Kerr County officials reportedly failed to activate a powerful public alert system that could have saved lives before last week’s devastating flood.
The Washington Post revealed that despite having the technology to turn every mobile phone in the river valley into a loud alarm, local authorities did not deploy it as the Guadalupe River swelled to record levels on July 4, inundating campsites and homes.
The system, which costs nothing, was implemented instead of an expensive siren system that county officials reportedly couldn’t get funding for.
It has also emerged that at Camp Mystic, where 27 campers and counselors perished in the floods, FEMA had removed dozens of buildings from flood hazard maps after an appeal, likely to lower insurance costs and be subject to less arduous regulations, the Associated Press reports.
On Friday, Donald Trump visited Kerrville, Texas, to assess the damage from last week’s devastating flash flooding. The president and First Lady Melania Trump met with rescue workers involved in responding to the disaster.
There have been at least 129 deaths, and more than 160 people are missing, one week later.
Texas flash floods death toll rises to 129
The death toll from the devastating Texas floods has climbed to at least 129, authorities confirmed on Saturday morning, as more bodies were recovered across affected counties.
Kerr County has reported at least 103 fatalities, comprising 67 adults and 36 children, according to its Joint Information Center.
Meanwhile, in Travis County, the death count rose to nine, up from eight, a spokesperson confirmed to USA Today.
Teen who helped family escape from van is among those killed in Texas floods
Malaya Grace Hammond, 17, of Marble Falls, was in a van with her family on their way to a Christian summer camp on Saturday. It was dark and raining, and they were unable to see that a bridge had washed out in Travis County.
Malaya was able to open a door, allowing the family to escape, but she was swept away by floodwaters, family friends said. She was found Monday.
An avid lover of the arts, she expressed her creativity through painting, dancing and singing, according to her obituary.
“Her ability to harmonise, I think matched her ability to harmonise with others,” her father, Matthew Hammond, said in a video posted Thursday on Facebook. “She felt that harmony was our natural state.”
Kerr County failed to use Amber Alert-style warning system ahead of deadly flood
Kerr County officials reportedly failed to activate a powerful public alert system that could have saved lives before last week’s devastating flood, leaving almost 100 dead and over 160 missing in the county. The Washington Post revealed that despite having the technology to turn every mobile phone in the river valley into a loud alarm, local authorities did not deploy it as the Guadalupe River swelled to record levels on July 4, inundating campsites and homes.
As the river began to flood, county officials eventually sent text message alerts, but only to pre-registered residents. Even as a federal meteorologist warned of worsening conditions and extreme risk, the more potent notification system, previously used for flood alerts, remained inactive. The National Weather Service, however, began sending its own alerts through this system from 1:14 a.m. on July 4.
The Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS) is a mass notification programme used by National Weather Service meteorologists for imminent threats. Like Amber Alerts, IPAWS warnings force phones to vibrate and emit a unique, jarring tone, provided they are on and have a signal. It also enables local officials to send targeted messages.
Abdul-Akeem Sadiq, a University of Central Florida professor researching emergency management, told The Post that residents are more likely to trust messages from local government. He suggested the alert could have made a significant difference, despite patchy mobile service and many likely asleep as floodwaters surged.
For years, Kerr County officials have discussed a more robust flash-flood warning system, including the installation of expensive sirens. Lacking that infrastructure, they adopted IPAWS, which cost nothing, to alert more people.
IPAWS had been activated by Kerr County twice before, most recently in July 2024 for flash floods. Just two days after this year’s deadly storm, amid further thunderstorms, county officials did use IPAWS to warn of another potential round of river flooding.
Trump calls reporter ‘evil’ for asking Texas flood question
FEMA found to have exempted buildings at old and new sites from country’s flood map hazard area
In response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county’s flood map to remove 15 of the camp’s buildings from the hazard area, a review by The Associated Press found. Records show that those buildings were part of the 99-year-old Camp Mystic Guadalupe, which was devastated by last week’s flood.
After further appeals, FEMA removed 15 more Camp Mystic structures in 2019 and 2020 from the designation. Those buildings were located on nearby Camp Mystic Cypress Lake, a sister site that opened to campers in 2020 as part of a major expansion and suffered less damage in the flood.
Campers have said the cabins at Cypress Lake withstood significant damage, but those nicknamed “the flats” at the Guadalupe River camp were inundated.
Experts say Camp Mystic’s requests to amend the FEMA map could have been an attempt to avoid the requirement to carry flood insurance, to lower the camp’s insurance premiums or to pave the way for renovating or adding new structures under less costly regulations.
Syracuse University associate professor Sarah Pralle said the appeals were not surprising because communities and property owners have used them successfully to shield specific properties from regulation.
Where in the world is the FEMA head?
My colleague Gustaf Kilander reports:
Trump defends officials as questions mount about response to Texas floods
Donald Trump has lauded state and local officials in the aftermath of catasrophic flooding in Texas, even amid mounting criticism that they may have failed to warn residents quickly enough that a deadly wall of water was coming their way.
The US president has repeatedly promised to do away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of his larger pledges to dramatically shrink the size of government, and he’s fond of decrying officials in Democrat-run states hit by past natural disasters and tragedy.
But, touring the devastation in Texas on Friday, Mr Trump struck a far more somber and sympathetic tone while visiting America’s most populous Republican state – highlighting the heartbreak of what happened while effusively praising elected officials and first responders alike.
“The search for the missing continues. The people that are doing it are unbelievable,” Mr Trump, seated with officials around a table with emblazoned with a black-and-white “Texas Strong” banner, said at a makeshift emergency operations center inside an expo hall in Kerrville.
He later added, “You couldn’t get better people, and they’re doing the job like I don’t think anybody else could, frankly.”
Since the 4 July disaster, which killed at least 129 people and left more than 170 missing, the president has been conspicuously silent on his past promises to shutter FEMA and return disaster response to the states. Instead, he’s focused on the once-in-a-lifetime nature of what occurred in central Texas’ Hill Country and its human toll.
“We just visited with incredible families. They’ve been devastated,” the president said of a closed-door meeting he and first lady Melania Trump had with the relatives of some of those killed or missing.
Memorial in flood-ravaged Texas city becomes focal point of community’s grief
A chain-link fence that separates Water Street in the center of Kerrville from the Guadalupe River just a few hundred feet away has become a makeshift memorial, with the flower-covered stretch serving as a focal point for a grieving community.
As survivors in hard-hit Kerr County begin to bury their dead, the memorial has grown, covered with laminated photographs of victims of last-week’s deadly flood that roared through camps and homes, killing at least 120 people.
“I just feel like this is a beautiful remembrance of the individuals that were lost here,” said Brooklyn Thomas, 27, who graduated from high school in Kerrville with Julian Ryan, a resident of nearby Ingram who died in the flood trying to save his family. “I think it’s something really cool for the community to come to see, to remember their loved ones, to share memories if they want to.”
Ms Thomas and her family affixed flowers to the wall near a picture of Ryan. The smell of fresh-cut flowers hung in the air as people placed candles and other mementos along the sidewalk next to the fence. Signs hanging from the fence read “Hill Country Strong” and featured an outline of Texas filled with rolling green hills. A large Texas flag stood on one end of the memorial, flapping in the breeze.
On Friday evening, about 300 people showed up at the memorial for a vigil with speakers that included faith leaders and some who told harrowing tales of narrowly escaping the flood.
Marc Steele, bishop-elect of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, said the memorial has become a place where people of all different faiths and backgrounds can come together and share their grief.
“We like to take opportunities like this to come together and pray to God,” Steele said, “and also Sunday mornings we come together and worship in prayer for our sorrow and thanksgiving for lives that were saved.”
FEMA removed dozens of Camp Mystic buildings from 100-year flood map before expansion, records show
Federal regulators repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic’s buildings from their 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous flood plain in the years before rushing waters swept away children and counsellors, a review by The Associated Press has found.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency included the prestigious girls’ summer camp in a “Special Flood Hazard Area” in its National Flood Insurance map for Kerr County in 2011, which means it was required to have flood insurance and faced tighter regulation on any future construction projects.
That designation means an area is likely to be inundated during a 100-year flood – one severe enough that it only has a 1 per cent chance of happening in any given year.
Located in a low-lying area along the Guadalupe River in a region known as flash flood alley, Camp Mystic lost at least 27 campers and counselors and longtime owner Dick Eastland when historic floodwaters tore through its property before dawn on 4 July.
The flood was far more severe than the 100-year event envisioned by FEMA, experts said, and moved so quickly in the middle of the night that it caught many off guard in a county that lacked a warning system.
But Syracuse University associate professor Sarah Pralle, who has extensively studied FEMA’s flood map determinations, said it was “particularly disturbing” that a camp in charge of the safety of so many young people would receive exemptions from basic flood regulation.
“It’s a mystery to me why they weren’t taking proactive steps to move structures away from the risk, let alone challenging what seems like a very reasonable map that shows these structures were in the 100-year flood zone,” she said.
Camp Mystic did not respond to emails from The Associated Press seeking comment and the agency said calls to it rang unanswered. The camp has called the flood an “unimaginable tragedy” and added in a statement Thursday that it had restored power for the purpose of communicating with its supporters.
Source: independent.co.uk