The rest of the country:“You got the government you wanted!”
Right before bailing them out once again.
Houston Chronical reports this morning that in 2016 the county paid $50,000 for a study on early warning. The county tried three times to get the state to pay $1,000,000 for the system but were unsuccessful. I guess the county didn’t think they should have to pay. Something like 50,000 people in the county then, I guess $20 per person was too much.
I also heard from a Kerr County official that new taxes for anything was a no-go for Kerr County residents. Penny wise and pound foolish.
I read the camp had a loud speaker pager system. The whole camp could hear..it announced things like when it was time to change activities and other general information.
The interviewee said you could hear it allover the campground.
It was down because the power was off.
Umm…generator?
Which event are you counting from? I was thinking the Satanic Panic of the 80s makes it more like 40 years.
The devil is in the details.
:flees:
Satellite pics - before and after:
I also read today the counselors had no two way radios, just leadership had them. So what happens when a kid starts vomiting in the middle of the night or they sprain an ankle , send a messenger?
See, I actually did consider that, but then settled against it because while it was a full-on panic, I could only think of a couple trials or hearings related to it. So instead, I reached back to the Red Scare.
But certainly the Satanic Panic was a contender.
NBC News is now reporting that 119 are dead and at least 173 still missing.
Much deadlier than what most people, including me, originally thought.
Cell phone coverage is spotty to non existent at best in that part of Kerr County, especially if you’re past Hunt in the valley that 39 runs through. And that Mystic is mostly located up Cypress Creek a side valley of the south fork of the Guadalupe River. That’s just my experience from living in Kerrville 2010-2018. My folks still live there but outside of town up on the top of the hills west of town. They are fine but Kerrville is a mess right now with all that is happening….
I’m sorry but isn’t the question everyone should be asking, ‘Why is it allowed to build on a flood plain, much less house a children’s camp?’
It’s a known flood plain. It HAS flooded before.
Around here it’s not permitted to build on the flood plains. I kinda thought it was the same, wherever there were flood plains. For painfully obvious reasons.
More surprisingly, in all the media I’ve heard, (tv on in other room all day!), I haven’t heard anyone even remark on such an idea.
I kinda think that’s the conversation that needs to be had.
That part isn’t much of a question.
The camp has existed for just shy of a century now. A century ago, the concept of “allowing” or “not allowing” building on your own property, flood plain or not, did not exist to the extent it does today and would have been grandfathered to any subsequent changes.
One can question the wisdom of grandfathering existing structures without limit or the wisdom of owners not to re-locate or make other arrangements, but it is very common practice, not just in Texas, but across much of the US, to allow existing structures, especially those on private property, not to update to fit newer code.
ETA: even now, people can and do build and re-build residences in known flood prone areas. It’s their money to waste, I guess, because no flood insurance company underwrites those places. The types of flooding events that lead to this many deaths are rare.
Even Hurricane Harvey, which dumped a lot more rain across a much bigger area (many not especially flood prone), did not result in this many deaths. Advance warning and evacuation make a much bigger difference in such cases. This was a massive failure on the part of local and state officials in getting the word out, given the several hours between the NWS warnings and local response.
Basically, yes.
p.s. My Girl Scout camping experiences were mostly in tents. The counselors had their own tents. If we were in a big cabin, the adults were there with us.
Don’t I know it! I live in a city that has a large flood plain that goes underwater almost every year, and even almost 200 years after the city’s founding, people are STILL trying to figure out what to do about it.
Like, DON’T BUILD THERE?
The camps I’m familiar with have at least two counselors in each cabin. If one had to stay with a camper, the other one would get the supervisor. I’m not sure how Mystic did it.
But a grandfather clause wouldn’t apply to buildings rebuilt since the last flood. After the first major flood on the site, you can maybe say “Wow, that wasn’t a good idea, but we can’t change the past, and it’s done now”. But then, if you rebuild in the same place, that’s just callous disregard for human life.
But how callous?
Floods of this magnitude happen with some frequency (a serious one every 2-3 decades) but the loss of life for this one is extreme and unusual for flooding events. As noted, Hurricane Harvey hit a bigger area with more rain and did not result in as many lives lost.
Yes, the choice of location absolutely has a role to play in the outcome, but I’d put it after the failure of local and state officials and in the emergency planning of local businesses (like the camps) in implementing an effective warning system and the failure of local officials in waiting so long (~3-4 hours) after the NWS issued flood warnings to start warning residents themselves.
Also keep in mind that most unincorporated parts of counties here in Texas have very loose codes if any….
Sure. For emergency response I know it was different in my kids camp experience, with radio access for emergencies.
Seconds count sometimes and getting the help one needs from the main lodge, say running uphill over uneven terrain and waking up the campus nurse for instructions etc, is not ideal because shit happens.
Ambulances do get called. Most of the time the camper returns to camp in a cast or sling or sometimes they go home.
Off campus trips the counselors are allowed to use their “devices” aka phone.