Shocking video shows how quickly the Texas flood waters rose

This was a huge failure at the federal, state and local level

Horrifying

I just found out one of my colleagues at work left early today for Texas because his niece was one of the girls at the Christian summer camp who went missing. They found and identified her body last night (along with a couple of other girls). He was planning on going to Texas in three more weeks for a family wedding, the older sibling of this girl they found.

I can't imagine what that family is going through right now.

This seems to be a failure particularly at the state & local level. In one discussion, I read a claim that the Guadalupe River does not have an alert system. Now, this is not the first flood in the area. In comparison, Lake Travis (a reservoir at Austin) does have a working alert system. Fuck Governor Abbott and his "prayers." He did not protect Texans. Again. I guess none of his donors invested in the area.

I've seen videos of the sirens blaring, so I think there may have been some warning. Even with all this information, I still don't understand the mechanics or physics of flash floods. I know, I know, it's right in front of my eyes yet there is something about them that defies belief. Laugh all you want about snow belts (I'm in Buffalo) but at lease you generally know what to expect and decades of storms teach you how to protect yourself.

The videos are so distressing and those poor families.

Poor Texas drowning in the same river they were baptized in.

Ha ha ha.

This is really on the camp. Cabins close to a flood prone river and you don’t move to high ground when the forecast is for heavy rain ? In that situation you don’t wait for warning, you are proactive and GTFO.

I’m a bit torn on what to think about this whole situation. There was a massive, destructive flood in my greater town area a few years ago which destroyed many homes, schools, businesses, etc. I know that even with the warnings, there simply wasn’t enough time for some people to get out because their cars were quickly submerged to the point of not being able to drive. I suppose you can get out and run, but can everyone outrun a quickly developing flood?

Nothing that a little Sharpie action couldn't prevent.

FALSE FLAG!

Crisis actors!

[quote] Even with all this information, I still don't understand the mechanics or physics of flash floods

I was thinking the same thing R5, but I was afraid to be ridiculed.

Logically, it doesn't make sense in my mind, how a riverbed could be dry one minute, and then all of a sudden, a rushing wall of water comes roaring through.

It's not like heavy rainfall will all of a sudden create that wall of water, so where did it come from?

It has to be "unleashed" all at once from somewhere, right?

From the little I think I know, a lot has to do with bone dry ground unable to absorb it quickly enough.

Texas has no state income tax unlike forty-five other states + DC. We must demand the withholding of ALL federal and FEMA money until a state income tax is levied giving Texas the right to pay for this themselves, rather than using federal funds from other states to keep their taxes low!

It is only fair!

This is a failure of not believing in Jay-sus....but if you use mah CashApp I'll put in a thought or prayer

^I think it's also that the river bed is relatively narrow so it's a lot of water forced through a (relatively) small area in a short span of time. I used to live near what was called a "creek" but it was very wide. Even though the area was flat, it wasn't prone to flooding during hurricanes due to the wide, marshy area that could handle the excess water

One of the big factors was that this camp made everyone turn in their cellphones, iPads etc so they could rough it and get that rustic experience.

The camp didn't have the cards!

Omg, that looks EXACTLY like the ancient Great Raft that kept the Red River non-navigable for centuries.

Crazy.

R1 seems surprised.

Jesus must hate them

i met a lady in Denver that had been caught in a flash flood while driving in Texas. She had her 3 kids and her boyfriend in the car with her when they got swept away by the water. Somehow they all were swept out of the car and as she was flailing about her hand brushed hair and she grabbed it . Turns out it was her 9 year old daughters hair. Her sons and her boyfriend managed to grab onto some trees but the water stripped them stark naked . She and her daughter floated downstream for a few miles then she managed to swim to shore and drug her daughter up on a bank and collapsed from exhaustion and hypothermia. How they all survived was a miracle .

They should have had Gen Z Wunderkind Big Balls on the job at FEMA.

I believe the flash flooding works like this - the riverbeds and surrounding area is dry. BUT - during rain, this is where the entire area's water runs into - just like water in all other areas flow to a lake or to a river.

The land has been eroded down over centuries to have the water flow into the local river or water spot.

With the ground so dry - only some water is held into the ground, the rest runs into this dry riverbed from the entire area. It was dumping a lot of rain every hour - so it's a massive amount of water in a little time - that's going to flow into these dry riverbeds very quickly.

Take several square miles of rainfall and funnel it into a modest riverbed and boom - flash flood.

[quote]This seems to be a failure particularly at the state & local level. In one discussion, I read a claim that the Guadalupe River does not have an alert system. Now, this is not the first flood in the area. In comparison, Lake Travis (a reservoir at Austin) does have a working alert system. Fuck Governor Abbott and his "prayers." He did not protect Texans. Again. I guess none of his donors invested in the area.

Texas rethugs have more important things to do like ban books and making pron illegal.

Besides, all they need to do is get rid of the gays and establish a fundie xtian theocracy and god will stop punishing them with floods.

Jesus Christ. King of the Hill did a whole episode about this. The hill country and its wadies are prone to flooding.

[quote]Her sons and her boyfriend managed to grab onto some trees but the water stripped them stark naked .

Are there pictures?

People do not want to pay any taxes; especially the rich. They are convinced their tax money enriches crooked politicians (apparently now more than ever) and pays for unnecessary civil servants, which can be true. But that's largely a smokescreen.

Situations like this are a horrible consequence, and one incident will not make a difference. There will be more. How many more before there is a significant epiphany? Hurricane season awaits. Hope for the best but there is no path to preparing for the worst.

How many more must die?

"How many more must die?" - no amount matters. Look at COVID. We lost over a million Americans and everyone just shook it off and forgot about it.

We've had how many hundreds or thousands of kids die in school shootings? Doesn't matter one bit to them.

Republicans don't have empathy for anyone they don't directly know - there have been studies on the conservative brain. It's family and friends first and only. Screw everyone else. Or maybe people they know in their local church.

They really don't care about society and people - just THEIRS. As much as they want to say they do - all actions and statements prove otherwise.

I'll be watching this hurricane season with popcorn. Florida and Texas always get some mess - the season is predicted to be above normal. I don't care about them anymore.

If it all boils down to the way the conservative brain works, then I would think that lessens some of their moral culpability. Not saying that it is right, but someone with a "conversative" brain is just as unlikely to "see the light" and "become progressive" as you or I are to suddenly become MAGA.

Texas voted for this.

R29 is dead on correct. The crocodile tears about flood alert systems and camp staff training and evacuation drills and environmental protections and protecting children or whomever ...if it cost so much as one crisp dollar bill, a huge percentage of people --particularly asshole Texans-- will believe that their freedoms are being impinged upon and --worse!-- their personal freedom to not pay for shit that might benefit anybody but themselves.

It almost looks like a tidal wave.

Road consumed in under four minutes.

That camp had children housed in a cabin right on the river’s edge. It may be a hassle to have to monitor the weather daily with vigilance and a huge hassle to evacuate the cabins every time heavy rain is forecast, but you either do that or you move the camp — or this tragedy happens. It was going to happen one summer, the wildly negligent way they were operating.

R30 - I would say it's more about conditioning than a permanent mental state because we know when something happens to them or their family, all sorts of drama and emotions come out. They're not incapable of empathy - they just don't know how to expand it on a larger scale.

I would say it's more of social conditioning - and if they start to open up to caring about others that aren't like them or who they don't know, then their social peers will reject them and isolate them.

Plus there's just the factor of not coming across or dealing with other people - there's a reason why urban populations are blue and smaller towns and rural are red.

We're stuck with them unfortunately - sociopathic people with limited empathy outside of their frame of reference who refuse or who are brow-beaten into not changing by their family and peers.

[quote]Her sons and her boyfriend managed to grab onto some trees but the water stripped them stark naked

If I had a nickel…

[quote]How many more must die?

In Texas?

Many, many thousands, if not more!

Hold my beer.