Yes Bill, I was wondering about some of the same issues you raised - and questions too.
From a NY Times account, quoting from one flood gauge on the river: river rose from "three feet to 34 feet in about 90 minutes according to a river gauge near the town of Comfort, Texas."
If that's true, even if you got a bus to evacuate in advance, it might not have gotten out of danger. One hour and half to rise to 34 feet...I'd be very surprised if any of the 25 or so missing made it out under that type of catastrophic, flash rise. If these possibilities were were known, then keeping a camp at the river's edge was a huge gamble.
Bill - there were deadly floods in 1978 and 1987 that rose even higher and just as fast.
Watch the Kerr County Emergency Management video I linked to. These catastrophic risks were very well known, and from what I can tell from the Google maps aerial photo, the camp was located in a floodplain adjacent to steep limestone cliffs at critically high risk flood location as the wall of water bounced off those cliffs and into the floodplain (watch the Kerr County video which has drone that show the Guadalupe River).
The National Weather Service put out a flash flood watch more than 12 hours before, so there was plenty of time to evacuate. The County system was limited to residents and property owners and I doubt that the camp had ANY regulatory restrictions dealing with flood risks.
Allowing that camp to operate there under these well known risk conditions was gross and criminal negligence. Wa4ch what happens to Texas food insurance in that "flash flood alley".
I'm away from home and I've not seen the news, Bill - but the way you have written up this report makes a lot of sense - a perfect storm of Trump, climate-change denial and fundamentalist Christian nonsense.
Yes Bill, I was wondering about some of the same issues you raised - and questions too.
From a NY Times account, quoting from one flood gauge on the river: river rose from "three feet to 34 feet in about 90 minutes according to a river gauge near the town of Comfort, Texas."
If that's true, even if you got a bus to evacuate in advance, it might not have gotten out of danger. One hour and half to rise to 34 feet...I'd be very surprised if any of the 25 or so missing made it out under that type of catastrophic, flash rise. If these possibilities were were known, then keeping a camp at the river's edge was a huge gamble.
Bill - there were deadly floods in 1978 and 1987 that rose even higher and just as fast.
Watch the Kerr County Emergency Management video I linked to. These catastrophic risks were very well known, and from what I can tell from the Google maps aerial photo, the camp was located in a floodplain adjacent to steep limestone cliffs at critically high risk flood location as the wall of water bounced off those cliffs and into the floodplain (watch the Kerr County video which has drone that show the Guadalupe River).
The National Weather Service put out a flash flood watch more than 12 hours before, so there was plenty of time to evacuate. The County system was limited to residents and property owners and I doubt that the camp had ANY regulatory restrictions dealing with flood risks.
Allowing that camp to operate there under these well known risk conditions was gross and criminal negligence. Wa4ch what happens to Texas food insurance in that "flash flood alley".
Obviously that's flood insurance not food insurance!
I'm away from home and I've not seen the news, Bill - but the way you have written up this report makes a lot of sense - a perfect storm of Trump, climate-change denial and fundamentalist Christian nonsense.