A decade of missed opportunities: Texas couldn't find $1M for flood warning system near camps

[dalton99a]

https://apnews.com/article/texas-floods-camp-warning-system-not-funded-0845df62390b9623331ba4a030c5fc7d

A decade of missed opportunities: Texas couldn’t find $1M for flood warning system near camps
By RYAN J. FOLEY, CHRISTOPHER L. KELLER, SEAN MURPHY and JIM MUSTIAN
Updated 7:19 PM CDT, July 9, 2025

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Over the last decade, an array of Texas state and local agencies missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert a disaster like the one that killed dozens of young campers and scores of others in Kerr County on the Fourth of July.

The agencies repeatedly failed to secure roughly $1 million for a project to better protect the county’s 50,000 residents and thousands of youth campers and tourists who spend time along the Guadalupe River in an area known as “flash-flood alley.” The plan, which would have installed flood monitoring equipment near Camp Mystic, cost about as much as the county spends on courthouse security every two years, or 1.5% of its annual budget.

Meanwhile, other communities had moved ahead with sirens and warning systems of their own. In nearby Comfort, a long, flat-three minute warning sound signifying flood danger helped evacuate the town of 2,000 people as practiced.

A deadly 2015 Memorial Day flood in Kerr County rekindled debate over whether to install a flood monitoring system and sirens to alert the public to evacuate when the river rose to dangerous levels. Some officials, cognizant of a 1987 flood that killed eight people on a church camp bus, thought it was finally time.

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Abbott spent $12 billion of Texas taxpayer money on the border (troops, barriers, migrant transport)

And Texas still has a budget surplus of $24 billion this year

[Tetrachloride]

1. How about a sternly worded letter

hey hey my my

[hatrack]

2. Too costly! Just pray away the flood!

.

[Autumn]

3. As far as most Texans are concerned systems like that would be government

intrusion on their freedom.

[marble falls]

5. Worse and more specifically - FEDERAL government intrusion. They use state government to maintain status quo ...

Last edited Thu Jul 10, 2025, 12:18 PM - Edit history (1)

... in the counties.

Most Texans aren't aware of it (those who live in Dallas, Houston, Austin, El Paso, San Antonio) and a lot of us who live directly hate it as a self interested system for the wealthy few, entrenched since the Reconstruction.

Here in Burnet County, we have "the Hundred".

[ananda]

14. Truly insane. I mean, disaster warnings?

Geez

[marble falls]

4. After the Biden administration sent them $5.1 for infrastructure. Kerr county argued about "sending it back" ...

... and the argument about sending it back was: if Kerr just "sent it back, it would just end up in New York or California". The argument for sending it back was "it was satanic money and it would curse whatever it was spent on."

At another commission meeting, they decided not to fund a $50,000 study regarding flood alerting, saying any system would require, "too many bells and whistles".

Welcome to Texas and the wall of white cowboy settler family yahoos. Out in the parking lot - five year or newer F-250 or larger 4WD shiny black pickups with fence cutters over the grill and a gunrack with a rifle and scope with a TACO sticker under it on the back window.

They really don't care for TACO, but damn don't they like what he's doing.

[walkingman]

8. Damn, you nailed perfectly. Texas in a nutshell.

[Girard442]

16. incredible. Let's not just drown our kids. Maybe drown others too.

[Jirel]

6. Not the problem. This is dreck.

OMG, they brought up that moronic claim about Comfort again. I live there, people. Not a single person was saved, even warned, by sirens in Comfort. We had 8 hours of warning, it was after daylight, everyone in town was hypervigilant because we knew what had happened upstream, and our VFD and other first responders were making sure everyone was warned multiple times PERSONALLY (and they had plenty of time with that 8 hour window). Everyone who needed to get out, who took it seriously, was out LOOOOOONG before a siren went off. If they had waited for a siren, over half the people who needed to evacuate would have been stuck - we had high water over the only road out, and then the only HIGHWAY out, well before that. Please stop promoting this ridiculous lie about our community.

As for sirens, they’re a red herring. They are set off almost in the last minute. If you know our area, you know that water rises hella fast. By the time sirens blow, it’s likely that many routes in low lying areas are not passable safely, or at all. There are SO MANY CHANNELS FOR WARNINGS up here, and they were appropriately given. Heeded, not necessarily so much. For instance, Camp Mystic had warning. That allowed them time to get 725 kids out of immediate danger, which is no small feat. I think an investigation will tell us whether they delayed action on several hours’ worth of warnings that were out there, and were not taking them as seriously as they should have been by multiple players, including the Kerrville City Manager. But the thing that got them stranded was that they had the single “highway” on the river bank and many roads leading to it covered with water - no way out early on. Yes, a very expensive, elite camp has no emergency back way out that is a high ground road. You know when a siren would have blown? About the time that those girls were already drowning. It would have been useless, especially if the camp had been waiting for that to start getting kids to high ground. It’s those warnings hours ahead of time, which we all had (thank you NOAA for having extra people on despite being underfunded, doing a nearly perfect job, and having accurate warnings out hours ahead), that need to be acted on better, and taken more seriously. There are many measures that can save lives out here, but they are measures that must be done early.

Please stop promoting armchair quarterbacks’ useless “obvious fixes.” In these communities, we know where the failure points are popping up

[Scrivener7]

12. Well, clearly though, somehow the existing warning system was not sufficient.

If there was no back way out, there should be an EARLIER and legally mandated evacuation order. OR, in all those years, they should have BUILT a high ground way out. OR, best of all they should not have built the camps in such a ridiculous place.

Failure points are not "popping up." They've been there all along.

[Girard442]

17. But real estate in a flood-prone area is really nice.

Until it's not.

[Scrivener7]

19. 3..2..1 till they demand public funds to rebuild in the same place.

[Jirel]

21. They're popping up.

My goodness, the upset caused by a common sense phrase that means “they are becoming readily apparent.”

“Legally mandated” is an important phrase. Absolutely that is needed in this area, not just for camps, but the ever increasing and larger RV and rental cottage resorts right there on the bank. High density (750 campers at a time, hundreds of RVers packed like sardines on a river bank with one teeny road out, etc.) means mandated ways out for those guests, required evacuation under certain conditions, and instructions given to all (at least adult) guests on “when x happens, you LEAVE.” Of course this is a deep red area, and they won’t ever mandate squat.

By the way, here’s one of your points of failure that popped up. There was no lack of warning hours ahead. However, one of the practices of these camps is to call each other to decide how seriously they’re going to take a potential flood. Never mind the forecasters’ warnings - is it REALLY serious in your opinion? Are YOU flooding? Do we REALLY need to try to evacuate hundreds of rich kids who’ll have their day ruined? Super dumb in an area with rotten cel service, where not all camps are in session at once, and people having a real emergency upstream aren’t taking the time to call around or answer the phone while getting out of danger.

[Scrivener7]

22. Not sure where you got the idea that your word usage caused upset. That's kind of daft.

If you want to use your new phrase, fine. We'll do that. They aren't "becoming readily apparent." They've been apparent all along.

And the examples you give only support what I am saying. This was a cascade of negligence and incompetence at every step, from building along the river to the decisions the day of the flood, and all those deaths could have been avoided with a little common sense.

[Irish_Dem]

7. Why put children's camps in a known flash flood area?

Maybe the land was cheap there.

[ananda]

15. My question exactly.

It's hard to believe they would put children's camps
that close to a river.

I got shot down for suggesting this earler, but there
is still close ENOUGH, but far enough away to escape
flooding.

[Irish_Dem]

18. MAGAs don't care if their kids are slaughtered with military weapons as they sit in school.

They don't care if they are drowned in floods either.

[ananda]

20. Or maybe they care but not enough to overrule their hate.

When hate is attached to a murder-suicide cult, it looks
as though it's really hard to overcome... imo.

[Irish_Dem]

23. Their hatred is the most important thing in the world to them.

More important than their children.
They will
Sacrifice them
Gladly.

[Scrivener7]

9. Near camps for THEIR OWN DAMN CHILDREN.

[BoRaGard]

10. G.O.P. is such a disappointment

They take care of the rich, and dump on the middle class and poor.

[Torchlight]

11. All surrounding counties had emergency sirens and fewer casualties

It's a gorgeous area for hiking, photography, camping, birding, etc. We do weekend camping in Comal county (asjacxent to Kerr) during the spring when fewer people are out and about.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

13. This "Slaughter of the Innocents" should leave a mark on the Republican brand of assholery.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

24. When "owning the libs" turns deadly..

[dalton99a]

25. +1

[Initech]

26. Fox News kills. Fox News kills more people than any corporation in the United States.

They are the biggest threat to the United States.

[bucolic_frolic]

27. Could have at least had a smart phone/minuteman alert

and tell everyone to go out and blow their car horns. Would have roused some people. Real cheap hillbilly method too.

[WarGamer]

28. decade? Why not century?