From "As Texas Flood Raged, Camp Mystic Was Left to Fend for Itself/Flash floods surged through in the middle of the night, but many local officials appeared unaware of the unfolding catastrophe, initially leaving people near the river on their own" (NYT)
Ms. Clement = Nancy Clement, an 18-year-old counselor, who escaped the flood.
Also: "The county does have access to a private system known as CodeRED that sends out alerts to residents’ phones, but it is not clear to what extent it was used. At 4:22 a.m., a firefighter asked on an emergency channel if there was 'any way we can send a CodeRED out' to residents in the town of Hunt, where Camp Mystic and the Presbyterian camp are located, 'asking them to find higher ground or stay home,' according to a report by Texas Public Radio. But it appears that the first CodeRED did not go out for about an hour. Louis Kocurek, a resident of the town of Center Point, told The Times that the CodeRED text message he received had come in at 10:07 a.m. Sheriff Leitha said he could not say why the alerts had not been issued earlier."
Also: "The county does have access to a private system known as CodeRED that sends out alerts to residents’ phones, but it is not clear to what extent it was used. At 4:22 a.m., a firefighter asked on an emergency channel if there was 'any way we can send a CodeRED out' to residents in the town of Hunt, where Camp Mystic and the Presbyterian camp are located, 'asking them to find higher ground or stay home,' according to a report by Texas Public Radio. But it appears that the first CodeRED did not go out for about an hour. Louis Kocurek, a resident of the town of Center Point, told The Times that the CodeRED text message he received had come in at 10:07 a.m. Sheriff Leitha said he could not say why the alerts had not been issued earlier."
ADDED: There is a second front-page NYT article today, and it's about what I think is an even more shocking problem: "Camp Mystic Cabins Stood in an ‘Extremely Hazardous’ Floodway":
Many of [the Camp Mystic] cabins were built in designated flood zones, records show, and some were so close to the river’s edge that they were considered part of the river’s “floodway” — a corridor of such extreme hazard that many states and counties ban or severely restrict construction there. Texas’ Kerr County, where Camp Mystic is located, adopted its own stringent floodway rules, which required that construction in such areas be limited in order to better “protect human life.”
But six years ago, when Camp Mystic pursued a $5 million construction project to overhaul and expand its private, for-profit Christian camp, no effort was made to relocate the most at-risk cabins away from the river. Instead, local officials authorized the construction of new cabins in another part of the camp — including some that also lie in a designated flood-risk area. The older ones along the river remained in use....
Camp Mystic managers and emergency officials had been aware of the dangers the river posed for decades. After a devastating flood in 1987 that killed 10 teenagers from a different camp, the region installed a system of rain gauges that could notify emergency personnel of an imminent flood.... In recent years, officials in the region believed they needed to enhance the river warning system. They discussed adding better river gauges, sirens and improved communication strategies. But with taxpayers wary of new spending, and local officials unable to secure grants, the conversation stagnated for years....
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52 comments:
The people running the camp should be reachable by police and other emergency services at all times.
Cell phones are not the issue; this seems like a ghoulish campaign by helicopter parents to use this tragedy to undermine efforts to get kids off their phones and reconnect with the real world.
The people running the camp were getting campers to higher ground. A few of them died in the process. I was surprised to learn that Camp Mystic is huge— 750 campers. While it is a tragedy to lose any of these, I am anxious to read about how it was that they were able to save so many.
I’m sorry to say, but “ a firefighter asked on an emergency channel if there was 'any way we can send a CodeRED out”
demonstrates a horrifying lack of emergency preparation.
They should have given the children access to Google Earth. That way, the children could make an informed decision about whether or not they wanted to attend a camp situated in the bottom of a riverbed.
The children didn't consent to that. If the children had been told: "You have the choice to attend a summer camp that is located literally in the bottom of the Guadalupe River's historic flood zone, within the banks of the river ... or somewhere safer, at higher ground" I am certain the children would choose safer ground.
It's not like we didn't know the danger. In 1987, 10 children died in a similar flood in this exact same river. And yet Camp Mystic isn't the only girls camp that's located in the bottom of the riverbed. There's dozens of them.
We should also be asking ourselves why these children are not at home. They aren't at home because their mothers must have jobs to exist in our society today, the way it is arranged. Summer camps are babysitting while mommy is at work.
Women ... go home to your children. Shame your fellow women who work instead of rearing their families. Your children need you. Don't abandon them to people who will store them in a flooding riverbed for them to drown.
"I am anxious to read about how it was that they were able to save so many."
It's because they have a high camp, situated on the high ground bank of the river, where the older girls cabins were; and a low camp, which is situated literally in the bottom of the historic riverbed.
That's where they stored the very young campers. The ones who they drowned. The owners of the camp killed these children by storing them in the riverbed, without their informed consent.
You can see it all very clearly in Google Earth. It's sickening that this camp was allowed to exist.
If you take your daughter's phone, she'll drown in a flash flood. If you let her keep her phone she'll become a purple-haired trans activist.
NOAA radio a very old technology — I first met up with it more than sixty years ago as a teenager when Dad took the family on fishing vacations to Lake of the Ozarks. If your home — or vacation cabins — were on a certain side of the mountains it sat there turned on but silent. But if it came on you were to seeek shelter.
That’s the recollection of a very old man six decades on so the details are fuzzy.
Let's just face the facts, folks. We live in a universe of slow learners. All of our operating manuals are written in Blood. Tragedies happen all the time every day throughout the planet. It's hubris to think just because we live in a ultra modern obscenely wealthy country that we can solve all problems and prevent all accidents.
In the age of social media, the loudest voices on both sides of the fence over issues like this are Karen's. If we listen to the ululations of these hysterically toxic humans we are doomed to constricting life inside a padded cell.
You can see it all very clearly in Google Earth. It's sickening that this camp was allowed to exist.
@FLC, you need to be sodomized with a saguaro cactus. We, the MAGA coalition, have no interest in Nanny state a**holes like you deciding where we can situate camps and how fast we can drive our cars and what shots we need to take. Yeah, you’re sickened — you have never been anything other than a sick f**k.
"The county does have access to a private system known as CodeRED that sends out alerts to residents’ phones, but it is not clear to what extent it was used."
Schools have regular fire drills -- leave the building in an orderly fashion. Decades ago we practiced bomb drills -- as in, "the Russians just fired off their ICBMs -- go sit in the hall with your head between your knees."
Big Mike is why we need a government and legal system that penetrates their little minds when they get out of line.
He also seems very anal focused, like a gay man would be.
--- It's hubris to think just because we live in a ultra modern obscenely wealthy country that we can solve all problems and prevent all accidents. [Howard]
Absolutely. And +++ for the rest of your entire 8:09 comment.
The Mothers of Invention, 1969:
"I'm telling you, my dear
That it can't happen here"
FLC said: “That's where they stored the very young campers. The ones who they drowned. The owners of the camp killed these children… “
Your written words highlight a despicable human being. How many years has the camp been in operation without a drowning? Have you checked?
It's all Trump's fault - right leftists?
Life on earth is dangerous. To the left, comfort and perfection are attainable... and only found thru their false gods.
As Big Mike noted here, and I put in the sunrise thread yesterday, the NWS has existing radio technology to issue notifications that doesn't depend on cell phones. All this really proves is that the camp staff might have been asleep at the switch, tragically unaware of the situation, or simply did the best they could in the time they had after getting the warning. It in no way proves that individual campers or counselors having cell phones would have changed anything.
"I’m sorry to say, but 'a firefighter asked on an emergency channel if there was 'any way we can send a CodeRED out'
demonstrates a horrifying lack of emergency preparation."
No, it doesn't. You're assuming that the fireman quoted here was the first and perhaps only person involved in the event to whom it occurred that sending out a CodeRED might be helpful. There could have been other people already working on sending out a CodeRED. Or a CodeRED could have already been sent. You simply can't conclude on the basis of this one quote that there was a horrifying lack of preparation. Why not wait for all the facts to come in before jumping to conclusions?
"Don't feed the trolls, boys. And wash your penis." - Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
Despite the horrible losses, do we expect the solutions sure to come will be both effective and at a reasonable cost? I don't. I expect millions spent on consultants, expensive technology, and overly complex and intrusive solutions where people try to prove they care more than anyone else.
I read that the county considered a siren warning system once, but voted it down due to cost. I'll bet the estimated cost was many multiples of what it would really take to do that if you were concentrating solely on effectiveness, reliability, and cost.
Most of the deaths would have been avoided if this happened during the day. It really is mostly a problem of waking people up and simply saying get to high ground immediately.
A summer camp that has existed for nearly 100 years, where multiple generations of the same family have attended, is not a glorified baby-sitting service. They are experiences unlike any other, designed in many cases to replicate something of the group-bonding experience of basic training in the military. My children and their cousins are the third generation attending a co-ed version of Camp Mystic in NC, and though the program itself has changed over the years, the social and mental experience of the campers remains much the same; it is quite literally beloved. The majority of the attendees return year after year; many of which end up on staff during their college years. The cost of overnight summer camp has become so expensive, $1000 a week or more, in large part due to to the required insurance policies that should a child not desire to return the price alone is reason enough to justify that decision on the part of the parents, though many of the lightly religious camps offer financial support for less well off families, or run free sessions for kids with health issues.
The phone ban is integral to the experience. Group bonding is more or less impossible without it. Radios are used for staff communication and, unlike Camp Mystic, staff retain their personal phones but other than that the camp environment is very familiar.
"It's not like we didn't know the danger. In 1987, 10 children died in a similar flood in this exact same river. "
Oh I'm sure everyone here remembers a specific weather event that occurred in Texas 38 years ago.
I know you're trolling, so this next comment is not for you. But a flash flood warning doesn't have the same effect on people as a tornado warning or a hurricane warning. People know what to do if a tornado or hurricane is approaching. With flash floods, it's really not clear to the average person what the danger is. A lot of so-called flash floods just result in a couple of feet of water over a section of roadway, and the advice is not to try to drive through it, and to stay away from power lines. This event in Texas was nothing like that: A shallow 7-foot river quickly rose to 27 feet! Despite this, the God, MOST people in its path managed to get out of the way.
Weather alerts become background noise after a while because they issue them so often and almost nothing happens.
We had a tornado warning recently. My friends have alarms through their phones and CPAP machines! Only one of the couple awoke and their house was filled with guests and no one awoke at the 1:00 am alarm! Not sure this is always working.
@Bob Boyd, amen and then some. Yesterday we received four NWS thunderstorm/flash flood warnings on our cable TV interrupting our TV programs for a very routine thunder shower. The last one advised us that there was a warning in effect until 6:30 PM. It was received at 6:38.
Pastor Greg Laurie on the Texas flooding.
https://harbingersdaily.com/greg-laurie-how-to-think-about-loss-and-grief-after-texas-flooding/
We should also be asking ourselves why these children are not at home. They aren't at home because their mothers must have jobs to exist in our society today, the way it is arranged. Summer camps are babysitting while mommy is at work.
Are you trying to channel the conservative view? Good chance that the girls at the Christian camp have Tradmoms. Summer camp is not a babysitting service and unless you are trolling, your comments are rank ignorance born out of disdain for those "other" people. My children look forward every year to camp. Every camp bans phones for campers. We always have one parent at home. Everyone we know are pretty much the same scenario, so everything you said it spot OFF. But then that is pretty much true on every thread you speak in. You are generally wrong on every issue and incapable of self-correction.
When your name is David French.
There are thousands of homes located in flood zones along the beaches of the east coast. People pay thousands of dollars a week to vacation in those homes with their children.
This camp had been in place for over a hundred years. The flooding was indeed unprecedented. If you get a warning that there will be heavy rains, and the camp has experienced very heavy rains previously without disaster, you prepare for heavy rains as you always do. You don't expect 6.5 inches in two hours and a thirty-foot wall of water.
This was a horrible tragedy and my heart goes out for everyone involved.
In retrospect, maybe having cabins in a riverbed prone to flash flooding was not the wisest of decisions. Sounds like a wonderful camp overall and its a shame this happened.
Bigwig--I believe that my wife, her brother, my two sons and my daughter attended that co-ed camp in NC. Your remarks are absolutely correct.
I was a summer camp counselor for the summers of 1962 and 1963 at a YMCA camp in the San Diego Mountains. Camp sessions usually lasted 8 or 9 days for each group of kids. It was a transformational experience for many of kids--but the bonding effect between kids in the same cabin was important. They were excited to come to camp. And many of the kid's parents had also come to the camp twenty-five or thirty years beforehand.
" Ms. Clement said she had always thought of that as a benefit, part of the atmosphere that went with being along the river"
The camp wasn't along the river, it was in the dry riverbed. You know the part that floods when the watershed above it drains during rains.
But this does seem to be another confluence of weather systems in the manner of how Helene produced a geologic event in eastern NC.
Ever since I saw a few videos such as the link below of the wave front of a flash flood in Arizona coming, I came to understand the real danger. Not to mention seeing a youtuber encounter snow runoff in eastern Oregon that makes desert into a torrent on the first hot day
https://youtu.be/GivgFNAN59A
In 1987, 10 children died in a similar flood in this exact same river. "
The Guadalupe River is 230 miles long.
Tragedies like this would happen more often if local authorities didn't ban construction in floodways and flood plains. If that's too statist for some people, insurance companies could get into the act. I'm sure that in retrospect, everyone concerned would rather have the children alive, rather than dead.
“ No, it doesn't. You're assuming that the fireman quoted here was the first and perhaps only person involved in the event to whom it occurred that sending out a CodeRED might be helpful. There could have been other people already working on sending out a CodeRED. Or a CodeRED could have already been sent. You simply can't conclude on the basis of this one quote that there was a horrifying lack of preparation. Why not wait for all the facts to come in before jumping to conclusions?”
I made no such assumptions. If any emergency personnel have to ask the question like that - “is there any way” - indicates to me that 1) they are not fully aware of the protocols involved in emergency comms. 2) they are passive aggressive and possibly unwilling to make decisions and/or 3) possibly fearful of leadership reaction if they don’t ask this in an indirect way. Humans are humans, but emergency people have to be knowledgeable, practiced, and unafraid to say what needs to said.
How did insurance companies accept this? Or, maybe they weren’t insured? Don’t you have to have insurance to get licensed as a business? There are so many questions.
This disaster starting to sound like something that might happen in a developing country, not in the United States of freaking America.
Oso Negro said...
There is a great deal to be examined in this tragedy, but the people primarily responsible for the safety of the girl campers was first, their parents, who sent them to an inadequately secure facility. Second, the director of the camp, who might have simply set a watch during the night. The hazard of flooding in the Hill Country has been well known for more than a century.
OK, now we've seen dozens of reports that MAGA has blood on its hands, DOGE did this. Trump is guilty, guilty, guilty.
Now we see LOCALS dropped the ball on preparedness (warning systems), implementation and communication.
Any of the MSM (and freakishly lefty - Like Occupy Democrat) going to say, "My bad?".
To ask is to answer.
Stop encroaching on the flood plain and you won't need warning systems and there won't be these types of mass casualty events. I understand the appeal of being near the water but nature is going to win every time.
You can ban camps in the flood plain of the river but over time the ban will fade out as the memory of last week's flood fades. When the story first broke last week it rang my memory bell really hard and I realized I still had a memory of the 1987 flood disaster on the same river once I did a rudimentary search on Google but that memory had become weak over the previous 38 years. What I am saying is that no matter what you do, sometime in the next 40-50 years the people responsible for such decision making will have been replaced by people without the memory of last week and dozens to hundreds of people will die in a flash flood on this same river.
I also see the "crying wolf" problem playing a factor. I live in a part of Connecticut that receives frequent, widely ignored flash flood warnings. We haven't seen anything on the scale of Texas in living memory, but every 10-20 years or so, someone gets washed away or drowns.
the people primarily responsible for the safety of the girl campers was first, their parents, who sent them to an inadequately secure facility.
I'm sure none of the parents who lost a child will ever absolve themselves of their guilt.
But if every person must rely of herself to be the primary risk assessor in every situation, were going to have a ridiculously risk-averse society, don't you think? It so happened that I trained as a geologist, though I haven't done the work in twenty years, and could possibly-to-probably have assessed this risk correctly if I had been considering sending a child to this camp or any of the others on the river. But what about my sister the psychologist? My brother the IT guy? My friend the lawyer?
The fact is that we rely on the expertise of others for risk assessment in most things, because we have to. I do think that the camp was negligent and I think there will be consequences for that negligence - but more than that, I hope whoever did the risk assessment, or whoever ignored the risk assessment as the case may be, along with all others doing risk assessments like this, will learn from this tragedy and never make the same mistake again. Punishment can be instructive, but the goal should be prevention - because it's easy to learn the wrong lesson from punishment: that weasel words and hiding evidence are your best defense.
“Only losing teams focus on their failures” ~ TX Governor Greg Abbott
"ADDED: There is a second front-page NYT article today, and it's about what I think is an even more shocking problem: "Camp Mystic Cabins Stood in an ‘Extremely Hazardous’ Floodway":"
I caught that a few days ago. Apparently, those campgrounds were in an area notorious for flooding.
In the theater, if there is a situation that creates a fire risk, like using pyrotechnics, the local Fire Marshal will require that we place people on "fire watch." Because of the high flood risk, there should have been requirements for people to have cell phones on, an evacuation plan in place and possibly even a loud flood alarm system of some kind. Seriously, how much money have they spent along the California coast to install tsunami alarms that might never actually get used in our lifetimes?
Building a camp in a floodplain didn't kill these kids, complacency killed them. And complacency is one of the most common human failings.
I have the Boy Scouts camp in the floodplain beside the creek on my property 1x-2x per year. They are perfectly safe, because there is enough knowledgeable adult supervision to quickly move all of the youths to safety.
A facility the size of Camp Mystic needed a full-time safety officer. More importantly, they need a flashflood evacuation plan that ran a drill EVERY camp session.
All they needed to do was have a safe staging area, an incredibly loud horn, and a practice on the very first day. Each cabin leader could have shown the girls exactly where to go and they all would have learned the sound of the horn.
That would have saved every single person at the camp. Of course they would have to be willing to suffer pissed off teenage girls that got rained on in the middle of the night during prior year "false alarms", but that is the price of safety.
Of course, there were also some failings and "weaknesses" among the county officials that if they had been handled more effectively, might have saved some or all of the lives.
However, IMO the camp could have saved everyone without even having 20-20 foresight or perfect knowledge.
And just how did we deal with these emergencies before cellphones?
@Jamie - you know, I kind of DO think people need to be their own risk assessors as they move through the world. And to be sure, a lot of people aren’t good at it and some people are going to be very risk averse. “Experts” however are among our greatest contributors to “safetyism” and have many, many failures to their credit. I have the feeling that risks I have taken this week alone would be found appalling by the majority of this commentariat, but you can be sure I considered them as I went about my way.
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