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Posted
1 hour ago, Planet Houston said:

It looks like the number is 36 Mystic campers and counselors.

I've been thinking about how to phrase this but I'll just fucking say it because that number deserves context for how horrific it is: 

By fatalities that would be the worst school-shooting in US history. 

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Posted
9 hours ago, Cajun said:

That was a sobering comment.

No doubt. And the additional, sad fact in this situation is that there likely will be bodies that are never found.  A final gut punch - no chance for a final goodbye, no chance to lay a loved one to rest. This was the case with with the Charba and McComb families in Wimberley. The bodies of their young children were never recovered.  And the number of bodies involved with this tragedy is obviously much greater than what we saw in there so this additional, unimaginable fate will likely be a reality. 

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Posted

Things change.  I remember working on IH-10 in my home county in the 1960s all the stream bridges had to be three feet above the record flood level.  I have seen the same one under water at least twice since then and no telling how many others have been covered.  Upstream land development is the major problem.

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Posted
9 hours ago, Chopper said:

FEMA working slowly, like they did when Brownie was in charge.

The Handbasket is a Texas news/journalism site.

 

This. I was on an RSC contract for a few years. We would have been notified as the event was happening. Teams all kept equipment ready for 96 hours. 

I did not see 1 FEMA truck/person. And it showed. Sure everyone showed up, but there was little organization. 

 

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Posted
11 minutes ago, Herbie Hancock said:

The only thing FEMA is good for is their checkbook. They complicate the fuck out of everything and make getting things done 10x harder than they have to be.

ok

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Posted
8 hours ago, Homesickhorn said:

That was posted by the city, not the county.

But, yes.

Reading everything about this it just seems like the city and county officials from the very top completely failed the citizens and visitors of their city/county to put it politely. 

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Posted (edited)
30 minutes ago, Herbie Hancock said:

The only thing FEMA is good for is their checkbook. They complicate the fuck out of everything and make getting things done 10x harder than they have to be.

Sounds like it's currently the complete opposite of what you're describing. So kindly fuck off puto.

Edited by BurntOrange&White
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Posted
3 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Reading everything about this it just seems like the city and county officials from the very top completely failed the citizens and visitors of their city/county to put it politely. 

Failed gives an implication of effort. I’d say ignored is more correct based on what I’ve read so far. 

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Interesting link about the former Kerr County sheriff’s comments:

https://archive.is/zhj5M

 

2 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Failed gives an implication of effort. I’d say ignored is more correct based on what I’ve read so far. 

Agree! 
 

Some snippets were posted a few pages ago but this article is scathing of leadership and their disregard and failure. 
 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/07/us/texas-floods-warning-system-invs

 

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Posted
10 hours ago, Planet Houston said:

As far as positive news, there are a bunch of La Junta counselors that are absolute heroes. Stories will come out. Miraculous that there weren’t fatalities there. 

This does not surprise me in the least.  Most of the counselors were former campers, and the development campers receive at La Junta is the kind of stuff that would make them capable of this as young adults.

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Posted

Saw this in the other thread. Is "flash flood warning" in this area understood to mean that the rivers are going to overflow their banks and to take higher ground? In my area "flash flood warnings" are pretty common and are understood to mean that intersections are likely to flood and to not drive through them but do not implicate the Arkansas River exceeding its banks. If that is at issue, which is once or twice a decade, the warning specifically mentions the river, and the NWS robot voice says specifically to head to higher ground if you are near the banks. To me that is really is the question. Was "flash flood warning" sufficient or should it have been more specific? My experience is that it should be more specific.

 

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Posted
20 minutes ago, Herbie Hancock said:

The only thing FEMA is good for is their checkbook. They complicate the fuck out of everything and make getting things done 10x harder than they have to be.

I'll respectfully disagree.  They bring resources that many State and Locals can't afford.  The big piece of this: incident command.  Working previously for the state, we had to take FEMA incident response training, and they in theory should be coming in and taking the lead and coordinating the response.  They have a usefulness...

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Posted
Just now, PvilleStang said:

I'll respectfully disagree.  They bring resources that many State and Locals can't afford.  The big piece of this: incident command.  Working previously for the state, we had to take FEMA incident response training, and they in theory should be coming in and taking the lead and coordinating the response.  They have a usefulness...

*had

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Posted
1 hour ago, AnTiM said:

Things change.  I remember working on IH-10 in my home county in the 1960s all the stream bridges had to be three feet above the record flood level.  I have seen the same one under water at least twice since then and no telling how many others have been covered.  Upstream land development is the major problem.

Not really the issue for this flood. In Houston and other areas, absolutely, but in this part of Texas, you have a thin top soil over limestone that really transmits water to the creeks and rivers. Unless there are karst sinkholes or caves, water really flows as the limestone limits infiltration. 

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Posted
I'll respectfully disagree.  They bring resources that many State and Locals can't afford.  The big piece of this: incident command.  Working previously for the state, we had to take FEMA incident response training, and they in theory should be coming in and taking the lead and coordinating the response.  They have a usefulness...

That’s your opinion and you’re certainly entitled to it. Also, I appreciate you articulating your opinion in a constructive way, thank you for that. Extensive NIMS and ICS training and certification are required of any entity receiving federal funds and also what helps make interoperability between departments possible; so I’ll disagree that at the operations level FEMA is needed for that.

I’ll own that I was a bit too vague about not being needed beyond their checkbook. They do have a purpose and do help, but it’s been my firsthand experiences that they greatly complicate and convolute things in the initial action phase of an incident. Once incident stabilization has been achieved is where I feel they’re better suited. This has been an issue that transcends whatever political party is running the White House. In fact, my biggest frustrations came from incidents that occurred under the post-Obama regime and pre-Biden.
Posted

I’d imagine you need strong, robust, well staffed and well funded FEMA to handle all these generational/once in a 100 year type of disasters we seem to somehow have every 6-8 months.

Hmmm

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Posted
33 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Saw this in the other thread. Is "flash flood warning" in this area understood to mean that the rivers are going to overflow their banks and to take higher ground? In my area "flash flood warnings" are pretty common and are understood to mean that intersections are likely to flood and to not drive through them but do not implicate the Arkansas River exceeding its banks. If that is at issue, which is once or twice a decade, the warning specifically mentions the river, and the NWS robot voice says specifically to head to higher ground if you are near the banks. To me that is really is the question. Was "flash flood warning" sufficient or should it have been more specific? My experience is that it should be more specific.

 

It's easier to forecast Flash floods than it is to forecast river crests because the former is mostly an inference you draw from projected rainfall totals while the latter probably requires the input of hydrologists and more precise information about when and where that rain fell relative to the rivers, and that might not have been available quickly enough to NWS. One would expect local officials who are more familiar with this enormous, awe-inspiring natural wonder that could also kill people and wildlife to have some more direct way of monitoring the status of that natural wonder and that they would also understand the relationship between rainfall and the closeness with which one would expect them to be monitoring it. But that's just me.

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Posted (edited)
3 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

One would expect local officials who are more familiar with this enormous, awe-inspiring natural wonder that could also kill people and wildlife to have some more direct way of monitoring the status of that natural wonder and that they would also understand the relationship between rainfall and the closeness with which one would expect them to be monitoring it. But that's just me.

The CNN article, which mentioned how other counties were interacting with NWS on the night of the floods and requesting additional information but that Kerr County was totally radio silent, seems especially damning. The county officials were likely all drunk or fast asleep. 

Edited by Chopper
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Posted
Just now, Nigel Tufnel said:

We are 2-3 degrees of separation from 5 of the Camp Mystic kids and counselors.  Our friend, whose granddaughter is still unaccounted, for said that one of the things they have been prepped for is that many will be receiving letters from their daughters that were mailed out July 3.  Ugh.

Oof

Posted
12 minutes ago, Js1 said:

I’d imagine you need strong, robust, well staffed and well funded FEMA to handle all these generational/once in a 100 year type of disasters we seem to somehow have every 6-8 months.

Hmmm

I don’t disagree with your assessment for FEMA, but one of the biggest misconceptions is using Return Periods as years. 

The more realistic way of looking at things is that a 100 year return period event has a 1% probability of occurring in a given year. Over a long timeframe, you could have the 1% event happen in back to back years, then not occur for a long time. 

Obviously, the idea is to use data from events and update your models (as well as including some data from climate models to look at the sensitivities in terms of how the return periods will change). However, most of these models and flood maps should have incorporated the previous flooding events. 

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Nigel Tufnel said:

We are 2-3 degrees of separation from 5 of the Camp Mystic kids and counselors.  Our friend, whose granddaughter is still unaccounted, for said that one of the things they have been prepped for is that many will be receiving letters from their daughters that were mailed out July 3.  Ugh.

And because these are 8-year-olds/first or second year campers, there is a likelihood that those letters express homesickness.

It will be devastating for those parents.

Posted
10 hours ago, ztejas said:

I've been thinking about how to phrase this but I'll just fucking say it because that number deserves context for how horrific it is: 

By fatalities that would be the worst school-shooting in US history. 

It's worse than every tornado in the US in the last 78 years save one -- Joplin, MO -- and it's closing in fast on that one.

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Posted
9 minutes ago, Rip76 said:

Damn, I just saw this.

 

IMG_9715.jpeg

Saw that yesterday evening on FB, wasn't going to post here because he just stated it was close to him, but didn't put who was lost.  There was a lot of speculation within the hour on Reddit and media outlets.

Posted
19 minutes ago, CoTex said:

And because these are 8-year-olds/first or second year campers, there is a likelihood that those letters express homesickness.

It will be devastating for those parents.

If we ever needed a cry emoji, this is it. 
 

I think I’m done here for awhile. It’s too much. Peace and love to all those affected. 

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Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

Greta (the Mystic Camper who is the niece of my younger cousin’s best friend) the girl I posted we had been looking for has sadly been found deceased. 

I have no more words. I’m gutted. Hugs to all of y’all. Fuck. 

Crying.😢

Edited by Hard Times
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Posted
27 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

Greta (the Mystic Camper who is the niece of my younger cousin’s best friend) the girl I posted we had been looking for has sadly been found deceased. 

I have no more words. I’m gutted. Hugs to all of y’all. Fuck. 

Sorry Nicole. She lived in our neighborhood and there's a chance my wife knows your cousin from her school. 

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Chopper said:

The CNN article, which mentioned how other counties were interacting with NWS on the night of the floods and requesting additional information but that Kerr County was totally radio silent, seems especially damning. The county officials were likely all drunk or fast asleep. 

Or out for a morning jog at 3:30 in the morning 

Jennifer Lawrence Reaction GIF

2 hours ago, Armybrat said:

Interesting link about the former Kerr County sheriff’s comments:

https://archive.is/zhj5M

Are they framing this as a money and budgetary issue when the Feds granted them money for a system in 2015 and again in 2021 ($5.1M)?

 

 

Edited by Saint Tacky
Combined posts...
Posted
14 minutes ago, Saint Tacky said:

Are they framing this as a money and budgetary issue when the Feds granted them money for a system in 2015 and again in 2021 ($5.1M)?

 

Yes, and you know why. 

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