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Posted
5 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, I dunno.  I mean, like a lake house, being close to the water is kinda part and parcel of the whole deal.  Seems like a calculated risk.  I think there's definitely an acknowledgement of the possibilty of property damage, but loss of life is unfathomable.

From one of the graphics, though, the Mystic cabins in question were fewer than 100 yards from the water.  Some of the La Junta stories talk about 300 yards from the water.

Then again, my cabin at Longhorn was probably 50-100 feet from the water's edge, and many are actually ON the water, but it is pointed out that Inks is a pretty low flood risk and probably not a flowing flood.

Sidenote, I participated in Texas camp culture as did a lot of my peers, then and now.  I don't think of myself or my peers as extremely privileged in the sense of the Hunts.  And, I don't think of summer camp as some huge indulgence.  But it costs, and it costs something that a whole lot of folks can't or shouldn't afford.

Like many/most of us here, we're upper 5-10% of American society, we're pretty damned privileged if not extremely so.

These aren't lake houses, they are river houses on hill country rivers well-known to flash flood. Yes, everybody wants to be on the water. On a lake, great. But on a river like that its not that fucking hard to figure it out. We know a lot about geology and hydrology and meteorology in this day and age.  The evidence is all over the place of what has happened before -- water shaped all the river valleys. There are no lakes above that location to catch floodwaters. NPR said the other day the the Guad was the most deadly river in the U.S. It should not surprise anyone that this would happen eventually.

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Posted
1 hour ago, King George said:

Waldemar is $8500 for 4 weeks. Mystic is similar. 

Camp Mondamin in NC is > $9000 for their 5-week main session for next year.

Ozark breaks their sessions differently (1 and two week chunks), but staying 4 weeks is basically the same as above.

Texas has no monopoly on this industry.

Posted
5 hours ago, LonghornSean said:

Was I correct in reading that the bubble inn and twins cabins are still intact, they were just totally inundated during the flooding? I think I saw a mystic mom saying that on instagram.

They are pretty intact although they were inundated almost to the ceiling. The inundation itself wasnt the problem. The river crested pretty rapidly, filling up the cabins, and then fell rapidly and the water draining out of the cabins sucked all the remaining girls out the doors and windows. 

Posted (edited)
On 7/10/2025 at 11:58 AM, Js1 said:

Nope, welcome to our society of "no accountability"

not my fault

I don't know them

That was before my time, so you can't blame me

My bad. I CR’d it.

Edited by GenXer
Posted

I always assumed Camp Mystic was “American Camp Association Accredited” but clearly it was not. 

This story below out of Comfort, Texas is also pretty damn compelling.  

“Danny Morales, assistant chief of the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department, said that nobody died in Comfort, according to NBC News. The small town home to about 2,300 people in Kendall County, which is about 20 miles away from Kerr County, where the majority of deaths from the flooding disaster occurred and at least 96 have died. People knew that if they heard the siren, they gotta get out,” Morales told NBC News.

In a separate interview with the Associated Press, Morales, who has been with the fire department for decades, said that he helped secure funding for the security system last year when the opportunity came up — years after a 1978 flood killed 15 people in Comfort, including his grandfather.

Last year, the firehouse was given a new siren, while an old siren was refurbished and moved to Comfort Park, where officials hooked it up to a U.S. Geological Survey sensor at Cypress Creek, the AP. reported While the siren can be manually triggered, the sensor also does the same when water levels reach a certain point.

According to the news agency, the sirens use a specific flat tone for floods and a different sound for tornados.

“We do for ourselves and for the community,” Morales said. “If we hadn’t had a drought the past months and the [Cypress] Creek hadn’t been down, we could have had another '78. The past few days, I’ll tell you, it brings back a lot.

Brady Constantine, fire marshal and emergency management coordinator for Kendall County, told ABC affiliate KSAT that he awoke to the a warning he set up around 2 a.m. on the day of the floods and learned of the rising waters of the Guadalupe River. He then called up Morales, who set up a command at the fire station by 4:30 a.m.

The county sent out its first wireless emergency message by 5:30 a.m. — ahead of three additional alerts all before 8:06 a.m., per KSAT. The county also issued a mandatory evacuation for those living near the river, which began rising around 9 a.m. in Comfort, according to the outlet. At 10:52 a.m., the fire department sounded the flood sirens — both at the park and at the fire station.

Together, the sirens cost the county about $70,000, with 80% covered by a nonprofit, according to KSAT.

“We’re going to sit back and do an evaluation after this to see how we can improve our system," said County Judge Shane Stolarczyk.

Beyond the sirens themselves, residents were also sent a flash flood warnings and additional notifications, per the outlet. “That warning system was utilized and was a significant factor in us having a quick response,” Stolarczyk said.

Cruz Newberry, owner of Table Rock Alerting Systems which installed Comfort’s system last year, told NBC News that the sirens are a measure of a last resort — following media alerts, phone warnings and social media.

“The nice thing with an outdoor warning system is it’s one of the few methods that local officials have at their disposal where they can literally press a button and warn citizens themselves,” Newberry said. “It’s difficult to ignore a siren blaring for three minutes straight.”

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Posted
11 hours ago, ZB'Tejas said:


Clay went to the PreK program here in Austin that mine went to.

This was a newer house on stilts that took it out of the 100 year flood. If it got swept away then it’s hard for me to place much blame on placement of the mystic cabins. It was truly a tragic freak event that would have been so hard to plan for. Alarm system, other warming tools sure, but still just unfathomable.

If, as mentioned, some of those cabins were in the floodway, there's blame to place.

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Posted (edited)
31 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

I heard the president visited Kerrville today. No news?

He said people who ask questions about what happened and want answers are bad people. I hope the surviving parents of any deceased children understand that they shouldn't ask questions.

also

 

 

Edited by Chopper
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