It is hard for me to imagine the amount of rain they got in the hill country of texas. When I was there a couple of years ago I barely had enough to be able to paddle on the san marcos, frio, guadalupe and llano. So sad what happened.
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Horrific and heart breaking. The timing with the Fourth of July holiday was tragic. The photos of the debris piles speak volumes about the power of moving water. Reminds me of what happened on the French Broad River last fall in NC.
The intense rain over the watershed and the speed of the flash flooding was extraordinary. Flood plains and coastlines are inherently dangerous places even if it is just a small percentage of the time. Once in 100-year events don’t necessarily happen at 100-year intervals. We have an emergency siren in our small town. I thought that was standard practice. I leave my phone on at night, so any weather warnings wake me when they are sent out. I know so many will be thinking if only. My heart goes out to the families and communities.
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I’m reminded also that there are at least a couple of old Pnetters that used to attend gatherings that live in the Hill country, though I don’t know where exactly. I’m thinking of Bjorn and Rob (Osprey).
Seeing the damage at the parks is also a reminder that most of these places we’ve come to love so much have these “megafloods” as a rare (hopefully) part of their natural cycle. I’m told our camp at Pulltite was hit this spring, the areas where we’ve camped for so long have lost, their trees and some of the facilities were destroyed or badly damaged… so we may not be camping under a forest canopy as we’ve done for so many years. This, of course, will be the case for those generations for of Texans for whom Camp Mystic held so many memories. I can’t imagine how anyone who loved the place will ever be able to return to look at it without remembering what it once was and those who were lost there. And there are all the other camps, trailer parks, communities - all destroyed overnight.
So many lost so much so quickly. Some lost everything.
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Same river we paddle in the TWS, just above the Lake, we paddle below the confluence with San Marcos. Crazy stuff…
And now Arizona and Chicago get 1000 year event rains. We had an EF2 tornado plow through here on Monday, unheard of in the past now becoming common…
Weird
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The Hill Country is absolutely famous for high intensity rainfall events. The country has plenty of slope to it and lots of limestone which makes the water run off and makes these watersheds “flashy.” The Guadalupe River has been described as “the most flood prone river in America.”
But Texans have little faith in government services. They have very loose building codes and zoning laws. There are at least 10 summer camps along the river near Hunt, Texas. Kerr County has no warning system for floods. Repeat no warning system. They say it is too expensive.
The Federal govt has cut funding for the National Weather Service and NOAA. FEMA is being phased out and their funding is being moved over to Homeland Security. None of these things have helped, but the real problems are State, County and local systems that predict floods and warn people about their possible effects. This is very sad and it did not need to happen.
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They had reportedly 20" of rain. That’s a lot of rain anywhere.
There might have been 20 inches of rain at one location. There was at least 5-10 inches of rainfall in the watershed which is a huge amount in a flashy watershed.
100 Year Flood areas have a 1% chance of a 100 Year flood every year. They have a much higher chance each year of a 25 year flood (4%) and a 0.2% chance of a 500 year flood every year. All that is based on historical precipitation levels - and in general those risks are underestimated. The history of the area is hard to understand outside of the past 100-150 years so a 500 year flood area is based on statistics rather than history.
Looking at the topo map for the area, there is a huge geographic area draining into the Guadeloupe River west of Kerrville near the camps.
40% of FEMA disaster assistance claims are for damage outside the 100 year boundaries. If the boundary is set at 1%, they don’t round up. 0.99% areas are outside the 100 Year Flood area even though the difference is insignificant.
It’s pretty obvious that Camp Mystic and other camps in the area have significant flooding risk. Just look at the large flood plain. Add to that saturated soil from a lot of rain over the preceding days and land that is comprised of lots of limestone and you have a recipe for severe flooding.
The flooding in the Kerrville area is a terrible, tragic event. Even those that survived will carry the experience the rest of their lives.
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Thought this sign was weird enough to deserve stopping and taking a pic. It is not in Kerr county, west of San Antonio on state route 377. Also note the roadbed is armored with concrete against scour - really tells you something about what to expect during a flood.
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This is an example of a once in 25 years flood. In 1969 hurricane Camille had been downgraded to a tropical storm when it hit western Virginia and dumped an unusual amount or rain in the James River watershed. The James originates west of the Shenandoah Valley and runs east through the Blue Ridge Mountains on its way to the Chesapeake Bay. My father had a store in Scottsville, about 60 miles west of Richmond.
After the flood Dad stopped by Tallahassee to ask for my help. As we got in my car for the trip north he put a box with a pile of rags and two bottles of Janitor in the Drum in my trunk. I asked what that was for. He said that we might have a little cleanup to do.
We headquartered at my mother’s family’s farm about 10 miles out of Scottsville. I borrowed my uncle’s pick-up and loaded the wheel barrow, coal shovel and 2 manure forks in the back. When he asked what that was for I said we might have a little cleanup to do.
Both of us underestimated the damage a flooding river could do. The store was two blocks up from the river. The watermark on the front window was at 6’. River bottom mud covered all of the counters and there was still 15" of slurry on the floor. I was told that our head clerk, Alice Staton and her husband William, had been seen in waist deep water carrying merchandise upstairs to save all that they could. The last thing they did was to block the doors open with pieces of two by four. Had they not done that the water pressure would have washed out the front windows when it drained out.
When we got there Dad walked to the back of the store. When he came out past me he said “Throw it all away.” I didn’t see him again until 3:00. He didn’t have flood insurance because he said he could completely restock the store every three years for what insurance cost. The choices were close the business or take a government guaranteed loan at 4%. He chose to close.
There are some more inspirational moments to share.
Alice had always wanted a store of her own so Dad gave her all of the merchandise that they had saved.
Every day busloads of volunteers came from colleges all over Virginia. Every morning I would go to the police station and tell them how much help I needed. We carried all the ruined merchandise out to the street and someone with a frontend loader dumped it in a truck which hauled it away. Then went the counters and shelves. When the store was empty we went to the back with the coal shovel and pushed the mud out the front door. Then the fire department went in with hoses and washed the walls and flushed everything out. I don’t know how long that took; over a week. You cannot imagine how bad river bottom mud can smell! And those busloads of volunteers kept coming every morning.
The James River flooded again two years later, I’m told worse than before. Scottsville now has a flood wall with waterproof gates where the roads pass through. It’s once again an attractive town with a history of barge canal and railroad. And when the James is behaving it’s a beautiful place to paddle.
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