Spent the day with SAR on the river west of Center Point. 7 deceased found within a 3 mile stretch of the river today as of 6 PM. It's sobering.

NavasotaAg said:

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Spent the day with SAR on the river west of Center Point. 7 deceased found within a 3 mile stretch of the river today as of 6 PM. It's sobering.

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Unimaginable. Thank you for what you're doing.

What happened to the thread on the OB??

agsalaska said:

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What happened to the thread on the OB??

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It looks like it is stickied at the top of the forum.

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agsalaska said:

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What happened to the thread on the OB??

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SwigAg11 said:

It looks like it is stickied at the top of the forum.

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Got it. Thanks.

A local deputy here in Junction went personally to the RV Park here in 2018 (that was wiped out) trying to roust people out of bed that wall of water coming. It just happened too fast and, in middle of the night, people are groggy, confused and unfortunately too slow to get moving.

bunch of us on the outdoor thread are trying to find out if there are areas where they still need boots on the ground. any info?

NavasotaAg said:

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Spent the day with SAR on the river west of Center Point. 7 deceased found within a 3 mile stretch of the river today as of 6 PM. It's sobering.

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is there anyway I can get in contact with you? A group of guys from Bellville want to come help. Our friends are there now waiting for their daughter who is still missing from mystic.

agsalaska said:

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Stop reading them.

I used to read them too. Life is better when you don't read that nonsense.

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It's great for mental health, imo

I pray. When kids are involved I hurt.

DD, you and Gibson are pure trash.

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agsalaska said:

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Stop reading them.

I used to read them too. Life is better when you don't read that nonsense.

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Cyprian said:

It's great for mental health, imo

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It's crazy how much of our mental space it has dominated since yesterday for the wife and I. I have held my daughter closer, been more patient, and thought about some kinks I could work out as a father. I'm going to try to filter out all of the bs I normally stress about and just be the best daddy I can be for my little angel. Perspective shifter.

Only positive "ripple effect" type of thing to come from these unspeakable tragedies.

EDIT: sorry meant to respond to other post above yours.

Looking into this and saw they were severely damaged. If they have a fundraiser, let us know.

Debated whether or not to post this but please stay AWAY from supporting Operation Airdrop in this. I worked with them in NC after Helene and they received so much money that they had leftover cash at the end of the week where they were needed. Instead of passing it to a group that could use it, they started buying and distributing propane and RVs. They brought on a new executive director at that point who has quietly changed the mission to try to grift off any disaster he can and this is no different. They have been repeating Kerr County updates in the first person as though they are deploying their own air assets and making rescues themselves, but they are not. They are also asking for donations. Do not give to them.

If you feel compelled to give, please give to a local organization in one of the impacted counties. Comanche Trace is coordinating a large supply drive, but there are others too. I just don't want people wasting time and money to help prop up someone's ego in North Texas.

Pinochet said:

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Debated whether or not to post this but please stay AWAY from supporting Operation Airdrop in this. I worked with them in NC after Helene and they received so much money that they had leftover cash at the end of the week where they were needed. Instead of passing it to a group that could use it, they started buying and distributing propane and RVs. They brought on a new executive director at that point who has quietly changed the mission to try to grift off any disaster he can and this is no different. They have been repeating Kerr County updates in the first person as though they are deploying their own air assets and making rescues themselves, but they are not. They are also asking for donations. Do not give to them.

If you feel compelled to give, please give to a local organization in one of the impacted counties. Comanche Trace is coordinating a large supply drive, but there are others too. I just don't want people wasting time and money to help prop up someone's ego in North Texas.

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This needs to be passed on to an investigative reporter ASAP, and put out there.

Government certainly isn't the solution to everything, but are there laws pertaining to false charities?

Long time reader, first time poster.

After my folks were evacuated by USCG small boat and their house was under 6 feet of water for weeks after Harvey, and personally being evacuated for wildfires several times in the past few years, I've spent an unhealthy amount of time reading emergency plans, evacuation modeling, etc.

I find the phrases "this was unprecedented" or "this couldn't have been predicted" quite frustrating, because imagining the unprecedented and unpredictable is kind of the point of emergency planning.

There's a very shallow outline of the proper Kerr County Emergency Management Plan online but nothing with any detail I have tracked down.

Kerr County published a hazard mitigation plan in 2024 - it's both specific and generic, but it's available on the web here: https://legacy.co.kerr.tx.us/notices/docs/10-2024-KerrCountyHazardMitigationActionPlan.pdf

Some observations:

Kerr County's primary emergency notification mechanism is CodeRed, which generally requires sign up (and generally doesn't help tourists / non-local population). I'd be very interested to know if any CodeRed notices were sent by county management via text or phone.

NWS Flash Flood warnings should trigger emergency alerts to mobile devices, but these and CodeRed are both dependent on having a cell signal.

Also notable is Kerr County's existing flood gauge system which provides no useful data on flow rates, only a warning that the river has risen to some degree.

There has been discussion of replacing this with an early warning system (including sirens) as far back as 2016, when a study was commissioned to evaluate this upgrade. Seems to have died on the vine and comes back up in 2020 with no apparent progress since.

Comal county has a siren based early warning system linked to flood gauges as do plenty of other high risk areas.

One thing that is conspicuously absent from the doc is any mention of the fact that during the summer there must be thousands? of additional kids dotted around in all the summer camps, all with minimal ability to support or self-evacuate.

Perhaps this exists in the emergency management plan but all indications from the press conference is that there was no specific plan for this eventuality.

I am trying quite hard to not veer into Monday morning quarterbacking, and to draw a clear distinction between planning and response. I have no doubt that once things went south, everyone involved did their utmost to help as conditions allowed and continue to do so.

On the other hand, there are accounts of campers "waking up with water to their necks" and I have a very hard time believing that even a few minutes of early warning via sirens would not have made a difference.

I found the responses from county officials to questions about warnings of *any* kind completely lacking, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until they start passing the buck to the NWS.

Good post. And as we get more details, note that there were serious warnings in the 1-2am timeframe.

Both warnings posted by NWS were clear cut and bold about this being life threatening, and location, even mentioning "campers" and "Kerrville". The flash flood emergency issued at 5:34 am on July 4th. "AUTOMATED RAIN GAUGES A LARGE AND DEADLY WAVE IS MOVING DOWN THE GUADALUPE… pic.twitter.com/5Om57xffu9

— Rosievortwx🌩️ (@Rosievortwx) July 5, 2025

Loading full tweet…

Quote:

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Both warnings posted by NWS were clear cut and bold about this being life threatening, and location, even mentioning "campers" and "Kerrville". The flash flood emergency issued at 5:34 am on July 4th. "AUTOMATED RAIN GAUGES A LARGE AND DEADLY WAVE IS MOVING DOWN THE GUADALUPE RIVER". The first warning was issued at 1:14 am. There were already 5 warnings/advisories issued by NWS by 2 am. Kerr County and the surrounding regions were put under a flood watch on July 3rd. I don't feel natural disaster needs blamed on anyone, but as someone who watched these warnings being issued. The NWS couldn't have done better in this one.

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More:

Every source I have read says yes. pic.twitter.com/LrXfXO4Gzk

— Rosievortwx🌩️ (@Rosievortwx) July 6, 2025

Loading full tweet…

The warnings were tragically not processed in time, at the key campsites. Why and who is 'to blame?' I don't know. This should never happen again.

Pretty amazing story.

NEW: Two brothers explain their terrifying night and how they survived the Kerr County floodwaters.

The brothers were sleeping at Camp La Junta when they started floating.

At least 24 people have lost their lives in the flood.

Authorities say more than 20 girls are… pic.twitter.com/T1yhLNmbU1

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 5, 2025

Loading full tweet…

Sorry if this was posted yesterday. The concluding sentence of the younger brother 'and, it was not fun.'

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DannyDuberstein said:

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Noem doing much better than Abbott. Offering actual actions they are taking vs generalities and performative signing papers he could have just said he did while giving actual info

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IslanderAg04 said:

That's her job, she's head of DHS.

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Whose job was it at the N Carolina flooding and at the E Palestine, Ohio train wreck?

There's so much noise out there on this. Is there a good place to donate to help?

nortex97 said:

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Good post. And as we get more details, note that there were serious warnings in the 1-2am timeframe.

Both warnings posted by NWS were clear cut and bold about this being life threatening, and location, even mentioning "campers" and "Kerrville". The flash flood emergency issued at 5:34 am on July 4th. "AUTOMATED RAIN GAUGES A LARGE AND DEADLY WAVE IS MOVING DOWN THE GUADALUPE… pic.twitter.com/5Om57xffu9

— Rosievortwx🌩️ (@Rosievortwx) July 5, 2025

Loading full tweet…

Quote:

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Both warnings posted by NWS were clear cut and bold about this being life threatening, and location, even mentioning "campers" and "Kerrville". The flash flood emergency issued at 5:34 am on July 4th. "AUTOMATED RAIN GAUGES A LARGE AND DEADLY WAVE IS MOVING DOWN THE GUADALUPE RIVER". The first warning was issued at 1:14 am. There were already 5 warnings/advisories issued by NWS by 2 am. Kerr County and the surrounding regions were put under a flood watch on July 3rd. I don't feel natural disaster needs blamed on anyone, but as someone who watched these warnings being issued. The NWS couldn't have done better in this one.

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More:

Every source I have read says yes. pic.twitter.com/LrXfXO4Gzk

— Rosievortwx🌩️ (@Rosievortwx) July 6, 2025

Loading full tweet…

The warnings were tragically not processed in time, at the key campsites. Why and who is 'to blame?' I don't know. This should never happen again.

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Apparently Mystic lost water, internet, and power prior to flood and in middle of the night. Cell phones can be sketchy up in those hills. I'm not sure that there could have been much communication period, I have a weather radio but never questioned the reception in that type of terrain.

No words. This young girl was rescued, many will not. pic.twitter.com/O4DOLii84O

— ✪ Evil Te𝕏an ✪ (@vileTexan) July 5, 2025

Loading full tweet…

Storm's mostly broken up, but it's still gathering in a few spots, those areas could several inches of rain.

Flood watch in the Hill Country until 1pm.

51 confirmed deaths.

Lots still missing, including 20 young girls. pic.twitter.com/ecaMI0cG95

— ✪ Evil Te𝕏an ✪ (@vileTexan) July 6, 2025

Loading full tweet…

Georgetown RV park on the San Gabriel River.

Source: @storm_serenader pic.twitter.com/Na8g2t4IDL

— ✪ Evil Te𝕏an ✪ (@vileTexan) July 5, 2025

Loading full tweet…

Actually, vile Texan is a decent follow, despite the name.

Let me guess, you live up in Dallas somewhere??? As a resident in the THC with NWS and code blue warnings…it is impossible to treat each and every one as a 100yr weather event….every month of the year there are multiple warnings 99% account to nothing out of the ordinary, this was an incredible event not predicted when we got in bed at 10p and yes the alarm went off about 3am as a "warning", no different than multiple thunderstorm warnings received this year without a drop of rain falling in the area

I'm on Llano arm of LBJ. As an example of nothing warnings, I can tell my story. On October 9 of 2018 I was in south Texas and got a call from neighbor. The Llano deputy was going door to door warning of impending flood after heavy rain in Junction . Turns out nothing happened.
Fast forward one week to October 15 and without warning I had 18' rise in lake level starting early morning. We lost the 2900 bridge that day.
Friday we watched the lake after warnings alerted us. Many neighbors pulled water toys out of lake. I watched an Austin meteorologist tell us that this water coming down was going to be like the 10/9 event and less than a quarter of the 10/15 flood.
We ended up getting the headwaters at about 7 pm with levels jumping about 3' within 10 minutes. We pulled boats out of slips to float free and dealt with them until about 2 am when it settled down to about 1' high where it stayed for another 8 hours.

It helps to realize that our university graduates a number of people who have to pull out a spreadsheet to analyze anything. In the face of an overwhelming human tragedy, their response is to start pivot tables and data analysis in lieu of an actual human emotion.

Instead of waiting for the data to be collected, they start producing hunches and plans to prevent the last thing that happened.

It is how they cope. Unfortunately, many of them cannot complete their uniquely personal coping mechanism without advertising how the last thing could be prevented.

You can look at any latest thing thread and identify them quickly.

This is a human tragedy and, sometimes, spreadsheets cannot predict the future. I remain hopeful that these individuals will eventually learn to read the room and do their "data analysis" in private.

Texans on Mission (formerly Texas Baptist Men) is a reputable group. Their disaster relief team is on standby to help with cleanup and work with the families.

https://www.texansonmission.org/serve

SIAP. Time lapse of the flooding.

Timelapse flooding of the Llano River on July 4th pic.twitter.com/59Tnn6NZG7

— Rob Dew (@DewsNewz) July 5, 2025

Loading full tweet…

robdoubleu said:

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Long time reader, first time poster.

After my folks were evacuated by USCG small boat and their house was under 6 feet of water for weeks after Harvey, and personally being evacuated for wildfires several times in the past few years, I've spent an unhealthy amount of time reading emergency plans, evacuation modeling, etc.

I find the phrases "this was unprecedented" or "this couldn't have been predicted" quite frustrating, because imagining the unprecedented and unpredictable is kind of the point of emergency planning.

There's a very shallow outline of the proper Kerr County Emergency Management Plan online but nothing with any detail I have tracked down.

Kerr County published a hazard mitigation plan in 2024 - it's both specific and generic, but it's available on the web here: https://legacy.co.kerr.tx.us/notices/docs/10-2024-KerrCountyHazardMitigationActionPlan.pdf

Some observations:

Kerr County's primary emergency notification mechanism is CodeRed, which generally requires sign up (and generally doesn't help tourists / non-local population). I'd be very interested to know if any CodeRed notices were sent by county management via text or phone.

NWS Flash Flood warnings should trigger emergency alerts to mobile devices, but these and CodeRed are both dependent on having a cell signal.

Also notable is Kerr County's existing flood gauge system which provides no useful data on flow rates, only a warning that the river has risen to some degree.

There has been discussion of replacing this with an early warning system (including sirens) as far back as 2016, when a study was commissioned to evaluate this upgrade. Seems to have died on the vine and comes back up in 2020 with no apparent progress since.

Comal county has a siren based early warning system linked to flood gauges as do plenty of other high risk areas.

One thing that is conspicuously absent from the doc is any mention of the fact that during the summer there must be thousands? of additional kids dotted around in all the summer camps, all with minimal ability to support or self-evacuate.

Perhaps this exists in the emergency management plan but all indications from the press conference is that there was no specific plan for this eventuality.

I am trying quite hard to not veer into Monday morning quarterbacking, and to draw a clear distinction between planning and response. I have no doubt that once things went south, everyone involved did their utmost to help as conditions allowed and continue to do so.

On the other hand, there are accounts of campers "waking up with water to their necks" and I have a very hard time believing that even a few minutes of early warning via sirens would not have made a difference.

I found the responses from county officials to questions about warnings of *any* kind completely lacking, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until they start passing the buck to the NWS.

The uploaded image is unavailable

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NOAA Weather radio solves most of this. The warnings were there, does no good if no one can hear them.

TEXAS FLOOD: There are many questions about the tragic flash flood on the Guadalupe River late Thursday night and early Friday morning. The death toll is now over 50, including some children who were at Camp Mystic.

Here are some key points about the warning process...

*A flash… pic.twitter.com/fTMJHvqssG

— James Spann (@spann) July 6, 2025

Loading full tweet…

Quote:

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Comal county has a siren based early warning system linked to flood gauges as do plenty of other high risk areas.

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This is first I've heard of sirens. I dont know if anything else would really work at that hour. Doubt there will be much rebuilding in hard hit areas, but hopefully more sirens are implemented in future. Should be pretty cheap and easy to maintain these days.

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robdoubleu said:

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Long time reader, first time poster.

After my folks were evacuated by USCG small boat and their house was under 6 feet of water for weeks after Harvey, and personally being evacuated for wildfires several times in the past few years, I've spent an unhealthy amount of time reading emergency plans, evacuation modeling, etc.

I find the phrases "this was unprecedented" or "this couldn't have been predicted" quite frustrating, because imagining the unprecedented and unpredictable is kind of the point of emergency planning.

There's a very shallow outline of the proper Kerr County Emergency Management Plan online but nothing with any detail I have tracked down.

Kerr County published a hazard mitigation plan in 2024 - it's both specific and generic, but it's available on the web here: https://legacy.co.kerr.tx.us/notices/docs/10-2024-KerrCountyHazardMitigationActionPlan.pdf

Some observations:

Kerr County's primary emergency notification mechanism is CodeRed, which generally requires sign up (and generally doesn't help tourists / non-local population). I'd be very interested to know if any CodeRed notices were sent by county management via text or phone.

NWS Flash Flood warnings should trigger emergency alerts to mobile devices, but these and CodeRed are both dependent on having a cell signal.

Also notable is Kerr County's existing flood gauge system which provides no useful data on flow rates, only a warning that the river has risen to some degree.

There has been discussion of replacing this with an early warning system (including sirens) as far back as 2016, when a study was commissioned to evaluate this upgrade. Seems to have died on the vine and comes back up in 2020 with no apparent progress since.

Comal county has a siren based early warning system linked to flood gauges as do plenty of other high risk areas.

One thing that is conspicuously absent from the doc is any mention of the fact that during the summer there must be thousands? of additional kids dotted around in all the summer camps, all with minimal ability to support or self-evacuate.

Perhaps this exists in the emergency management plan but all indications from the press conference is that there was no specific plan for this eventuality.

I am trying quite hard to not veer into Monday morning quarterbacking, and to draw a clear distinction between planning and response. I have no doubt that once things went south, everyone involved did their utmost to help as conditions allowed and continue to do so.

On the other hand, there are accounts of campers "waking up with water to their necks" and I have a very hard time believing that even a few minutes of early warning via sirens would not have made a difference.

I found the responses from county officials to questions about warnings of *any* kind completely lacking, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until they start passing the buck to the NWS.

The uploaded image is unavailable

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itsyourboypookie said:

NOAA Weather radio solves most of this. The warnings were there, does no good if no one can hear them.

TEXAS FLOOD: There are many questions about the tragic flash flood on the Guadalupe River late Thursday night and early Friday morning. The death toll is now over 50, including some children who were at Camp Mystic.

Here are some key points about the warning process...

*A flash… pic.twitter.com/fTMJHvqssG

— James Spann (@spann) July 6, 2025

Loading full tweet…

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Agree 100% with this post

Troy91 said:

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It helps to realize that our university graduates a number of people who have to pull out a spreadsheet to analyze anything. In the face of an overwhelming human tragedy, their response is to start pivot tables and data analysis in lieu of an actual human emotion.

Instead of waiting for the data to be collected, they start producing hunches and plans to prevent the last thing that happened.

It is how they cope. Unfortunately, many of them cannot complete their uniquely personal coping mechanism without advertising how the last thing could be prevented.

You can look at any latest thing thread and identify them quickly.

This is a human tragedy and, sometimes, spreadsheets cannot predict the future. I remain hopeful that these individuals will eventually learn to read the room and do their "data analysis" in private.

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This happens on this board all the time without complaint. This tragedy happened closer to home for most, so people on this board are more sensitive. But that sensitivity is definitely selective.

Also, it would be one thing if this was an isolated natural event. Yet when you read the posts about this, you start to see it's a regular enough occurrence in the Hill Country, if not regular on one particular river system. It seems like a problem that needs to be solved, or at least made better. And I think that's a conversation that's valuable to have.

Troy91 said:

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It helps to realize that our university graduates a number of people who have to pull out a spreadsheet to analyze anything. In the face of an overwhelming human tragedy, their response is to start pivot tables and data analysis in lieu of an actual human emotion.

Instead of waiting for the data to be collected, they start producing hunches and plans to prevent the last thing that happened.

It is how they cope. Unfortunately, many of them cannot complete their uniquely personal coping mechanism without advertising how the last thing could be prevented.

You can look at any latest thing thread and identify them quickly.

This is a human tragedy and, sometimes, spreadsheets cannot predict the future. I remain hopeful that these individuals will eventually learn to read the room and do their "data analysis" in private.

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You'd better hope the meteorologists don't stop analyzing data for the public. I just hope they start using something other than the "solve" button.