TX FLOODS! 20 kids missing from Christian camp!

[Ken]

They had the resources to make sure their campers were not fast asleep in the path of rising flood waters. For example, they could have built new cabins that were not sitting in a notorious flood zone.

Like I said, if you want to assign blame for this disaster it is going to be shared between the camp owners and and the state and local officials who all dropped the ball here. This was not some unpredictable event.

I find your attitude disgusting in the face of a tragedy.

That is all.

After every such disaster it is important to determine what caused it and if mistakes were made, figure out how to avoid making them in the future. After a plane crash the FAA spends millions painstakingly re-assembling and piecing together every single piece of evidence to discern what happened and how to avoid similar disasters in the future.

What I find disgusting is willingly letting more people die in the future because we refuse to learn from our mistakes today. And yes, if dozens of children died in a forecasted flood in the middle of the nation's "Flash Flood Alley" then mistakes were made.

[JohnL]

Now flash floods in NM. The Ruidoso River rose 20 ft in only30 minutes.
Please pray. People are missing there too.

[R7ehr]

People in the right wing media sphere are saying cloud seeding was the cause. Snope say’s nope.

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local ... 759516.php

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rainm ... as-floods/

[temporal1]

After every such disaster ..

suggestion.
begin an investigative-criticism-speculation-accusation topic (in Politics?) rather than pursue those wildly popular things in a topic requesting prayers in time of punishing crisis. there is abundant ugly in the airwaves to fill countless pages. it is hurtful.

[temporal1]

Now flash floods in NM. The Ruidoso River rose 20 ft in only30 minutes.
Please pray. People are missing there too.

Praying.
Few places are without potential natural hazards. Water is life-givng, but water damage is reported as #1 insurance liability.

My family lives in the huge+beautiful PNW, with frequent natural disasters, from wind causing downed trees, to mudslides, annual forest fires, earthquake potential, live volcanoes, every coast is subject to possible tsunamis. big country, big disasters.
i pray everyday. tornadoes are annual events in my area; even without nearby rivers/lakes, not in a flood plain, we had one home that flooded - twice, from rainwater. 1993 / https://www.weather.gov/dvn/071993_greatflood 1993 was a bad time, not the only time.

Prayers for all impacted, gratitude for THE MANY who respond in times of need.
These are among the most worthy in everyday U.S. Without pomp, the U.S. everyday people are generous and self-sacrificing.

THE MANY who respond ..
certainly, 1st responders! - also, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th .. MANY are required. MANY helping hands.

[JohnL]

NOTICE: This is not a political thread. It concerns the search for the missing victims of the floods.
Move all political posts (key words right, left, Dem, Republican, etc) to a separate thread in the politics section.

[R7ehr]

Camp Mystic’s owner warned of floods for decades. Then the river killed him.

He successfully pushed for a new flood warning system after 10 children at a nearby camp were swept to their deaths in 1987, and in recent years served on the board of the local river authority as it supported renewed efforts to improve warnings on the Guadalupe.

The river is beautiful,” Eastland told the Austin American-Statesman in 1990. “But you have to respect it.”

But after 27 people were killed at Camp Mystic in last week’s cataclysmic flooding – along with Eastland himself, who died while trying to rescue his young campers – the scale of the tragedy highlights potential missed opportunities by Camp Mystic’s owners and government officials to better mitigate those risks.

About a decade after it was installed, the warning system Eastland had championed in the late ‘80s became antiquated and broken. The river authority ultimately shut it down in 1999, saying it was “unreliable with some of the system’s stations not reporting information,” according to an article in the Kerrville Daily Times.

Yet periodic attempts to adopt a more modern flood-monitoring system, including one with warning sirens that might have alerted campers last week, repeatedly failed to gain traction – stalled by low budgets, some local opposition and a lack of state support.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/camp-mystic- ... 29475.html

[JohnH]

Camp Mystic’s owner warned of floods for decades. Then the river killed him.

He successfully pushed for a new flood warning system after 10 children at a nearby camp were swept to their deaths in 1987, and in recent years served on the board of the local river authority as it supported renewed efforts to improve warnings on the Guadalupe.

The river is beautiful,” Eastland told the Austin American-Statesman in 1990. “But you have to respect it.”

But after 27 people were killed at Camp Mystic in last week’s cataclysmic flooding – along with Eastland himself, who died while trying to rescue his young campers – the scale of the tragedy highlights potential missed opportunities by Camp Mystic’s owners and government officials to better mitigate those risks.

About a decade after it was installed, the warning system Eastland had championed in the late ‘80s became antiquated and broken. The river authority ultimately shut it down in 1999, saying it was “unreliable with some of the system’s stations not reporting information,” according to an article in the Kerrville Daily Times.

Yet periodic attempts to adopt a more modern flood-monitoring system, including one with warning sirens that might have alerted campers last week, repeatedly failed to gain traction – stalled by low budgets, some local opposition and a lack of state support.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/camp-mystic- ... 29475.html

Hmm. That’s a very different narrative than “the camp owners were wealthy, careless people who avoided doing things to improve safety with being near a river bottom”.

[Ken]

Let's fast forward to 2019 shall we? The camp owners chose to double-down on constructing new cabins in the flood zone and do nothing to relocate older cabins. Here is a gift-link to the whole article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... =url-share

For decades, girls have flocked to Camp Mystic to spend their summer days canoeing and fishing the Guadalupe River before retreating to bunk beds in rustic cabins just steps from the glimmering water.

Many of those 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.



Around the country, construction is highly discouraged in river floodways, where deep and fast-moving waters are expected to travel during flood events, said Anna Serra-Llobet, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in flood risk management.

She said it was particularly problematic to build a camp that houses children in an area so susceptible to flooding, and that efforts should have been made to relocate the cabins.

“It’s like pitching a tent in the highway,” Ms. Serra-Llobet said. “It’s going to happen, sooner or later — a car is going to come, or a big flood is going to come.”

In the early morning hours of July 4, the cabins at Camp Mystic were packed with hundreds of sleeping campers when the Guadalupe River began surging over its banks. The cabins in the flood zones were inundated, the raging waters tossing mattresses like doll beds, ripping stuffed animals from their owners and ending the lives of some two dozen girls.

[temporal1]

i nearly did not view, expecting this report would be contentious+critical.
i’m impressed. THE HILL presented this from POTUS and FLOTUS, without designated pundits, without partisan attacks.

The force of the water reminds of the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Indian ... mi-of-2004

The Hill / Trump Offers Condolences To Grieving Texas Families, Calls Reporter 'Evil' | TRENDING / 10+min

Description:
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump traveled to Texas Hill Country Friday to survey the damage from flooding that has killed more than 120 people in recent days.

At a roundtable with federal, state and local authorities held in Kerrville, both Trump and the first lady expressed sorrow at the losses suffered by the community and families of the girls who perished at Camp Mystic. Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also offered great admiration to those first responders who helped prevent an even greater loss of life. ..

text continues.

i know Jesus has special love for innocents. i pray He lifted them away from harm, away from panic and terror.
i know He has that power.