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Posted
4 hours ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

My general impression of Kerrville is funds can be found for this but less so for actual life-saving government services. 

one-of-the-largest-cross-sculptures-in-the-u-s-called-the-v0-k35cwvzodezb1.jpg

That is satanic as fuck

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Posted
16 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Hyperbole, not a joke. I went to one of these camps for 5 years, there is absolutely no way you could have evacuated everyone without a better emergency warning system in place. The existing one is a joke and doesn't tell you shit. They aren't going to evacuate a whole camp full of people based on it is what I was trying to say.

Well, one thing, Cypress Lake, no more than a mile down the road, seems to have been undamaged or at least no injuries/fatalities.  Chopper found the FEMA map and it's entirely out of the floodplain, while Guadelupe is square in it.  The evacuation didn't have to be into town or whatever, just to higher ground.  

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Posted
5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think you are mostly right.

But those camps are also a fixture down there and probably the highest-population-density areas outside Kerrville proper for 50-60 miles in any direction.

It prompts the question why local officials didn't get off their asses, call all the camps, or hell, stop by, and say, "hey, you know what's going on with the weather, right?  Do you have a plan?  If not, let's make one right now."

Right. Like what the fuck else does the Kerr County sheriff’s department have to do that’s more important at that time?

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Posted
20 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think you are mostly right.

But those camps are also a fixture down there and probably the highest-population-density areas outside Kerrville proper for 50-60 miles in any direction.

It prompts the question why local officials didn't get off their asses, call all the camps, or hell, stop by, and say, "hey, you know what's going on with the weather, right?  Do you have a plan?  If not, let's make one right now."

Yeah this isn’t rocket science, all of this is plain as day. 

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Posted
47 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Hyperbole, not a joke. I went to one of these camps for 5 years, there is absolutely no way you could have evacuated everyone without a better emergency warning system in place. The existing one is a joke and doesn't tell you shit. They aren't going to evacuate a whole camp full of people based on it is what I was trying to say.

Yet it seems some of the other camps did evacuate and get their kids to safety.  I'm not familiar with enrollment numbers so maybe those other camps were much smaller and it was easier for them to manage.

Posted
30 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Right. Like what the fuck else does the Kerr County sheriff’s department have to do that’s more important at that time?

Cruise around town making sure no scary brown people are roaming the streets?

Posted

Since I didn't grow up in TX, I just don't get this "camp culture" y'all have.  Seeing that there are camp reunion committees, camp alumni chat groups, etc. just seems weird as fuck to an outsider.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Since I didn't grow up in TX, I just don't get this "camp culture" y'all have.  Seeing that there are camp reunion committees, camp alumni chat groups, etc. just seems weird as fuck to an outsider.

Wait 'till you hear about the culture at "Fish Camp".

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Since I didn't grow up in TX, I just don't get this "camp culture" y'all have.  Seeing that there are camp reunion committees, camp alumni chat groups, etc. just seems weird as fuck to an outsider.

 

boy scout summer camps were the highlights of my summers growing up 

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Since I didn't grow up in TX, I just don't get this "camp culture" y'all have.  Seeing that there are camp reunion committees, camp alumni chat groups, etc. just seems weird as fuck to an outsider.

I’ve lived in Texas for my entire 50+ years and I had zero knowledge of the camps around kerrville until Friday. I would guess >95% of Texans have no clue about this culture.

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Posted
Just now, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I’ve lived in Texas for my entire 50+ years and I had zero knowledge of the camps around kerrville until Friday. I would guess >95% of Texans have no clue about this culture.

Doing Channel 9 GIF by The Block

Posted
5 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Since I didn't grow up in TX, I just don't get this "camp culture" y'all have.  Seeing that there are camp reunion committees, camp alumni chat groups, etc. just seems weird as fuck to an outsider.

 

This probably isn't the best comparison, but I'd say that in some ways, it's psychologically like being on a sports team. You're part of a group doing something intense together that builds strong bonds and creates lasting memories for a specific period of time, and under the guidance of coaches / camp counselors.

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Posted
 
This probably isn't the best comparison, but I'd say that in some ways, it's psychologically like being on a sports team. You're part of a group doing something intense together that builds strong bonds and creates lasting memories for a specific period of time, and under the guidance of coaches / camp counselors.

It’s more akin to another group you belong to — a fraternity or sorority or a student body on a much smaller basis. There are people who have their “camp friends” in addition to their traditional friends back home and at school.

When I got to UT, there were people who knew each other from Camp Longhorn or whatever and had never seen each other or spoken outside of camp. We didn’t have ways to readily stay in touch with each other once you left camp back in the 80’s.
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Posted
Here’s the Mo Ranch story:

It was about 1 a.m. on the Fourth of July when the facilities manager at a central Texas summer camp saw water from the Guadalupe River steadily rising amid a deluge of rain.

Aroldo Barrera notified his boss, who had been monitoring reports of the storms approaching Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, a recreation destination where an intercultural youth conference had been called off early just hours earlier.

Despite an absence of warning by local authorities, camp officials acted quickly on their own, relocating about 70 children and adults staying overnight in a building near the river. With the kids safe, camp leaders including President and CEO Tim Huchton were able to avoid the catastrophe that hit at least one other camp near Hunt, where the 500-acre Mo-Ranch is located.

“They helped them pack up,” Lisa Winters, communications director for Mo-Ranch, told The Associated Press on Sunday. “They got them up, they got them out, put them up on higher ground.”
 

They had a plan and executed it.  In another report I heard they actually moved a bunch of kayaks and canoes to higher ground also.  The same thought process probably went on at La Junta as well.  To @troph’s point all the camps should have an emergency plan and drill on it before any kids show up. It’s government’s job to require they have it in place and provide adequate warning. 
 


I was on the board at Mo for several years, including when Tim was camp director (he left for a while, then we brought him back as president).
We’d experienced minor (but still scary) flooding in the past, and there have also been fires in the area.
As a board, we spent some time - not a lot, it didn’t take a lot - on disaster planning. What do we do if the ranch gets cut off by a fire? What do we do if there’s a flood? Even “what do we do if there’s a medical emergency here in the sticks?” BTW, we signed a contract with a medical evacuation chopper service for the last one. It’s saved at least one life from what I understand.
And Tim is damned good at what he does, he’s a real pro. So, yeah, there are ways to do disaster planning at such facilities right. There’s no way to be ready for everything, but you need to have a good team and empower them to take action.
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Posted
6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


I was on the board at Mo for several years, including when Tim was camp director (he left for a while, then we brought him back as president).
We’d experienced minor (but still scary) flooding in the past, and there have also been fires in the area.
As a board, we spent some time - not a lot, it didn’t take a lot - on disaster planning. What do we do if the ranch gets cut off by a fire? What do we do if there’s a flood? Even “what do we do if there’s a medical emergency here in the sticks?” BTW, we signed a contract with a medical evacuation chopper service for the last one. It’s saved at least one life from what I understand.
And Tim is damned good at what he does, he’s a real pro. So, yeah, there are ways to do disaster planning at such facilities right. There’s no way to be ready for everything, but you need to have a good team and empower them to take action.

I don't want to unnecessarily shit on Mystic ownership/management, by most accounts they were pretty good at running a camp for a long time.

But, from that TM article, they might have gotten a little full of themselves over the recent years and complacent.

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Posted
6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


I was on the board at Mo for several years, including when Tim was camp director (he left for a while, then we brought him back as president).
We’d experienced minor (but still scary) flooding in the past, and there have also been fires in the area.
As a board, we spent some time - not a lot, it didn’t take a lot - on disaster planning. What do we do if the ranch gets cut off by a fire? What do we do if there’s a flood? Even “what do we do if there’s a medical emergency here in the sticks?” BTW, we signed a contract with a medical evacuation chopper service for the last one. It’s saved at least one life from what I understand.
And Tim is damned good at what he does, he’s a real pro. So, yeah, there are ways to do disaster planning at such facilities right. There’s no way to be ready for everything, but you need to have a good team and empower them to take action.

My kids all went to Mo Ranch. Relieved to see they had competent staff. Although from what I recall all of their buildings are on somewhat higher ground than the river. 

Posted
3 hours ago, Pancho said:

Hold him accountable 

 

A reminder that Republic cans have controlled this state for over thirty years. Whatever fault, in this tragedy, that is on government, both state and county, is on that money grubbing party of bootlickers.

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Posted
1 hour ago, HenryJames said:

‘likely’

Quote

“I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now,” the freshman GOP lawmaker said.

In hindsight, his vote would probably be different? Way to take a stance there Virdell. I bet your constituents will feel the same about their votes for you.

Posted
35 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

My kids all went to Mo Ranch. Relieved to see they had competent staff. Although from what I recall all of their buildings are on somewhat higher ground than the river. 

Most of them are.  But River Dorm and Guest Lodge are down low (Guest Lodge has even taken on water once in the past, IIRC).  Some campers for specific events will be in either of those two places.  Summer Camp generally has the campers in Loma Linda, which is indeed on higher ground.

Also, in recent years, with additional cell towers in the area, there's decent cell coverage on site, which helps.

Posted
2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:


I was on the board at Mo for several years, including when Tim was camp director (he left for a while, then we brought him back as president).
We’d experienced minor (but still scary) flooding in the past, and there have also been fires in the area.
As a board, we spent some time - not a lot, it didn’t take a lot - on disaster planning. What do we do if the ranch gets cut off by a fire? What do we do if there’s a flood? Even “what do we do if there’s a medical emergency here in the sticks?” BTW, we signed a contract with a medical evacuation chopper service for the last one. It’s saved at least one life from what I understand.
And Tim is damned good at what he does, he’s a real pro. So, yeah, there are ways to do disaster planning at such facilities right. There’s no way to be ready for everything, but you need to have a good team and empower them to take action.

I went to MO several times in the mid 70s.  Brisket can correct me, but I remember it being a retreat for Marathon Oil?  Some oil company or another.  It was a great camp compared to the scout camps I attended.  They have this old water slide there that was super fun.  There's a video of it attached.  But when we used it, there were no walls on either side.  The pain in the ass was hauling that wooden luge thing back up, so the second year we brought some rope, a pulley and some barbell weights. We used that to pull the cart back up the track instead of lugging it.  worked pretty well.  

That was a really fun and clean camp.  All presbyterian run, and they were even laxer than the methodists at that time.  Always made sure I went along on those trips if i could.

 

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Posted
2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I’ve lived in Texas for my entire 50+ years and I had zero knowledge of the camps around kerrville until Friday. I would guess >95% of Texans have no clue about this culture.

ditto but I grew up poor. This is all mostly rich people stuff. 

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Posted
5 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Since I didn't grow up in TX, I just don't get this "camp culture" y'all have.  Seeing that there are camp reunion committees, camp alumni chat groups, etc. just seems weird as fuck to an outsider.

This isn’t the thread for it, but there are camp people, who love camp, and people who go once and hate it, they aren’t camp people.
People go to camp based on where their friends and families go, and consequently social networks and rivalries between camps developed based on the kind of people who go where. It’s a whole thing. 

Posted
5 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

I went to MO several times in the mid 70s.  Brisket can correct me, but I remember it being a retreat for Marathon Oil?  Some oil company or another.  It was a great camp compared to the scout camps I attended.  They have this old water slide there that was super fun.  There's a video of it attached.  But when we used it, there were no walls on either side.  The pain in the ass was hauling that wooden luge thing back up, so the second year we brought some rope, a pulley and some barbell weights. We used that to pull the cart back up the track instead of lugging it.  worked pretty well.  

That was a really fun and clean camp.  All presbyterian run, and they were even laxer than the methodists at that time.  Always made sure I went along on those trips if i could.

 

Pretty sure the history of it is a family named Morris has a ranch down there, that still exists.  They donated part of it to the Presbyterian Church some years ago and it operates as a retreat center and summer camp for Presbyterians, mostly.  I think it can be rented out by others.

Posted
8 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, one thing, Cypress Lake, no more than a mile down the road, seems to have been undamaged or at least no injuries/fatalities.  Chopper found the FEMA map and it's entirely out of the floodplain, while Guadelupe is square in it.  The evacuation didn't have to be into town or whatever, just to higher ground.  

If the camp is square in the flood plain, I assume the cabins are flooded all of the time. The family has owned it since 1976. Anyone know how often these buildings were flooded?

Posted

In looking at maps of camp mystic and what I assume is another camp up stream from up, I see a series of what looks to be dams to produce private lakes. Something called cypress creek, not the Guadalupe river. I can see why a camp needs a lake especially in times of droughts. Flash floods, especially in prolonged droughts, can initially bring large amounts of debris. Could the debris hit up against the dams create a temporary larger dam until the water/debris breaks free only to hit the next dam, and so on?

Im ignorant of private dams but wonder if they can contribute to the 100+ year storm impacts in terms of people in the immediate area. I don’t care if people dam up smaller creeks assuming they are following the law but I doubt Texas does a good job of regulating them. 

Posted
Just now, Texas Fight said:

If the camp is square in the flood plain, I assume the cabins are flooded all of the time. The family has owned it since 1976. Anyone know how often these buildings were flooded?

Family has owned it a lot longer than that.  Camp was originally founded in the 20s by a UT football coach, "Doc" Stewart, along with Camp Stewart for boys.  Both foundered during the depression and were bought by others.  The predecessors to the Eastland family bought Mystic.

But yeah, on the one hand, they had to have been "on notice" of potential flooding.  On the other, they seem to have avoided catastrophe in the past.

That TM article indicated that Mystic, at least, had become quite lucrative in operation, let alone the land value.  I'm curious if that is true of the other camps down there.  As part of the increase in value, there was a bit of sophistication in the ownership structure to avoid liability and tax consequences.  Apparently, unfortunately, not enough disaster prevention, though.

Posted
7 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Family has owned it a lot longer than that.  Camp was originally founded in the 20s by a UT football coach, "Doc" Stewart, along with Camp Stewart for boys.  Both foundered during the depression and were bought by others.  The predecessors to the Eastland family bought Mystic.

But yeah, on the one hand, they had to have been "on notice" of potential flooding.  On the other, they seem to have avoided catastrophe in the past.

That TM article indicated that Mystic, at least, had become quite lucrative in operation, let alone the land value.  I'm curious if that is true of the other camps down there.  As part of the increase in value, there was a bit of sophistication in the ownership structure to avoid liability and tax consequences.  Apparently, unfortunately, not enough disaster prevention, though.

Maybe someone else knows? How often have these buildings cabins/buildings flooded?  
 

Posted

There has been a flooding event that killed campers in the past. In 1987 a church bus trying to evacuate a bunch of kids got swept away and 10 kids died close to Comfort. It was a scarring event and when I became a camper a few years later (at a one week, $100 dollar church camp), it was always on the minds of adults.  Buses parked for the week where everyone knew them, close to the cabins and pointed at the “back way” out to avoid the river, radios in cabins, etc. 

I completely agree that local officials needed to be more on this.  I just do think that this is going to be a cascading chain of failures in planning and reaction down the line.

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Posted
8 hours ago, bolverk said:

 

This probably isn't the best comparison, but I'd say that in some ways, it's psychologically like being on a sports team. You're part of a group doing something intense together that builds strong bonds and creates lasting memories for a specific period of time, and under the guidance of coaches / camp counselors.

That's pretty apt.  I went to Camp Longhorn one summer after fifth grade and was a bit young for it as an only child and had some homesickness.

The following school year, I got into Scouts and we had a one-week summer camp that made it a lot easier to get some merit badges needed for Eagle, like the aquatic ones (swimming, life-saving, canoeing, etc.).  I did that for the next few years instead.   The conditions were a lot more primitive, which had pros and cons, but the one-week term was more suited to my taste.  

Scouts was very much like a team sport (and also a bit like a frat, as well).  I had a lot of friends that continued at Longhorn, then Kanakuk because football not creepy Christians and molestation, and some girls that were Mystic and Waldemar.  It was definitely a thing, but not quite as cultish/cliquish as maybe it became.

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Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

It prompts the question why local officials didn't get off their asses, call all the camps, or hell, stop by, and say, "hey, you know what's going on with the weather, right?  Do you have a plan?  If not, let's make one right now."

Why would those repubican public servants give a shit about serving the public?

Edited by Captainant
Forgot a word
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Posted
9 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I think you are mostly right.

But those camps are also a fixture down there and probably the highest-population-density areas outside Kerrville proper for 50-60 miles in any direction.

It prompts the question why local officials didn't get off their asses, call all the camps, or hell, stop by, and say, "hey, you know what's going on with the weather, right?  Do you have a plan?  If not, let's make one right now."

It’s natural tendency to assume that everyone has it under control. If you’re a new-ish official for a small county, are you going to start telling 80-year old businesses that they have unsafe practices or need to evacuate their campers right this minute? I would also bet the sheriff’s office is probably sized for the permanent population and not increased for temporary visitors especially the children of well-off parents.

in a developing natural disaster, no county official (elected or law enforcement) can adequately address the needs of all residents. It’s like when a hurricane hits the coast, and law enforcement tells you that you’re pretty much on your own during the height of the storm. (I realize hurricanes are not flash floods.)

lessons will be learned from this flood and eventually forgotten.

Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Ok, like I said earlier... that's fucking weird af.

Well, first off, summer camp answers the question wtf are the kids gonna do all summer, for at least part of it.  So, if you have the means, it makes perfect sense.

Then once you get to camp, it has the social aspects of any other elementary/middle school organized activity.  Kids are capable of turning it into a greater or lesser shit show, as are their parents.

Through the 70s and 80s, even at my ultra-privileged, ultra-white school, it was just something you did, guided in some cases by family tradition.  It wasn't some status competition like sorority rush.  That seems to be a more recent development that is sort of symptomatic or emblematic of further polarization and wealth and privilege concentration.

Like, my friends that were close with what apparently was the prior generation of the Eastland family (owners of Mystic), were close because Mom grew up in Hunt on Highway 39, basically across the street from Mystic.  She went to Tivy and Tech.  Her husband was from Lamesa, for fucks sake.  Granted, both families were well off, but solidly upper-middle not oligarchs.

Edited by TwiceHorn
Posted
10 hours ago, Steamboat1874 said:

Julie is not only a complete fucking idiot but a cunt as well.

Fuck that piece of shit.

Trump supporter. What else would you expect?



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