UPDATE: Flash flooding slammed the Texas Hill Country overnight on Friday. At least 27 girls from a summer camp next to the Guadalupe River remain missing.
— NPR (@npr.org) July 5, 2025 at 11:58 AM
I’ve been working on this post for a couple of hours, but I guess WaterGirl didn’t see my draft…
Multiple deaths have been reported in Texas and rescue efforts are underway as flash flooding threatens communities.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) July 4, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Texas officials blame local weather prediction services for not predicting the devastating flooding that has now killed at least 24 Texans.
— Aaron Parnas (@aaronparnas.bsky.social) July 5, 2025 at 10:23 AM
There have been claims that NOAA/NWS did not foresee catastrophic TX floods–but that's simply not true. This was undoubtedly an extreme event, but messaging rapidly escalated beginning ~12 hrs prior. Flood Watch mid PM, "heads up" outlook late PM, flash flood warnings ~1am.
— Daniel Swain (@weatherwest.bsky.social) July 5, 2025 at 11:50 AM
As always, this is not to blame the victims! Quite the opposite; this truly was a sudden & massive event and occurred at worst possible time (middle of the night). But problem, once again, was not a bad weather prediction: it was one of “last mile” forecast/warning dissemination.
I am not aware of the details surrounding staffing levels at the local NWS offices involved, nor how that might have played into timing/sequence of warnings involved. But I do know that locations that flooded catastrophically had at least 1-2+ hours of direct warning from NWS.
One thing I do know is that this part of TX Hill Country is (in)famous for sudden and violent flood risk; that’s an intrinsic product of being a hilly region with “flashy” watersheds subject to occasional but very extreme precipitation events arising from bathtub-warm Gulf.
I’m not really clear on why a region so well known for its severe flash flood susceptibly apparently did not have a better warning system in place. That’s something I’m sure others with better local knowledge can dissect in greater detail.
But this does illustrate a few tragic and uncomfortable truths. The first is that even quite good weather forecasts do not automatically translate into life-saving predictions–there’s a lot of other work that has to take place to contextualize the forecast and ensure it gets to right people.
The second is that the NWS historically has done a very good job at that forecast contextualization (outreach to local governments, emergency managers, outdoor recreation facilities, etc.). But that’s one of the first things to go away when offices are critically understaffed.
The third is that this kind of record-shattering rain (caused by slow-moving torrential thunderstorms) event is *precisely* that which is increasing the fastest in warming climate. So it’s not a question of whether climate change played a role–it’s only a question of how much.
The fourth is that *exact* location and intensity localized to regional-scale convective storms (i.e., clusters of intense thunderstorms) are something that, in almost all cases, cannot be pinpointed days in advance with extant predictive tools–even in theory.
That means that while predictions can correctly highlight specific regions at high risk of extreme rainfall/flash floods from such events (as was the case here), it’s not possible to predict the exact amount of rain at specific points from t-storm downpours so far in advance.
Predicting such storms is at the cutting edge of science right now, and the stakes are rising in a warming world in which they are intensifying. Yet this is precisely the kind of research that NOAA/NSF have funded in the U.S. over decades that is at imminent risk of disappearing.
Additionally, some of NOAA’s very high resolution convective-resolving models (designed specifically for this purpose) were the ones that best predicted this incipient disaster. Yet these very same models are on the chopping block this year with the proposed NOAA budget.
All of this is to say: I think it’s simply untrue to say this is a story about how the NWS somehow made a bad prediction or did not issue timely warnings in this case–that’s just demonstrably untrue. The more proximal causes of the tragedy are otherwise. But…
But there are clear intersections between flood disaster in TX & ongoing conversations surrounding federal budget & massive cuts to NWS operations & NOAA/NASA/NSF weather/climate research–precisely at a moment in which we are seeing more events like this due to climate change.
Trump’s DOGE Cuts Are a Texas-Sized Disaster
#RepublicansKillAmericans
www.texasobserver.org/trump-texas-…— Thomas Keepout (@thomasworking.bsky.social) July 5, 2025 at 3:12 PM
… It is not exactly breaking news that Texas is vulnerable to extreme weather, with recent hurricanes and wildfires fresh in mind, nor is the well-documented effect of a warming climate in magnifying severe weather. Just look to the growing count of billion-dollar natural disasters (severe storms, drought, flood, wildfires, severe cold). For example, from 2020 to 2024 Texas suffered 68 of these costly events, with Florida second at 34.
By upending the federal status quo around disaster relief, states like Texas could be left without a paddle. The largest federal program directed to the threat is Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster aid, followed by companion assistance for damaged homes from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and help for impacted businesses from the Small Business Administration. A breakout by state of aid from these federal agencies since 2017 shows that Texas and Florida, each receiving about $18 billion, account for almost a third of the 50-state total.
DOGE already cut roughly 20 percent of FEMA’s staff and moved to freeze its funds. And Donald Trump has repeatedly signaled his interest in shifting disaster relief responsibilities entirely to the states. On June 11, he made that threat more concrete by saying that his administration would start phasing out FEMA after this current hurricane season ends in November. “We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said. “A governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can’t handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor.”
That, of course, would be bad news for Texas, where Republican leaders routinely play politics with disaster response and relief. Further warming in response to continuing greenhouse emissions ensures that the cost of climate change-augmented storms, floods, and wildfires will only increase with Texans prominent among the victims…
The state has developed some ambitious plans for its vulnerable coastline, the most prominent investment being the Galveston Bay Storm Surge Barrier System, better known as the Ike Dike. It would be carried out by the U.S. Corps of Engineers in coordination with the Gulf Coast Protection District (GCPD), which the state created in 2021 to implement coastal resilience projects. The price tag of that project is huge. In 2021 the Corps estimated that it would cost $34 billion, which would make it the agency’s most expensive project ever. But only two years later that estimate had risen to $57 billion, and whenever the project is ultimately funded the cost will surely be higher…
@svdate.bsky.social
— George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 (@gtconway.bsky.social) July 5, 2025 at 1:55 PM
MAGA having a real normal one in response to the tragic flooding in Texas
— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) July 5, 2025 at 2:07 PM
WaterGirl
I did, in fact, check the back room before posting, and I did not see you working on anything.
bbleh
“Conservatism can never fail; it can only be failed.”
Bless the hearts of those TX officials for being right on the ball at assigning blame to NOAA. That’s the kind of responsiveness you get from state-level government!
(Also note to Dem “leadership” presently “keeping our powder dry” in safe places under their desks: do you really think “regular Americans” will blame Republicans for upcoming disasters due to cuts in funding for Medicaid, FEMA, etc., if this is the sort of response they hear almost immediately after anything happens? Just askin’ …)
Elizabelle
The NY Post has been covering this. No paywall. In 1987, similar flash floods drowned 10 kids and chaperones from a Christian camp.
The Guadalupe River, which winds (usually sleepily) from hill country TX down to the bays and eventually ocean south of San Antonio.
Photos of the girls camp bunkroom, which clearly took water to the ceiling.
WTFGhost
Who wants to bet that they considered such a system a stupid liberal priority, and simply waste, fraud, and abuse? I know I wouldn’t bet *against*, at any odds.
Elizabelle
There is something especially sad about death while the little kids are still awaiting their two front teeth. School shootings. Floods.
brantl
THIS IS A JOB FOR fema! Oh, wait…….
Wapiti
I think of the Oregon coast, tsunami route signs, and marked gathering places… Makes me think that maybe places with higher than average risks should have multiple ways of alerting people.
Jay
20 kids were rescued from the Children’s Christian Camp by their parents, before the flood who had paid attention to the flood warnings.
The Children’s Christian Staff ignored the parents warnings.
The Children’s Christian Camp was built on a known floodplain.
Apparently, zoning is DEI/Woke in Tex-ass.
dnfree
@WaterGirl: I think this comment might be partly directed at the first snarky comment on the post about Harris. It irks me no end that people get snappy about what gets posted when they think something else should be higher priority.
Guess what, fellow “jackals”? None of the front-pagers gets paid and they all have numerous other things they could be doing besides posting here for our benefit and edification and contemplation.
Thanks, front pagers!
Jackie
@WTFGhost: Maybe this?
FFOTUS, Muskrat DOGE, DHS Sec Noem, AND the MAGA Congress ALL have blood on their hands.
zhena gogolia
@dnfree: Right.
Thanks, AL and WG!
trollhattan
@Jay:
I looked up Houston, which got nailed by Hurricane Harvey after allowing tens of thousands of homes to be built in the floodplain. They now require a 500-year flood designation. Better late than ever, I guess.
Those maps will need re-re-redrawing as precipitation extremes reach new historic #s and the hydraulic models dictate it. This is where developers and landowners tend to don their Snidely Whiplash costumes and fight like hell to “let things be.”
Percysowner
This brings to mind the song Mighty Day by the Chad Mitchell Trio
I played that record over and over as a kid and the song certainly shows the terror and destructiveness of a storm. Texas has had these calamities over the centuries, you would think they would work to give sufficient warning.
@Jay:
That is sickening.
I hope some of those kids are found alive.
TaMara
Having lived through the devastating flash floods of 2013 here, I can tell you, that the phrase FLASH FLOOD is key here.
Went to bed on day two (I think) of a steady, non-threatening rain. Flood watches were out, nothing out of the ordinary – more like if you’re traveling through the canyons, keep a steady eye out type of thing. Woke up to my entire city (and several others) completely cut off from the world, neighborhoods along the river and near the railroad tracks, washed away, and several deaths (nothing like Texas right now).
The only reason there were not more deaths is because as soon as those in charge realized what was happening – they had about an hour, I think, because it started upstream – first responders were pounding on doors, evacuating people.
I can’t imagine these poor souls in TX, but flash floods ARE NOT like other flooding. Unless you plan on evacuating areas at every warning, it’s as unpredictable as a tornado or a sudden wildfire,. You can warn folks that there’s a possibility, but where it will happen and when varies by event, and it happens fast.
So no victim blaming. The number of assholes who just “knew” we could have avoided what happened here in my neck of the woods can get fucked.
But, the cuts to those in charge of monitoring these events and giving people as much warning as humanly possible, plenty of blame there.
Raoul Paste
Almost 2 months of golf days out of a little over five months in office?? If we had a non-corrupt media, every citizen would know this.
WTFGhost
So: did two flood posts merge, or one go away? I’m only asking, because, hey, malfunctioning brain, so, I need to check my maybe-false memories against reality.
zhena gogolia
@WTFGhost: I’ve only seen one.
WTFGhost
@TaMara: I won’t blame the victims (for sure!) but there’s a part of me that will still say “defense in depth costs *money* and TX only cares about LOW TAXES” in my head, even if it were to turn out that nothing could have been done. I mean… sometimes, that means “nothing, that we can imagine now, could have been done” but, if we’d done what we could, maybe we’d have imagined more, too.,
Elizabelle
And no FEMA. Which was actually quite a professional and useful agency. Texas today, where next?
It’s all so foolhardy. Climate change is real, and it seems to be unfolding more savagely than expected.
Cannot pray this — or anything, really — away. And — surprise! — the federal government can do a lot of things much more efficiently and even effectively than the states.
Elizabelle
@WTFGhost: WaterGirl pulled her flood thread.
TaMara
@WTFGhost: There’s plenty of blame to throw around the TX government, for sure.
Here, too. Low income and trailer park homes were built on flood plains because it was allowed (no longer) and never should have been. We were lucky and with great thanks to first responders, that the death toll was not much, much higher.
Knowing that extreme weather events are happening at great frequency and ignorning it and not preparing your tax-paying citizens, deregulating every chance, leaving businesses to decided what is safe or not (including this church camp), that’s what where things need to change. And not just TX – everywhere – here, CA, etc, etc.
Despite all the fire damage from the horrible wildfires here in 2022, cities and counties decided it was too expensive to require the new homes being built to have fire-resistant features.
This kind of shit has to stop.
WTFGhost
@Elizabelle: Ah, thanks. Reality is as I remembered it. Strange about that orange pterodactyl that flew by, but I’ve lived with worse.
H.E.Wolf
Adding my admiring thanks to the chorus.
Scout211
Jay, would you please post a link to that? There is no reporting in the news that states that the staff ignored parents’ warnings. If you have a legitimate link to that, please post it.
Josie
@H.E.Wolf:
As do I.
Miki
@TaMara: Thank you for this. I have no more knee-jerk bandwidth left for blamers right now. Rescue, yes. Recover when it’s time for that. Mourning follows.
Then do what you need to do to help people get through yet another disaster.
Josie
@TaMara:
Gosh, you are being logical and forward thinking. Why am I guessing that our current administration (both U. S. and Texas) will not follow your logic?
trollhattan
@WTFGhost: That is a thing that happened. I had commented on the first and it wanished (Pavel Chekov voice).
Now there is this one.
SiubhanDuinne
My maternal grandmother was born in Kerrville in 1892; her sister, 21 months earlier, in Uvalde. I was raised on stories of their small-town Texas childhood. So although I’ve never been to either of those places, both the 2022 school shootings in Uvalde and the current devastating floods in Kerr County are just tearing me up. All these decades ago, and the connections still feel personal. It could so easily have been a member of my family.
WaterGirl
@WTFGhost: I pulled my flood post that went up shortly before Anne Laurie’s flood post.
I learned about the flood after I put up the Lurker’s post, so I had my flood post written for quite awhile, not wanting to step on the lurker post, because the lurkers tend to stop commenting on those posts as soon as another post goes up.
Once Anne Laurie put up her post about Kamala, the lurker post was no longer at the top, so I put up the flood post, not realizing she had been working on hers while mine was sitting there.
Anyway, we all try, but shit happens.
TaMara
@WaterGirl: People think the backroom is some orderly, organized place, like your local library.
When it’s more like the bargain basement at Filene’s (only some will get that reference).
We do our best…
😉😘
zhena gogolia
@TaMara: We love you all!
JPL
TX should be prepared for flash floods. The severity of the storm is more extreme though. It’s not time to finger point and hopefully the alert system will be improved.
BTW I’m never complaining about Fulton Cty. texting, calling and emailing me again.
@TaMara: I loved shopping at Filenes in Boston, decades ago.
Betty
@WaterGirl: I don’t understand why anyone should have a problem with any of this. Let me add my thank you to you and Anne Laurie for all you do to keep this blog informative and relevant.
WaterGirl
@TaMara: It’s just like on Lou Grant and shows about newsrooms where everyone sits around a table and talks about the stories they are working on, and then they go off and do their thing. //
:-)
Jackie
Sickening: A MAGA + Q combo?
I expect we’ll see more of this.
MobiusKlein
I want to be the mature level headed responder, but I also recall The Gays being blamed for Katrina swamping New Orleans.
Betty
@Jackie: Kandiss is a real piece of work. Her campaign slogan was Jesus, Guns and Babies.
trollhattan
@Jackie: Fake bwaaaain.
Or, Abbie something.
AliceBlue
@Jackie: When she was running for governor, she complained about the globe in her child’s classroom because she doesn’t believe the earth is round.
Jackie
@JPL:
Sure. The same governor is in charge today who failed to protect Texans from freezing to death in ‘22, while the same senator who hightailed it to Cancun is still senator. Texans keep voting to keep them in office – including the president who’s dismantling FEMA and NOAA.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Jackie:
This to me seems a supremely short-sighted approach for Texas especially. My own experience with TX disaster prep is limited, but I can recall two Christmases (passing through there) where Houston froze so thoroughly that the entire ATM network broke down because the machines were not rated for the low temps and ceased functioning. Apparently portions of the economy stopping dead due to weather events is an acceptable condition there.
I will also mention that fail to understand Enron a lot less after seeing how ERCOT operates.
Ohio Mom
@TaMara: I get the Filene’s reference.
pat
@Jay:
Can that be true? Parents come and pick up their kids and leave the rest to the ignorance of the people running the camp?
I don’t even want to think of the shame they are feeling now. And I certainly hope the “counselors” were among those swept away.
Jackie
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): GMTAL :)
WTFGhost
@Jackie: She’ll need to spin the wheel of Trump excuses.
“I was being sarcastic.”
“It was a joke, since you’re unfamiliar with the concept!”
“I never said it was ‘Fake, fake, fake.'”
“You know, the terrible thing is, I had every reason to think that was true, because it’s just what liberals would do, if they could!”
They Call Me Noni
@Ohio Mom: Isn’t that where ladies go and fight over wedding dresses?
RevRick
Two things:
1). I love how the Texas Observer has pointed the finger at DOGE and Trump shenanigans for this disaster. Local media is often far more effective in covering news.
2). As someone who is working on climate change legislation, I can totally get behind MTG’s batshit crazy notion of making injecting chemicals that affect the climate into the atmosphere a felony. It would completely dismantle the petrochemical industry. No more carbon dioxide, methane or hydro fluorocarbons! ExxonMobil would drown in lawsuits.
JPL
@Jackie: Ages ago, I got caught in a flash flood in TX, but nothing like this. I picked up my son early from a b=day party because of flood warnings, a half of block later, water filled over the seat of the car. Fortunately, I rolled down the windows before the car stalled out. A young teenager was able to help my son out and my mom with a cast on her ankle and I were able to climb out the back. (station wagon) It’s so quick.
JPL
@They Call Me Noni: OMG At the original basement store, they’d fight over underwear.
They Call Me Noni
@pat: They may have thought or assumed that other parents would be paying attention to the weather warnings and would act accordingly. Hindsight is 20/20 and I don’t know if I would be too keen on dragging other people’s kids out of that camp. Especially if I don’t know them or their parents. It definitely is a heartbreaking situation.
hells littlest angel
In a state where you can store explosives or hazardous chemicals next door to an elementary school? Yes, it’s a mystery.
They Call Me Noni
@JPL: I thought it was in New York. I’ve learned something new today!
Scout211
I am waiting for Jay to post a legitimate link. There is no reporting yet on that in the news and I also would like to know if that is accurate or a social media claim .
Josie
I live in Houston and I can attest to the fact that lately these torrential storms can pop up out of nowhere. I remember driving home one time during a driving rain, barely seeing the dividing line on the highway in front of the car. I couldn’t see well enough to pull over to the side of the road. It was terrifying, After I got home and opened up my computer, I had an alert that had just been sent out from the city to watch for sudden rainstorms. I was still shaking from the drive, but I had to laugh.
I think it has to do with climate change because it hasn’t always been this way.
hotshoe
@Elizabelle:
I am not going to snark about “this is what they voted for”, I swear.
BUT
BUT the camp at the center of today’s tragedy is known to be the site of previous flash floods, within living memory.
Why was the camp even allowed to remain in that location? Yep, allowed by slack local government, “property rights”, “protect our free exercise of christian religion” etc, but why the goddamn hell wasn’t the camp at minimum forced to prove that they had a sufficient warning system and evacuation plan?
Even at 1AM and even with only one hour’s warning from the NWS — the warning which was available as we know — the camp management could have succeeded in evacuating all their little people.
They chose not to.
They are murderers.
Pro-life murderers.
RevRick
@They Call Me Noni: That’s the basement.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I love how the conservative solution is the assign blame and call it a day with no thoughts on what should be done to correct the problem.
trollhattan
@Jackie:
I’ll just leave this here.
https://www.chron.com/politics/article/greg-abbott-tree-lawsuit-explained-19574621.php
pat
@hotshoe:
Yes, and I wonder if the managers were all swept away as well.
Lyrebird
@Scout211: @hotshoe: Right now I am sure that most efforts are geared towards rescue, so I don’t expect a fully clear story, but FWIW I haven’t found this Thursday afternoon warning that CNN lists (see below) mentioned in this in-depth Texas Public Radio story.
The TPR story mentions that the region is known as “flash flood alley,” for better and for worse. ETA: “for worse” – maybe like some places known for having hurricanes all the time, people sometimes scoff at warnings bc they’ve seen so many, not believing it could be a lot worse this time.
ETA: @pat: wonder if the managers were all swept away…
..the TPR link says that the director and some others have died.
trollhattan
Remember the Social Security spam email discussion? Politifact gives it a look and concludes “Mostly false.”
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/jun/30/donald-trump/trump-tax-social-security-reconciliation-bill/
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@pat: The US has an entire national political party convinced of the brightness of being brutally unhuman to the entire nation unless/until it impacts them individually and personally. We should expect many more situations where parents comfort themselves with “at least my kids are safe” while their kids’ counselors and classmates all perish (those parents having done nothing to help the others), rather than less.
scav
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Why correct the problem? a) it’s how god collects angels, wouldn’t wanna interfere, especially if it costs money and b) if anything gets fixed, you can’t blame the opposition again when it happens again.
Elizabelle
@hells littlest angel: So true. Laughing. Sadly.
Jackie
@trollhattan: Wow. Reading that article shows that Abbott is even slimier than I (we?) realized.
azlib
I lived in Austin from 1963 to 2000. It has been known for years the Hill Country is notorious for intense localized rainfall which results in rapidly moving flash floods. You can have localized rainfall events with over 15 inches of rain in less than an hour. One year my spouse and I were at a friends house when an intense thunderstorm hit Austin. We drove room across several low water crossings without any issues (e.g. no water in the crossings). I’d never cross a low water crossing with water of any depth. We found out the next morning a couple known to us were drowned at one of the crossings just a few hours later than us. That is how fast the water can rise in these events.
I will leave it to investigators whether there was adequate warnings issued, but I suspect the cuts at NOAA were at least a part of the response problem.
Jay
@Jackie:
QAnon is already on it with their weather machine conspiracy’s.
hotshoe
@Lyrebird:
Good.
Saves the surviving parents from wondering whether they should try to take revenge on the camp management, and a lifetime of regret that revenge wasn’t sweet after all.
mrmoshpotato
I hate Dump, DeathSatan, and Abattoir, but no one in any state deserves this shit.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@WTFGhost: I posted a comment to the Water Girl post, which has indeed vanished. So you are not imaging things. Probably better to only have one post on the topic at a time, and AL’S has far more links. But thanks, WG and AL, for the posts. Dreadful news.
lowtechcyclist
According to the WaPo, Mystic Camp is the name of the girls’ camp that had 20 children missing. According to their story, they had had over 700 children at the camp.
I think Jay is referring to a previous disaster, since he refers to the camp as Children’s Christian Camp. But I’m less than 100% sure of that, and he has a bad habit of providing hard-to-substantiate facts without links.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@WaterGirl: thank you and AL!
They Call Me Noni
@RevRick: oh. I’m really into fashion, can’t you tell?
mrmoshpotato
The Trump trash bitching about fake hurricanes, etc is something else! Hot diggity dumbshits!
Elizabelle
@hotshoe: I don’t know why they did not have a better response. It will all come out, eventually.
Climate change is going to bring more and more of these extreme weather events. Whether the powers that be in the Lone Star state believe in it or not.
bjacques
@TaMara: I shopped at the ones in DC, New York and Boston!
Elizabelle
At least Trump and Melania inform us they are praying for the victims. That has to be enormous comfort.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@hells littlest angel: come sit by me 🥰
They Call Me Noni
@JPL: I cannot imagine fighting over underwear! Not the ones I wear anyway.
Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
from https://www.campmystic.com/
”
Camp Mystic is a private Christian summer camp for girls. Established in 1926, Mystic is nestled among cypress, live oak, and pecan trees in the hill country of west-central Texas on the banks of the beautiful Guadalupe River. Mystic is located near the geographical center of Texas, 18 miles northwest of Kerrville. The staff at Mystic strives to provide young girls with a wholesome Christian atmosphere in which they can develop outstanding personal qualities and self-esteem.
Each summer, Mystic challenges its campers to meet the Mystic ideals:
Campers develop life-long friendships with other campers and counselors. They also learn incredible life skills. A summer camping experience at Camp Mystic is an important investment in your daughter’s education.”
I saw the reference to parents pulling their kids out on a 3 line paragraph in a story from late last night. it was 1:128 stories on the flooding. there are now as of 5 hours ago, 4897 stories just in general on the flooding and headlining the missing girls.
Over the next few weeks we will eventually get a timeline of the flood events, if some other disaster, war or DJTdiot spews something “newsworthy”.
hotshoe
@lowtechcyclist:
Yes, the camp which is the center of this specific disaster is Camp Mystic.
There were hundreds of children (and presumably staff) in residence this week.
According to AP news, the older girls’ cabins are on higher ground, younger campers are on the river bank.
A nearby boy’s camp was also flooded: their camp staff and boys are all reported safe.
Geminid
@hotshoe: Thar may have been the manager of a different camp. A San Antonio news site said the manager of the “Heart of the Hills” summer camp was confirmed dead, and that this camp was not in session. The missing girls attended a different camp, “Camp Mystic.”
I’ll go back and look up the article.
Elizabelle
FWIW, this could have happened in North Carolina with Hurricane Helene, or in mountainous terrain, as in several states.
What is interesting, though, is that it happened in 1987 too (ten kids and adults killed when their evacuation church bus was overtaken by water), different Christian camp nearby on the Guadalupe River. Which rose 25 feet in 45 minutes, and then more.
Jackie
And while our attention is focused on the ongoing tragedy in Texas, this happened:
We can’t keep up with all the atrocities – both natural and man made – happening all at the same time.
Miss Bianca
@Elizabelle: 25 feet in 45 minutes. That is unutterably terrifying.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Holy shit, that sounds scary.
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: Yes. And not in the middle of the night. It would have been terrifying.
Odie Hugh Manatee
While my heart goes out to the missing and dead children in this disaster and I hope that more are found alive, I have absolutely no such empathy for the parents who have voted Republican forever. They set this disaster up and it will happen again because it’s Texas. No local warning systems in place for an area known for nasty flash flooding, building camps in riverbeds because property is cheap and profit is to be maximized, even at the risk of life.
Two of the counties where this happened voted >75% for Trump and his minions in the Republican party. The only thing I have to say to the so-called adults in this mess is that if you elect nothing but wild dogs you get nothing but fleas and worms.
Scout211
ICE Barbie is defending her boss.
So we should all hail Trump because even though he cut staff, offices and budgets for the NWS, he is upgrading the system and fixing the technology!
I’m sure that will be great comfort for the grieving families.
Ugh!
Sandia Blanca
@Geminid: Two camp directors died, from separate camps. That Texas Public Radio article linked above is the source.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Scout211:
This will be the talking point template for this and stuff like it going forward:
Blame Biden and the Dems while saying “we’re in the process of ‘fixing’ the mess Sleepy Joe and the Dems left us”.
And then never ever mention how nothing will ever get fixed because they’ll always be “in the process of fixing the mess the Dems left us”.
Chief Oshkosh
@Jackie: To say nothing of the rolling black-outs EVERY FUCKING SUMMER because, hey, who knew? It gets hot in Texas in the summer.
And the fucking morons keep voting the same shitbirds in year after year after year after year.
Elizabelle
Dead white people, including young white girls, so the NY Post has been all over this story. It has knocked savaging Mamdani off the top of their website. You can read their coverage; paywall disappears after you click twice on “continue without supporting us.” [May have to refresh the page a few times before you get that red and white screen.]
Anyway, some photos of damage at the camp, from the NY Post.
And: NYP provided link: Texas Monthly ran a 2011 story on how political and social leaders sent their daughters to Camp Mystic. Laura Bush was a camp counselor there; LBJ’s daughters and their daughters and grands attended.
Article is by Mimi Swartz, and she is a fun and acid-tinged journalist.
Texas Monthly, July 2011:
The Not So Happy Campers
For more than seventy years, Camp Mystic has been a sparkling oasis in the Hill Country for Texas girls to escape the heat and learn archery, kayaking, etiquette, and sisterhood. But rising land values, old rivalries, and lawsuits have now hurled the camp’s owners into a four-year, multimillion-dollar family feud that is viciously pitting siblings, cousins, and even former campers against one another. What will become of this fairy-tale summer paradise?
Professor Bigfoot
@WaterGirl:
@TaMara:
We love you. Thank you both for all you do down there in the basement.
Elizabelle
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Maybe so, but we don’t need to amplify it. They are going to come up with all manner of crap and lies.
I like this place for finding links to local and national journalism that is enlightening, not obfuscating.
Chief Oshkosh
@trollhattan: All the more reason to park ol’ Greg at a Christian summer camp and just let nature take it’s course.
Scout211
NBC goes there, and good for them.
bold added
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Something like this happened in Nelson County, Viginia in 1969. The flooding was caused by remnants of Hurrican Camille, which had already killed over 200 people when it came ashore on the Gulf Coast.
The flash floods occurred after midnight, which contributed to the toll. I think estimates were that around 150 people were killed. I remember reading that a van from Nelson was carried down the Rockfish and James Rivers and washed up in Richmond, 80 mles away.
That event spurred the formation of Virginia’s emergecy warning system
Jackie
@Scout211:
We ALL KNOW that’s a crock of bullshit.😡
Kirk
If I try to pick up other people’s children, the site will legally and rightfully tell me to get stuffed unless I have the written approval of those children’s parents/guardians – possibly even if an actual emergency is in progress, but certainly if no emergency process has begun.
Those parents went because they watched the warnings and decided the risks were too great to leave their children in place. But the official trigger for evacuation had not been sounded by the state. No official emergency existed.
They may live with regrets but should not be shamed for not getting more children. Instead they should be praised for seeing what was needed to protect the ones they could save.
Elizabelle
Here’s a paywall free archive.ph link to the Texas Monthly story on The Not So Happy Campers.
Reading it now. And Camp Mystic does sound beautiful. Further, Dick Eastland died in yesterday’s floods, trying to rescue some of the campers.
From the article: I love longform journalism.
Geminid
@Sandia Blanca: Thanks. I got my information from the My San Antonia news site. Their article reported Ms. Ragsdale’s death but not the Camp Mystic director’s.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Yes! I remember Camille. And came upon a roadside marker (near Lynchburg??) a few years ago about the deaths and was astonished. Had not known that at the time. (I plead being a grade schooler.)
Elizabelle
Current Texas Monthly reporting on the floods, via archive.ph: free link.
The Guadalupe Rose Again, and the Hill Country Mourns
Catastrophic flooding hit Kerrville overnight. Fourth of July revelers and campers are feared lost in the floodwaters.
The reporter was camping with his wife and children further down the Guadalupe River, safe beyond a dam. And: the news starts coming in about what is occurring upstream. He remembers the 1987 floods from his childhood.
They Call Me Noni
@TaMara: And your best is fantastic. I appreciate the work of all the front pagers and insights from commentators. I learn something new every day. And I also find that I don’t know nearly enough. Thank you all.
Eyeroller
@azlib: That’s why there were so many flood gauges at low crossings. But it seemed too frequent that people would drive right into water if it didn’t hit the 5′ level. If the wheels lose contact with the ground a car easily can float and be swept downstream with a strong current.
trollhattan
In case it’s not been linked already. Stevie and Texas Flood.
Librettist
Home owner insurance providers will be doing a mass dropping of households in the region in 3…2….1….
Elizabelle
Witnesses reported seeing a family float by in their camper van, and not knowing whether they escaped or survived. It seems to have all happened so fast.
hotshoe
@trollhattan:
Thanks for the reminder. Classic!
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: Listening to it now. Thank you. And the youtube comments are fun. Several people either played with, met, or got an almost private concert from SRV.
They Call Me Noni
@Scout211: Who do they think they’re kidding here? Everyone knows you don’t take down a whole system. You run both systems until you are certain the replacement works.
As if they have a backup system ready to run. //
Baud
@They Call Me Noni:
The same people they’ve been kidding.
Mai Naem mobile
I didn’t see anybody mention radio stations which are frequently owned by big companies who pipe in a dj pretending to be local but who could be doing the same show in several states. I know people talk online and tv but radio can still be good for local emergencies which would include NPR stations. The NPR station in NC apparently helped out a lot getting info out during Hurricane Helene.
Balconesfault
My sister, who runs a ground water nonprofit in San antonio, posts:
“Folks serving on Texas’ 16 Regional Flood Planning Groups have been warning local governments about fixes needed to prevent flooding for 3 years. Despite recommendations to prohibit new building in floodplains and advocacy for buying out those that are, our warnings have largely been ignored. I reviewed a plat for a new development last week that proposed 49 new homes and a waste water treatment plant in the floodplain of the Perdernales. The floodplain administrator, a local dairy farmer, had already approved the plat. I honestly don’t know what it’s going to take to keep people safe as long as our politicians and local governments ignore recommendations and forgo regulation.”
chemiclord
@TaMara: As someone who has seen many library back rooms… you might be astonished at how much of an unmitigated, unorganized mess they are.
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
And your point is, um, that you were right to assign a false name to the camp, based on your impression of what the camp was about?
Or you could just say you goofed, and apologize.
Either way, I’ve run out of patience with you. Pie time.
Martin
There are laws against picking up other people’s kids without their parents consent. I’ll keep my opinions about the usual professionalism of religious institutional staff to myself.
trollhattan
@Balconesfault:
It will become like Florida where the state has to be the the insurer, as no private companies will touch those homes with a barge pole and the lenders will require flood insurance.
Whee!
Phylllis
@mrmoshpotato: Hard to wrap my head around the fact that in my lifetime we’ve gone from James Lee Witt (if I remember correctly, only having a high school diploma) to the smoldering wreck FEMA is today.
Elizabelle
43 deaths; 28 are adults; 15 are children. 24 girls from Camp Mystic not yet accounted for.
ETA: 43 was figure from the WaPost. NY Times says 51.
Scout211
@Elizabelle:
Updated
Lyrebird
My bad for introducing a wrong connection. Thanks for looking up the correct info.
Another Scott
I haven’t read any of the news articles, but the discussion here made me curious to see a topo map.
It looks like there are several dams on the Guadalupe River and Cypress Creek. And the camp site seem pretty flat, with pretty high walls in the area. A flash flood there would indeed seem to be a textbook picture of a disaster area.
:-(
Peace and comfort to everyone affected. And brickbats to the officials who are trying to blame others who were sounding the alarms.
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Phylllis:
Of course, after Witt made FEMA into a viable organization, Dubya handed it over to Heckuva Job Brownie who had no experience in the field of disaster relief and prevention. Can’t remember who ran FEMA under Obama, but Obama found someone to restore it to the level of professionalism that Witt had instituted.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist:
Lord, I first thought it was a misspelling of James Watt, a Republican’s Republican.
Scout211
I couldn’t either so I searched it.
William Craig Fugate.
Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
Yeah, I did not name the camp, I just said it was a Children’s Christian Camp.
#8
They Call Me Noni
@Scout211: The fact that we can’t recall his name means he was competent.
Geminid
@Lyrebird: No, you were right. I did not read the NPR article you linked to and went by the My San Antonio article I had read.
Gloria DryGarden
I never made it to filenes basement, though ive been to Boston. we had things to do. Is it more like the ARC on a Saturday morning, or like the goodwill outlet with the huge long bins and tables full of mixed miscellanea ?
Tamara, I remember that flooding, wasn’t it a 100; year or 500 year, rainfall? My rain gauge in east Denver goes to 9”, with room for another inch, and it over flowed. it’s a lot of rain. I think it only takes an inch or two of rain to pour down into canyons and make a massive flash flood. We sort of learned our lesson about flash floods when it happened to the thompson in 1976. Next time I was up that-a-ways they had signage everywhere about flash floods, very clear that the only way out of the canyon in a flood, was up, fast, abandon your car, go now.
Great that they were pounding on doors. Strange that people can live in the floodplains. I wonder if they could harness the amber alert cell phone system, and the Wednesday tornado test alert system, and use it for the big weather things.
Its sad that Texans didn’t heed the flood warnings, and have some contingency plan, esp having camp on a flood plain, in hilly flash flood country. Even most Christians have heard that god helps those who help themselves.
natural disasters hurt people. Funding, prep, planning, early awareness helps, and fema used to help. Literacy and agreeing to listen to science reports helps. There
arehave been so many difficult and painful devastations.Nature does stuff. Humans do stuff. The human instigated stuff, and our stupidity, bothers me most. I’m still in a turbulent upset about kidnapped USA residents being flown to an unreachable place in Sudan, or El Salvador, ( and being tortured there) and concentration camps shuffling Canadians around the US by number not name so they can’t be tracked. And by the war death numbers, the gun violence numbers, the hate crimes and suicide numbers. Some of that is only one or two degrees of separation away. Local, or you know someone who lost someone.
I’m reminded I need to check on my North Carolina friend from Hendersonville, she almost drowned being swept down river, their house was messed up, etc.
It all hurts. Silent inner screaming… so many things. And most weeks someone died in Ukraine, that gin &tonic personally knew. Each person is hit hard by different things.
Gloria DryGarden
@Another Scott: peace and comfort to all who are affected.
be it so.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Jay: with the capitalization, you seriously implied that was the name of the camp. Just apologize already.
On the other hand, I now know a lot more about Camp Mystic and its place in rich white Texas culture.
Lyrebird
@Geminid:
Thanks again Geminid!
mrmoshpotato
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Excellently said! Nominated.
Booger
@Geminid: There is a story of trees blowing out of the ground during that storm because of the water in the soil…near the Moorman river if I recall correctly.
azlib
@Eyeroller:
Yes, there are flood gauges on the low water crossing. The problem is they are hard to see at night in a driving rain.
Jay
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
So, Christian is not Capitalized,
Children is not Capitalized,
Adult is not Capitalized,
Camp is not capitalized,
Y’all ‘Merkins have really funny spelling rules.
There is no “Christian Children’s Camp” in Texas.
There is Camp Cho-Hey, Carolina Creek, Sky Ranch Christian Camps, Tanglewood Christian Camp, Sandy Creek Bible Camp,
I stopped counting at 66 google returns but no “Christian Children’s Camp” anywhere in Texas.
Madeleine
@TaMara: thank you, Tamara, for the personal and general information about flash floods.
Honus
@Booger: turkeys drowned because they turned their heads up during the rain. Even in recent years hunters and hikers will find cars in remote hollows. However, it was more likely the Rockfish river in Nelson than the Moormans, which I believe is all in Albemarle county.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: I think you’re saying, a quick google search would have clarified for anyone, even though you used capital letters, that you had a category, not a place name.
now you have me thinking about religions which do or don’t get capitalized. And I struggle with cursor placement to fix my many many uncapitalized proper names. So let’s see how this experiment goes.
I’m thinking Christian is often capitalized, also usually, Islam, Muslim, Druze, Druid, Confucianism, Shintoism Buddhism Judaism, my iPad didn’t think Judaism got capitalized so I had to manually do it. Sikh. Jainism. Bon.
Zoroastrian, Wiccan ( iPad says yes), pagan, cult, evangelical, sect, Hindu. Animism. Not sure, shamanism…ramenism…atheism, Unitarian, religious science, Mormon. LDS, Earth based, Norse, Celtic… bible thumper, parsee (wow, I thought it should be capitalized)m witchcraft. Of course, if a religion isn’t considered valid or mainstream, it gets called a cult..
Kenneth J Fair
@Jay: I actually know the family who runs Camp Mystic, which has been there since 1926. They are good people who care deeply about the camp and the campers. There is no way they would have simply ignored warnings of unsafe conditions. I don’t know where you got this information, but it is simply untrue.
The camp is actually on fairly high ground in the area, but it’s not high enough for a 20+ foot rise in the Guadalupe River in less than 2 hours. And the entry road into the camp is on the low side, so the only real way to evacuate once the water started rising would be to hike up into the hills behind the camp.
Kenneth J Fair
@Elizabelle: I hadn’t heard that Dick Eastland died. That is such sad news—he was a really top notch guy who cared immensely about Camp Mystic. His wife Tweety is, thank goodness, apparently okay.
mayim
@TaMara:
Late to the thread~ but I get this!
I spent my childhood in clothes from Filene’s Basement ~ our twice a year trips to Boston to see family always included new clothes, as NY had sales taxes on clothes and MA didn’t. My frugal Yankee mother liked saving that 7%.
Of course, she had bought her wedding dress there. In fact, she told her supervisor she was engaged by telling her that she needed to take her lunch at 9:30 the next day to go to the annual wedding dress event at Filene’s.
The version that ended up in malls was barely even a pale imitation
I joke that I developed my hockey elbows at Filene’s ;-)
hotshoe
@Kenneth J Fair:
Seeing what as 700 or so campers (and staff) survived from Camp Mystic, there obviously is some route to escape the water or to stay above water long enough to be rescued.
“By Friday afternoon, Texas Game Wardens had arrived at Camp Mystic and were evacuating campers. A rope was tied so girls could hang on as they walked across a bridge, the floodwaters rushing around their knees”
That doesn’t explain why the upper-class-expensive-and-very-profitable camp didn’t have flood alarms, didn’t pay any of their staff to monitor the NWS emergency warnings, didn’t make a cautious decision to evacuate the youngest girls (who are assigned the riverbank cabins) to whatever higher ground allowed the other 700 girls to survive.
Good thing the director has died. If I believed in hell I would wish him into it.
Aggieric
I haven’t been a Central Tx local for 24 years, but the explanation for this isn’t difficult:
Ummm….it’s Texas. ‘Nuff said.
Soprano2
@Scout211: While they cut off the NWS access to military satellite data that they use to help forecast hurricanes. 🙄🙄🙄 FFOTUS’ people will never take responsibility for any of it because they believe they are making things better for the people who really matter – millionaires and billionaires
ETA lots of people underestimate the power of water. Every year we have people in cars swept away because they ignored a low water crossing warning. People don’t understand how fast water can come up.
mayim
@Gloria DryGarden:
The real [original] Filene’s Basement is no more,unfortunately.
It was the literal cellar of a regular department store. Closest current comparison would likely be closer to a TJ Maxx in how it was set up. Items had tags with automatic markdowns ~ so did you buy the skirt you really liked now, or take a chance that it would still be there on the date on the label when the price would go down?
Some items were carried routinely [the Danskin clothes for girls I wore for much of my childhood, for example], plus special events ~ like the annual wedding dress sale. [My mother in her Filene’s Basement wedding dress.]
Jackie
AP goes to the NYT so can’t post link.
WTFGhost
@WaterGirl: Oh, yeah, I understand. It’s just, I need to make sure I know when I’m remembering things clearly that are different, because they should be, and when I’m not starting to think things are different, because I’d *prefer* them that way.
Because, you know, Lathe of Heaven wasn’t a *happy* movie.
Sometimes, I realize it’s because my brain misfired, and I’m remembering something similar from a month ago – no harm, no foul. It’s okay – yes, it was similar, and, if things didn’t misfire, I wouldn’t have had any problem recognizing the difference.
It’s just, when my memories are going that far hither and yon, it’s time to stop shopping on Amazon, not create any online betting accounts,
don’t take any extended vacations at my underground lairuh… et cetera.hotshoe
@Kenneth J Fair:
I need to add that you should refrain from spreading your own special untruths.
We know the facts: the area was warned. Warnings were not listened to or were not acted upon.
Rain began to fall around midnight, and the first flash flood warning was issued by the NWS at 1:14 a.m. Friday.
The most serious warning came at 4:03 a.m. when the NWS issued a flash flood emergency, warning of an “extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation” and urging immediate evacuations to higher ground. Flash flood emergencies are issued using a mixture of rainfall data and on-the-ground reports: “Someone has told us we need to get people out of here immediately or people are going to die,”
Even short-staffed and demoralized by Dirty Don/Elon’s hacking away at federal govt, the NWS did what they’re supposed to do.
And the filth in Texas govt are trying to save their own skins by pretending it’s the feds who are to blame for local inaction.
Don’t lie about that.
hotshoe
@Soprano2: Visiting a military base in central California, my destination was on the other side of a very shallow river. I could see the concrete of the crossing through the water. I stopped and got out of the car to see how deep it got. The wheels of my little car are only about shin-tall, so I decided not to cross anyway. But I’m not claiming I’m smart, I’m just a fraidy-cat.
Funny, I’ve never gone back to that location, even though in CA the shallow rivers dry up completely for about six months of the year, so it would be safe most of the time.
WTFGhost
@Jay: Um… capitalization rules… well, “styles,” technically – would suggest that “Christian Children’s Camp” is a specific title – like “Three Blind Mice,” a nursery rhyme, versus “three blind mice”, three unsighted rodents of specific genus and species.. So, yeah. Christian is capitalized, because Christ is considered a proper name, and the derivative, “Christian” is therefore also capitalized.
But “Christian children’s camp” would be the proper way to indicate a children’s camp that has a Christian background/association/etc., in almost all style guides I’ve seen.
@Gloria DryGarden: “Shamanism” isn’t generally capitalized, because it’s a method of practice. I’m a “shaman” in the sense I follow that path, but by my tradition, I’m not a “shaman” to anyone else, unless/until they choose to call me such… it’s a title of respect, like “sensai” or “sifu” (I hope I have both of those correct). “And people think it’s a great and grand honor, bestowed by the elders, upon the newly anointed, when, in fact, the elders are chuckling evilly and rubbing their hands together in glee to have caught a new sucker, while readying themselves to help said sucker through the inevitable panic….”
Similarly, “pagan” isn’t capitalized, but, (unless someone’s started a schism) all Wiccans are pagans, because Wicca is a specific, proper name for a religion, different from, say wicca, just the word; “pagan” is a pretty blanket term, though it used to mean “those people you can beat up in the name of God.” More or less, I mean.
Asatru is also “pagan” and, again, proper name for a religion, so, it gets caps, but “pagan” is still the generic “… and the rest, here on Gilligan’s Isle!”
Jay
@WTFGhost:
I understand the confusion, I don’t understand the hostility.
Msb
This is horrible. I went to Camp Mystic (about a million years ago). It was a gorgeous place.
sab
@Msb: Thank you for showing it as something beyond some stupid label ( Christian girls camp.) It was much more than that.
The county should have had better alerts. The camps are its bread and butter. Bread isn’t just manna from heaven. It depends on local people doing their jobs.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
ISTM that the camp itself should have been more on top of things as well.
I was wondering how many counselors they had for 700 campers. I was a camper and, briefly, counselor at a summer camp in tidewater Virginia that had 75-80 boys each summer. There were one or two counselors in each cabin, plus the owner of the camp and his right-hand man who weren’t in any cabins, so there was about a 5:1 or 6:1 ratio of campers to staff. If there had been an emergency, there were a lot of staff to help get the kids to whatever sort of safety was available. (The Mattaponi was a tidal estuary where we were, and the cabins were on the level ground a good 25-30 feet above the river, at least as best as I can remember from a place I haven’t visited in 55 years, so at least we didn’t have to worry about flooding.)
Which if Mystic had had a similar ratio, that would have been at least a hundred counselors and other staff on the premises. You’d think that once there was a flash flood watch, someone would have been charged with staying up to monitor the alerts and get everyone up if the watch turned into a warning. I also wonder what sort of evacuation plan they had, not just for floods but for tornadoes.
I can kinda understand why they had the younger kids down near the river, and the older girls on higher ground: at a summer camp like that, the kids would spend a fair amount of time each day either in or on the water, or both. Swimming lessons, free swim, canoeing, fishing, etc. Having the littles near the water would mean they wouldn’t have to walk as far for all that. But that just assumed there would be time to evacuate the kids in an emergency, assuming they thought about this at all.
Sherparick
@WTFGhost: I don’t think property developers, selling “river front property,” want highlight that given the topography & geology of the region that the lovely little river can kill you every 10 years or so. 2015 was last tragedy in the area.
Sherparick
@dnfree: Yes thank you guys.
Elizabelle
Texas is going to get dragged into the 21st century on flood risks and preparation.
Camp Mystic was an expensive (and lovely!) summer camp that housed girls from wealthy and well educated families. They are not going to go along with the “the Lord wanted to call these lambs home, and what can you do?” approach.
One San Antonio attorney already rescued her daughters, and has been clear that the weather/flood warnings were out there, if you cared to look.
Tragedy that no one was awake and monitoring the safety of the youngest girls, who were closest to the river. That is negligence that borders on criminality.
This reminds me of the Conception diving boat tragedy in California a few years back. That one killed 34 divers, along with a staff member also sleeping below deck. Charging electronics above board caught fire, with no one on watch.
That ship was a firetrap waiting to happen. I would not have slept in a hostel with those conditions; escape was going to be difficult or impossible in an emergency.
BUT: it was the way the company had always done business. And the Coast Guard approved that boat (shame, shame there).
I don’t think people realize how much some individual businesses and even industries rely on luck.
Texas’s may have just run out here.
No updates on the death count. But those young girls, and others, are not reported safe.
Elizabelle
@Msb: It does look like it was gorgeous. Would have been fun, and definitely built some skills and confidence in its campers that were lucky (and wealthy) enough to attend.
Elizabelle
@lowtechcyclist: All good points. We will learn what was, or was not, in place soon enough.
Obviously not enough personnel to ensure safe evacuation. But I wonder how much the staffing depended on the campers being well-behaved little girls from “proper homes.”
Sherparick
@Jackie: I think she is claiming that the Liberal, “Globalist” George Soros, Muslim, Communist, & NOAA Hippies conspiracy has been “manipulating the weather with “chemtrails,” etc. as reported from the RW industrial Infotainment complex conspiracy theory generator machine.
Elizabelle
@Sherparick: And yet. Somehow they did not raise a finger to save Los Angeles during this winter’s catastrophic fires. Funny that.
brantl
@pat: remember, you can’t take other people‘s kids without the parents’ permission?