Camp Mystic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do not remotely compare losing a parent with losing a child. But I learned when my mom died of aggressive cancer at 60 that safety and control are completely an illusion. We were never safe and we never had control. It didn’t happen “for a reason” and I sure as hell hope it wasn’t “God’s Plan” to take her from us.

Death is never God's plan. He comforts the brokenhearted and will redeem through all things. But it is never His plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s quite shocking, looking at how close and flat to the river those cabins were, that no one at the camp or local authorities ever envisioned this might happen. Would require a stunning lack of imagination on all parts.

How could they not have checked the weather, let's say weather dot com, which would have put out an alert so even if no local alert system in place, they would have known. Prayers.

Why do you assume they didn't? I think part of the reason assumptions and stories people are being made up right now are due to the fact that the camp is focused on the families and the missing, not to mention that their patriarch died. They don't have the bandwidth right now to tell the story. Yes we are hearing from some counselors and campers but nobody really knows (yet) what the staff was doing in the wee hours.

The counselors assigned to the individual cabins were trying to evacuate. 20 feet rise in 20 minutes. In the dark. Waking to water up to your knees. One broke a window with keys to get kids out to safety then they had to climb barefoot up a rock face. One helped them hang on to rafters at the ceiling on their mattresses. The worst was lost, no rafters and low ceilings and water from creek and river swirling around them.
The staff died trying to get them out of a cabin fully underwater.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm from the south and understand camp culture and its importance to many families. I have multiple friends with some association to Camp Mystic as former campers, counselors, etc. It's not my thing, but I get it.

Here's what I don't understand.

This camp - and many camps in that area - have been there for 100 years. This is a big part of the tradition; campers literally stay in the same cabins that their moms, grandmothers, aunts, etc. did. They are not going to up and move the location of the camp. But, given the nature of the river and history of flooding there, why are they not better regulated? Are they inspected for safety, beyond the dining room kitchens? How do they get insurance being situated so close to the river as they are?

It seems to me that any of these privately held camps that host thousands of kids across the course of the summer would pay more attention to safety factors. I'm sure they do some sort of weather drills and training, etc. with their young staffs. But this is the kind of thing that needs to be reviewed and thought through on an annual basis. Why was no one awake that night, all night, watching the weather forecast? The warnings were there and they grew increasingly dire throughout the night. That should be standard operating procedure for any facility like this.

Is it common to have someone literally awake watching the weather forecast at any camp? I'm sure that many of y'all will become experts on the Camp Mystic Safety Manual as soon as it's available.

At the camp I attended there absolutely was a counselor tasked with being up all night for medical emergencies, weather, comms, etc. I’m floored there wasn’t someone looking out.

PP again. A counselor?? That's not good enough. If you have 850 CHILDREN as your responsibility, again sleeping out in the middle of the woods away from serious medical help, etc., for weeks at a time, there damn well should be a full staff of adult security guards.

The more I think about it, this is 100% on the camp. I hope parents are lining up lawsuits.

There were failures at many levels, federal, state, county, and local. A perfect storm.

Not really, there was a break in the federal level which never kicked off what would happen down the line. This fully is the fault of DOGE cuts and those who voted for it.

Here's what Heather Cox Richardson, who IME checks her sources quite carefully, reports:

"Immediately after the catastrophe became apparent, Texas officials began to blame cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS)—part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—for causing inaccurate forecasts. The “Department of Government Efficiency” cut about 600 staffers from the NWS. After the cuts, the understaffed agency warned that “severe shortages” of meteorologists would hurt weather forecasting.

All five living former directors of the NWS warned in May that the cuts “[leave] the nation’s official weather forecasting entity at a significant deficit…just as we head into the busiest time for severe storm predictions like tornadoes and hurricanes…. Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life.”

But former NWS officials maintain the forecasts were as accurate as possible and noted the storm escalated abruptly. They told Christopher Flavelle of the New York Times that the problem appeared to be that NWS had lost the staffers who would typically communicate with local authorities to spread the word of dangerous conditions. Molly Taft at Wired confirmed that NWS published flash flood warnings but safety officials didn’t send out public warnings until hours later.

Meanwhile, Kerr County’s most senior elected official, Judge Rob Kelly, focused on local officials, telling Flavelle that the county did not have a warning system because such systems are expensive and “[t]axpayers won’t pay for it.”

Those NWS-published flash flood warnings are what would have been broadcast on a weather radio, if one had been present.

You lost my when you bring up Heather Cox Richardson. Talk about someone with an agenda to push.

This may all be correct, even partially, but the fact remains that the camp DID KNOW ABOUT THE DANGERS OF THE STORM far earlier than they sufficienty reacted to it.

If you can refute anything she says with references, by all means do so.

DP here. As someone who largely agrees with Heather Cox Richardson politically, I find her extremely off-putting. I just do not like her tone or her writing style at all.

If you can refute anything she says with references, by all means do so.

Can you read? I’m not refuting her. I just think she’s grating.

Your inability to tolerate her tone is not germane to the discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I'm from the south and understand camp culture and its importance to many families. I have multiple friends with some association to Camp Mystic as former campers, counselors, etc. It's not my thing, but I get it.

Here's what I don't understand.

This camp - and many camps in that area - have been there for 100 years. This is a big part of the tradition; campers literally stay in the same cabins that their moms, grandmothers, aunts, etc. did. They are not going to up and move the location of the camp. But, given the nature of the river and history of flooding there, why are they not better regulated? Are they inspected for safety, beyond the dining room kitchens? How do they get insurance being situated so close to the river as they are?

It seems to me that any of these privately held camps that host thousands of kids across the course of the summer would pay more attention to safety factors. I'm sure they do some sort of weather drills and training, etc. with their young staffs. But this is the kind of thing that needs to be reviewed and thought through on an annual basis. Why was no one awake that night, all night, watching the weather forecast? The warnings were there and they grew increasingly dire throughout the night. That should be standard operating procedure for any facility like this.

Is it common to have someone literally awake watching the weather forecast at any camp? I'm sure that many of y'all will become experts on the Camp Mystic Safety Manual as soon as it's available.

At the camp I attended there absolutely was a counselor tasked with being up all night for medical emergencies, weather, comms, etc. I’m floored there wasn’t someone looking out.

PP again. A counselor?? That's not good enough. If you have 850 CHILDREN as your responsibility, again sleeping out in the middle of the woods away from serious medical help, etc., for weeks at a time, there damn well should be a full staff of adult security guards.

The more I think about it, this is 100% on the camp. I hope parents are lining up lawsuits.

There were failures at many levels, federal, state, county, and local. A perfect storm.

Not really, there was a break in the federal level which never kicked off what would happen down the line. This fully is the fault of DOGE cuts and those who voted for it.

Here's what Heather Cox Richardson, who IME checks her sources quite carefully, reports:

"Immediately after the catastrophe became apparent, Texas officials began to blame cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS)—part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—for causing inaccurate forecasts. The “Department of Government Efficiency” cut about 600 staffers from the NWS. After the cuts, the understaffed agency warned that “severe shortages” of meteorologists would hurt weather forecasting.

All five living former directors of the NWS warned in May that the cuts “[leave] the nation’s official weather forecasting entity at a significant deficit…just as we head into the busiest time for severe storm predictions like tornadoes and hurricanes…. Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life.”

But former NWS officials maintain the forecasts were as accurate as possible and noted the storm escalated abruptly. They told Christopher Flavelle of the New York Times that the problem appeared to be that NWS had lost the staffers who would typically communicate with local authorities to spread the word of dangerous conditions. Molly Taft at Wired confirmed that NWS published flash flood warnings but safety officials didn’t send out public warnings until hours later.

Meanwhile, Kerr County’s most senior elected official, Judge Rob Kelly, focused on local officials, telling Flavelle that the county did not have a warning system because such systems are expensive and “[t]axpayers won’t pay for it.”

Those NWS-published flash flood warnings are what would have been broadcast on a weather radio, if one had been present.

You lost my when you bring up Heather Cox Richardson. Talk about someone with an agenda to push.

This may all be correct, even partially, but the fact remains that the camp DID KNOW ABOUT THE DANGERS OF THE STORM far earlier than they sufficienty reacted to it.

If you can refute anything she says with references, by all means do so.

DP here. As someone who largely agrees with Heather Cox Richardson politically, I find her extremely off-putting. I just do not like her tone or her writing style at all.

If you can refute anything she says with references, by all means do so.

Can you read? I’m not refuting her. I just think she’s grating.

Your inability to tolerate her tone is not germane to the discussion.

She isn’t relevant to this at all. That’s the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s quite shocking, looking at how close and flat to the river those cabins were, that no one at the camp or local authorities ever envisioned this might happen. Would require a stunning lack of imagination on all parts.

How could they not have checked the weather, let's say weather dot com, which would have put out an alert so even if no local alert system in place, they would have known. Prayers.

Why do you assume they didn't? I think part of the reason assumptions and stories people are being made up right now are due to the fact that the camp is focused on the families and the missing, not to mention that their patriarch died. They don't have the bandwidth right now to tell the story. Yes we are hearing from some counselors and campers but nobody really knows (yet) what the staff was doing in the wee hours.

The counselors assigned to the individual cabins were trying to evacuate. 20 feet rise in 20 minutes. In the dark. Waking to water up to your knees. One broke a window with keys to get kids out to safety then they had to climb barefoot up a rock face. One helped them hang on to rafters at the ceiling on their mattresses. The worst was lost, no rafters and low ceilings and water from creek and river swirling around them.
The staff died trying to get them out of a cabin fully underwater.

Keeping in mind, the counselors are 16-18 years old themselves. They're KIDS. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe this is a dumb question but are there not alarms that can be installed in the ground that would sound if water reached a certain level? I have them in my house behind every toilet. Is there no such thing for camping?

Yes there are alarm systems that can be installed and have been in other Texas counties and were proposed for this county but this county didn’t want to pay for them.

So don’t tell me its too “political” to say this could have been prevented with better policies and better leaders.

The camp should have had their own system and not had those kids sleeping that close to water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have found myself overwhelmed with the news from Camp Mystic and the entire flooding situation.

I am not religious or from Texas but am just besides myself thinking about the fear those little girls felt waking up to a nightmare and being without their parents and the loss their parents will feel forever.

I don’t really pray but I just want to ask that everyone keep these children, their families, and all the people lost in the flood in their hearts. Hug your family a little tighter today.

Thank you, OP.

[Anonymous]

According to chatgbt, you can get a reasonably priced system. 🔹 1. Basic Water Level Monitoring
Ideal for detecting rising or falling water levels (flood risk, seasonal changes).

DIY Ultrasonic or Pressure Sensor Kits: $100–$500
E.g., Arduino or Raspberry Pi based.
Requires tech know-how.
Commercial Water Level Sensors (e.g., Global Water, In-Situ): $500–$2,000
Includes data logging, weatherproofing, and calibration.
Often solar-powered with remote telemetry (cellular or satellite).
🔹 2. Flood Detection or Alert Systems
For warning of water encroachment onto property.

Simple Flood Sensors (Like Basement Alarms): $20–$200
Not designed for outdoor/river/lake use.
Outdoor Flood Monitoring Stations: $500–$2,500
Solar + cellular-based with alerts via SMS/email.
Can be installed near the bank or property perimeter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The why didn’t they move all the girls is based on hindsight - after knowing there was a 100 year flash flood that rose far beyond what anyone in the area had ever seen before.

They did move girls. They just couldn’t predict the future to know how fast and far the water would rise. Many others were caught in the flash flood as well. Families in cabins and RVa and others near the river. No one knew what would happen.

It’s easy to look back and say well if I had been near x when there was a natural disaster of an earthquake, tornado, tsunami, monsoon, flash flood that was a 100 year type event I would have been able to predict it myself and have left before any danger - but that’s just a cognitive way of coping. To feel you would have been able to control an uncontrollable situation. That you would have Ben the one to have figured out before anyone else what was happening and taken heroic action. In reality, that wouldn’t be what happens but people feel the need to believe they personally can control Mother Nature to feel in control and to cope with random acts of nature.

It's the same with the 2004 Tsumani and earthquake I suppose...I sadly have to believe it truly came out of nowhere like a wall of water. In the middle of the night also, so people couldn't SEE it happening.

The story of the father trying to kayak to his daughters (not at camp) broke my heart.

Except there was a flood watch and warning issued here and nothing for the tsunami. Imagine if Kerr County had sirens that went off with NWS flood warnings. The kids would’ve made it out.

I was listening to an interview with someone at the RV park who received the warnings on their phone but didn’t start to leave until water was in their RV. Not casting blame, I basically do the same in tornado warnings—look out the window and wait to see if I really need to get to the basement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to chatgbt, you can get a reasonably priced system. 🔹 1. Basic Water Level Monitoring
Ideal for detecting rising or falling water levels (flood risk, seasonal changes).

DIY Ultrasonic or Pressure Sensor Kits: $100–$500
E.g., Arduino or Raspberry Pi based.
Requires tech know-how.
Commercial Water Level Sensors (e.g., Global Water, In-Situ): $500–$2,000
Includes data logging, weatherproofing, and calibration.
Often solar-powered with remote telemetry (cellular or satellite).
🔹 2. Flood Detection or Alert Systems
For warning of water encroachment onto property.

Simple Flood Sensors (Like Basement Alarms): $20–$200
Not designed for outdoor/river/lake use.
Outdoor Flood Monitoring Stations: $500–$2,500
Solar + cellular-based with alerts via SMS/email.
Can be installed near the bank or property perimeter.

All too expensive apparently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to chatgbt, you can get a reasonably priced system. 🔹 1. Basic Water Level Monitoring
Ideal for detecting rising or falling water levels (flood risk, seasonal changes).

DIY Ultrasonic or Pressure Sensor Kits: $100–$500
E.g., Arduino or Raspberry Pi based.
Requires tech know-how.
Commercial Water Level Sensors (e.g., Global Water, In-Situ): $500–$2,000
Includes data logging, weatherproofing, and calibration.
Often solar-powered with remote telemetry (cellular or satellite).
🔹 2. Flood Detection or Alert Systems
For warning of water encroachment onto property.

Simple Flood Sensors (Like Basement Alarms): $20–$200
Not designed for outdoor/river/lake use.
Outdoor Flood Monitoring Stations: $500–$2,500
Solar + cellular-based with alerts via SMS/email.
Can be installed near the bank or property perimeter.

All too expensive apparently.

This is a camp for the wealthy. They could afford it. And, they could have afforded cabins on higher grounds and use those for other things.

[Anonymous]

I am very sorry for the children (and adults) who died, but this was mismanaged by local authorities who didn’t want to spend the money to put in a system of sirens for this town despite being called “flood alley.” It’s not safe to live in towns with people who rather have their taxes low at the expense of basic safety measures.

The Wall Street Journal
By Scott Calvert, John West, Jim Carlton and Joe Barrett, The Wall Street Journal

https://www.tovima.com/wsj/officials-pushed-for-better-warning-system-for-years-before-deadly-floods/

Officials Pushed for Better Warning System for Years Before Deadly Floods
A sheriff in 2016 recalled pulling ‘kids out of trees’ in summer camps as leaders repeatedly discussed installing a siren system, but didn’t do so

former sheriff pushed Kerr County commissioners nearly a decade ago to adopt a more robust flood-warning system, telling government officials how he “spent hours in those helicopters pulling kids out of trees here (in) our summer camps,” according to meeting records.

Then-Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer was a proponent of outdoor sirens, having responded as a deputy to the 1987 floods that killed 10 teenagers at a camp in nearby Kendall County. He made the comments in 2016, after deadly floods ravaged a different part of Texas the year before.

“We were trying to think of, what can we do to make sure that never happens here?” Hierholzer, who served as Kerr County sheriff from 2000 to 2020, recalled in an interview Sunday with The Wall Street Journal. “And that’s why we were looking at everything that we could come up with, whether it be sirens, whether it be any other systems that we could.”

That suggestion, from him and others, was never adopted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to chatgbt, you can get a reasonably priced system. 🔹 1. Basic Water Level Monitoring
Ideal for detecting rising or falling water levels (flood risk, seasonal changes).

DIY Ultrasonic or Pressure Sensor Kits: $100–$500
E.g., Arduino or Raspberry Pi based.
Requires tech know-how.
Commercial Water Level Sensors (e.g., Global Water, In-Situ): $500–$2,000
Includes data logging, weatherproofing, and calibration.
Often solar-powered with remote telemetry (cellular or satellite).
🔹 2. Flood Detection or Alert Systems
For warning of water encroachment onto property.

Simple Flood Sensors (Like Basement Alarms): $20–$200
Not designed for outdoor/river/lake use.
Outdoor Flood Monitoring Stations: $500–$2,500
Solar + cellular-based with alerts via SMS/email.
Can be installed near the bank or property perimeter.

Flood sensors were not the answer here. The water rose in minutes. From the time the rise began at that location till it was too late was not enough to calmly and safely evacuate 750 children.

But, there was a very clear flood warning 3 hours before the river began to rise in that location. The question is why they didn’t evacuate then. What went wrong that the news didn’t make it to the camp?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was already a locked thread on this that is now being diverted to political. So don’t be shocked if this is locked too.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/150/1281918.page

OP here -

Was trying to make this one non-political. Hopefully people can stay respectful

I don’t think it’s respectful to hide your head in the sand and pretend that these deaths were God’s will. Politicians in this administration chose to defund the National Weather Service which has some of the best meteorologists who can predict extreme weather events.

Local Politicians chose not to fund a warning system for the town despite having flash floods regularly and it being proposed as an option that people found “too expensive.”

If you value the lives of those who are are lost, you should be looking at what went wrong and how this could be prevented in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The why didn’t they move all the girls is based on hindsight - after knowing there was a 100 year flash flood that rose far beyond what anyone in the area had ever seen before.

They did move girls. They just couldn’t predict the future to know how fast and far the water would rise. Many others were caught in the flash flood as well. Families in cabins and RVa and others near the river. No one knew what would happen.

It’s easy to look back and say well if I had been near x when there was a natural disaster of an earthquake, tornado, tsunami, monsoon, flash flood that was a 100 year type event I would have been able to predict it myself and have left before any danger - but that’s just a cognitive way of coping. To feel you would have been able to control an uncontrollable situation. That you would have Ben the one to have figured out before anyone else what was happening and taken heroic action. In reality, that wouldn’t be what happens but people feel the need to believe they personally can control Mother Nature to feel in control and to cope with random acts of nature.

It's the same with the 2004 Tsumani and earthquake I suppose...I sadly have to believe it truly came out of nowhere like a wall of water. In the middle of the night also, so people couldn't SEE it happening.

The story of the father trying to kayak to his daughters (not at camp) broke my heart.

Except there was a flood watch and warning issued here and nothing for the tsunami. Imagine if Kerr County had sirens that went off with NWS flood warnings. The kids would’ve made it out.

I was listening to an interview with someone at the RV park who received the warnings on their phone but didn’t start to leave until water was in their RV. Not casting blame, I basically do the same in tornado warnings—look out the window and wait to see if I really need to get to the basement.

I grew up in Tornado Alley and this sounds insane, when we hear the tornado warning, whether from the siren or phone/tv, we go to the interior room (no basement at my parents house).

But they seem to have changed the meaning of the warning now, and the warning fatigue is real. That seems to have happened here, too. There was a flash flood watch, then a warning, then an urgent warning when it was actually happening. Maybe the new system, designed to give people more notice, is counter productive.