fraud, and gangster politics. Every 2 years they say give us more of that right up the ass. 

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