Camp Mystic

[Anonymous]

The camp shouldn't have been there to begin with. Look at satellite imagery of it. It's a dry river bed with water on two sides.

Texas hates regulation, but building codes are there for a reason. This was no place to put a camp for young children. In the end, this was a regulatory failure - or rather a failure of Texans to embrace some basic common sense regulations about where you can build a summer camp for 9 year olds. The fault lies with Texans and their political choices.

And it's tragic. But this is the Uvalde cops state, where politics matter more than reality. They will pray the state failures away and nothing will change in a deep red county. And that's incredibly sad. When competence and expertise becomes political, bad things happen.

[Anonymous]

Per eyewitnesses, the creek above the cabins also swelled and was pouring down into the camp. An unprecedented event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:At the time first rejected, it was $1 million. Out of a $57 million county budget.

That seems like the sort of thing that the state government should help fund.

The Texas state government just chose to provide 57 billion dollars in property tax cuts. I guess they assume basic safety will be provided by property owners. Go to Texas at your own risk.

All of this is off topic. It was still the responsibility of the camp to ensure safety. They should have been more in tune with local authorities on a regular basis.

That this is off-topic is your opinion, not a fact. I disagree.

I also disagree that the camp holds the only responsibility in this situation. There are several posts up thread explaining that this is not the first instance of this area of Texas having flash floods. It’s not even the first instance this decade to involve campers.

Ultimately they are the ones responsible for the kids and counselors safety. Should the state have put in the warning system, yes. This is tragic and avoidable. As a parent it’s horrifying to think what those kids and counselors went through.

It was a local decision not to fund the flood warning system-not state. It is not the job of a camp to substitute for poor government decisions (made by poor voting decisions by citizens) although I agree putting the youngest kids (or any kids for that matter) in cabins next to a river prone to flooding was reckless.

It is the job of the camp to KEEP THE KIDS SAFE. If they had any question as to whether that could be done with the government system they knew was in place, they should have supplemented or shut the place down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The camp shouldn't have been there to begin with. Look at satellite imagery of it. It's a dry river bed with water on two sides.

Texas hates regulation, but building codes are there for a reason. This was no place to put a camp for young children. In the end, this was a regulatory failure - or rather a failure of Texans to embrace some basic common sense regulations about where you can build a summer camp for 9 year olds. The fault lies with Texans and their political choices.

And it's tragic. But this is the Uvalde cops state, where politics matter more than reality. They will pray the state failures away and nothing will change in a deep red county. And that's incredibly sad. When competence and expertise becomes political, bad things happen.

The camp is ultimately responsible for the design. They knew they were on a flood zone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Per eyewitnesses, the creek above the cabins also swelled and was pouring down into the camp. An unprecedented event.

Did you read any of the news stories? This area has been flooding for decades. The Kerr County officials have talked about how they’ve had to evacuate campers several times from camps in this area. This was a well-known risk to campers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Per eyewitnesses, the creek above the cabins also swelled and was pouring down into the camp. An unprecedented event.

Either way, you have a safety escape plan in place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The camp shouldn't have been there to begin with. Look at satellite imagery of it. It's a dry river bed with water on two sides.

Texas hates regulation, but building codes are there for a reason. This was no place to put a camp for young children. In the end, this was a regulatory failure - or rather a failure of Texans to embrace some basic common sense regulations about where you can build a summer camp for 9 year olds. The fault lies with Texans and their political choices.

And it's tragic. But this is the Uvalde cops state, where politics matter more than reality. They will pray the state failures away and nothing will change in a deep red county. And that's incredibly sad. When competence and expertise becomes political, bad things happen.

The camp is ultimately responsible for the design. They knew they were on a flood zone.

Somewhat true but the camp is 70+ years old. Conditions change and floods in the area have become more volatile. Texas chose to not have the regulations that would have kept those kids safe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are these camps all white kids?

*no they don’t deserve to drown in a flood. Genuinely asking why there is zero diversity in any of the camp photos on social media. Is it the costs? Or just… self selection? Or????

Its a rich white Christan camp. Not only was it white, but most of the kids were blond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are these camps all white kids?

*no they don’t deserve to drown in a flood. Genuinely asking why there is zero diversity in any of the camp photos on social media. Is it the costs? Or just… self selection? Or????

For a camp that goes back generations, consider the demographics of the time. The US of today is far, far, far more diverse than it was 20 years ago and that time was far, far, far more diverse than it was 50 years ago. We have long been a country of immigrants but it used to be harder to get here.

People of color or Jews aren't going to be welcome in a place like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are these camps all white kids?

*no they don’t deserve to drown in a flood. Genuinely asking why there is zero diversity in any of the camp photos on social media. Is it the costs? Or just… self selection? Or????

Its a rich white Christan camp. Not only was it white, but most of the kids were blond.

It's not obvious to DMVers but there are many places in this country where the population is pretty undiverse, pretty homogeneous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are these camps all white kids?

*no they don’t deserve to drown in a flood. Genuinely asking why there is zero diversity in any of the camp photos on social media. Is it the costs? Or just… self selection? Or????

I spent one summer at a christian all girls camp that was all white in the late 1980s. I was white but was coming from a diverse public elementary school that was only thirty percent white. The all whiteness of the school creeped me out. I always wondered if it was just word of mouth tradition in terms of who went there or discrimination.

I suspect it is mostly word of mouth tradition in terms of who goes there, plus a lack of effort to attract diversity. I mean if you were black would you send your daughter to an all white camp in the south? I wouldn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are these camps all white kids?

*no they don’t deserve to drown in a flood. Genuinely asking why there is zero diversity in any of the camp photos on social media. Is it the costs? Or just… self selection? Or????

For a camp that goes back generations, consider the demographics of the time. The US of today is far, far, far more diverse than it was 20 years ago and that time was far, far, far more diverse than it was 50 years ago. We have long been a country of immigrants but it used to be harder to get here.

People of color or Jews aren't going to be welcome in a place like that.

Off topic. And yes there were Jewish girls there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are these camps all white kids?

*no they don’t deserve to drown in a flood. Genuinely asking why there is zero diversity in any of the camp photos on social media. Is it the costs? Or just… self selection? Or????

Its a rich white Christan camp. Not only was it white, but most of the kids were blond.

It's not obvious to DMVers but there are many places in this country where the population is pretty undiverse, pretty homogeneous.

And it is your belief that Kerr County, Texas is one of those places?

It’s 26% Latino. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerr_County,_Texas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are these camps all white kids?

*no they don’t deserve to drown in a flood. Genuinely asking why there is zero diversity in any of the camp photos on social media. Is it the costs? Or just… self selection? Or????

For a camp that goes back generations, consider the demographics of the time. The US of today is far, far, far more diverse than it was 20 years ago and that time was far, far, far more diverse than it was 50 years ago. We have long been a country of immigrants but it used to be harder to get here.

We have long been a country of immigrants and it used to be much easier to get here, actually.

https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/why-legal-immigration-nearly-impossible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the parents onew the are is called flood alley. It really makes me think about all the decisions we make as parents assuming that other professionals know what they are doing and have made good choices. I assume “flood alley” wasn’t on their brochures.

There are countries much poorer that have tsunami warning alarms to avoid this sort of thing. I saw on WP comments someone mentioned a cheap radio that gets NWS alerts — I wonder if the camp admin had one? Knowing that the County opted not to install a warning system, you would think that the camp would have made extra efforts yo stay advised on potential floods. I also wondet of the camp was in the 100 year flood plain.

I follow a climate researcher on FB and he estimated that the rain volume was increased 5-20% by human caused climate change. I just think everyone needs to be congnizant of the fact that, with claimed change, you should look at what happened in the past and then figure it will be 25% worse. So if it previously went up 10 feet — figure at least 13 feet.

It sounds like from interviews, many parents who also went there knew the cabins flooded and the water issues but it was never severe. There was one article or video saying the kids were stuck in the cabin for a day and they had to zipline food over.

It sounds like the current owners did a huge refurbishment and many changes so why they didn't move the cabins to higher ground knowing this and use those buildings for other things is what I don't understand.

I feel for those families as this could be any of our kids.