My wife told me about it shortly ago. My dad knew of a family that was swept away in the Wimberly floods at a river rental house about 10 or so years ago.
Terrible. Brings me back to when Victoria flooded and my in-laws moved in with us and the kids. MIL cooked and cleaned for us the whole time she was there. I was saddened when her sons finished rebuilding their house and they moved back.
If any of yâall are familiar with the area, the prediction is that the river will be 10 feet over the 281 bridge just upstream from Canyon Lake.
So many people camping and spending the holiday along the river - I had a bad feeling about this when I looked at the weather early this morning. A lot of these folks had no chance.
Crazy.
24 confirmed dead. 23-25 missing girls from a summer camp. Absolutely tragic.
Hoping for the best.
This hurts! Life is fragile and unpredictable 
Our kidsâ friends were at the other camps this week. Theyâre all safe. My neighborâs best friend owns Rio Vista and Sierra. My neighbor and I hung out yesterday and he and his friend had been texting back and forth. He said it is so bad. They got a foot of rain just upstream of the camp in less than an hour in the middle of the night. Theyâre used to flash flooding in the area but nobody saw this coming.
Prayers to everyone.
Iâm so used to advanced storm warnings in the news here in Houston. Was there anything like that out there, weather report wise, before the torrential rains?
Nope. Information they got was off massively due to cuts to the National Weather Service.
Source?
I live not far away from that area, watch the weather and radar all the time. Went to bed that night not suspecting anything from the forecast or radar. It came up suddenly and nobody really predicted it.
Was this another once in a millennial floods?
Those âsourcesâ, show no proof, even Daily Beast calls it a blame game. Letâs not make it political.
Sure, if you change the meaning of the word millennial to âevery few yearsâ.
I think point has been made about NWS. Letâs not drive this into politics.
The warnings
Flash flood warnings were issued for areas before midnight as radar rain totals began to inflate up and over 3 to 4 inches. A flash flood emergency was issued at 4 AM for the Kerrville storms and 4:15 AM for storms near San Angelo. Rain totals were estimated to be encroaching on 10 inches at that point. So there was warning. This NWS office is acutely aware of the threats to the area from flooding, and the history is there. So I am assuming they were timely warnings unless I hear otherwise.
Issuing the warning is half the process. Were the warnings received and acted on? Thatâs another story. And that will also come out in the days ahead. More on that below.
Did budget cuts play a role?
No . In this particular case, we have seen absolutely nothing to suggest that current staffing or budget issues within NOAA and the NWS played any role at all in this event. Anyone using this event to claim that is being dishonest. There are many places you can go with expressing thoughts on the current and proposed cuts. Weâve been very vocal about them here. But this is not the right event for those takes.
In fact, weather balloon launches played a vital role in forecast messaging on Thursday night as the event was beginning to unfold. If you want to go that route, use this event as a symbol of the value NOAA and NWS bring to society, understanding that as horrific as this is, yes, it could always have been even worse.