Amazing amount of water! Prayers for all involved!
When would be a good time to discuss what, if anything, could have been done, if possible, to have prevented and/or mitigated this catastrophe?
Prayers certainly donât hurt but that doesnât mean other actions can not be taken and/or discussed like when the Pacific Palasades fire happened.
They were forecasting heavy rains for the hill country all day the day of and I think the day before, knowing u are on a big river that has had major floods in the past, maybe they should have evacuated that camp as a precaution? Horrible horrible tragedy I pray for the families involved
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As do I 
but that doesnât mean we canât also look into possible communication improvements and possible mitigation.
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Every tragedy that reaches national headlines always gets politicized
Thatâs why it cannot be discussed here
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Letâs keep this thread focused on news on the topic and not finger pointing and arguing like the last thread.
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I am of the belief that anything can be discussed without arguing and finger pointing. Where thereâs a will thereâs a way.
One only has to try. It is possible.
The last thread showed otherwise on this topic. Letâs not go there please. Thanks.
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They did forecast flash flooding Thursday pm but they predicted 3 to 7 inches of rainfall vs the 2 feet in less than 2 hrs. This was remnants of that hurricane system then it hung on that area and stalled like Harvey did to us. However itâs always worse in a terrain with rivers and hills which causes the water to rush down with extreme velocity. The kids at the camp which has existed from the 1930s go there for a month long stay and itâs a big deal each yr with commitments of money , schedules. North Carolina had similar issues in a hilly mountainous environment where water rushed down so this and the North Carolina disasters should cause more precautions in the future as we learn. The paper said itâs tough to predict if these storms stall which is why one area got over 2 feet of water. Houses right by rivers probably need to be addressed also because of more extreme weather events becoming more frequent. It also happened in the middle of the night compounding this hill country disaster. Camps like this in the future prob need to evacuate to higher grounds with alarms or going door to door on each camp trailer. Many of them prob simply slept thinking it was a regular storm that would pass. They also need more helicopters with rafts in the hill country. The national guard brought in 5 to 7 but they need more bc cars and big trucks canât get thru. You also have the problem of very few streets in and out of certain areas. They showed one road that collapsed and it was the only way out. They had a lot of various people there camping from the Houston area so it seems we all know someone affected. My daughterâs old high school teacher died in it and his son and daughter are still missing and they were from K Park high school in kingwood. I met the guy a few times and he was big into the rodeo scene and was there for a rodeo event. I saw the trailer they were in and itâs prob where the the water rose so high and toppled or swept the trailer away. Also we know how bad the streets are in Houston when it floods but we at least have a bunch of road options. The hill county might only have 1 way out and it pitch darkness. I think we learn from this and people hopefully cancel trips if there is even a chance of flash flooding.
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I have some ideas utilizing LiDAR sensors and a digital twin
Gives you the ability to place the sensors out of harms way and even see all the objects in the flood plain while also getting an accurate water level reading
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Sorry to hear that. A prominent Galvestonian, Doug McLeod, has a granddaughter thatâs among the missing.
So sad all around.
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Excellent idea!
An abundance of caution shouldâve been exercised at the camps⊠we all know that TX can get flash floods like we see in Houston all the timeâŠ
Those poor girls shouldnât have been in that scenarioâŠ
May they RIP.
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I dont think an early warning alarm system would be effective for some of the
reasons already mentioned and the fact these rivers can rise rapidly in that terrain.
Couldnât imagine getting 30-60 10-12 year olds relocated in the middle of the night if itâs already raining when an alarm would trigger.
I suppose regulations could be written to move any permanent campground structures to at least 10 feet above the highest ever known flood level. Camp
and RV sites would need to be closed and evacuated at least 24 hours prior whenever the set of weather conditions could potentially reproduce this scenario.
Hard to fathom the grief of the parents that sent their kids away on a fun summer
camp adventure right now. Something has to be done.
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The thing about this case was that there are several accounts of campers waking up at 2:00 a.m. and moving but really moving out of harmâs way. Then when they tried to move when the water really started rising, it was too late.
I get frustrated when I hear reasons why a solution wouldnât be 100% effective to save everyone. So what? Thatâs a terrible reason to not do anything. Most of these camp deaths could have been prevented by actively monitoring the weather and by taking the warnings seriously when they came out.
The real cause is that people didnât believe it would get as bad as it did. Itâs human nature to make decisions based only on your experience, rather than a âworst caseâ scenario, but floods just like this have happened on that river before, and theyâll happen again. And there were warnings going out the evening before it happened, along with the more urgent warning that came at 1:00 a.m., which would have given everyone time to move if theyâd been heeded.
Hopefully people will take it more seriously in the future and take proactive steps to try to keep more people safe instead of just kind of hoping for the best.
I went to the eclipse festival in the hill country last year and they stopped it a day early because of the way it can flood quickly and they knew there were POTENTIALLY dangerous storms comingâŠ
Folks living along rivers know they have to be vigilant with respect to flooding⊠just a very sad tragedy.
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During the 2015 Wimberley flood my dad had a coworker whose fmaily was stuck on a house. Iâm not sure if they were swept away or not.
The permitting office should be held accountable. They knew potential floods could get that high, its happened before, but they still let them build right on the banks.
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Well, Camp Mystic has been there for 100 years, so I doubt there were permitting requirements, and there probably arenât any rural county codes anyway. The owners of these places have the responsibility to watch out for their guests/customers.
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