The Guadalupe Flood Tragedy

As Texas state government shamefully did in the wake of the Uvalde school shootings, in the tragic flood event of the Guadalupe River in the Hill Country outside San Antonio, we see state emergency managers immediately go into ass-covering mode. They blamed the National Weather Service for not predicting the severity of the storm well enough. Never mind Trump has depleted the abilities of the NWS to function, the NWS still did their job. There are a lot of accusations being cast about and misinformation from all sides on why the great loss of life happened and what could have prevented it. Here's my attempt at some clarity.

The exact amount of rainfall from any storms popping up in this area is hard to predict exactly, particularly in the Hill Country. When we do get rain which isn't often, it's not unusual to have massive amounts drop in small areas while nearby areas see little. It's a bit like the "train echo" effect of thunderstorms in Florida where in one West Palm Beach neighborhood a staggering 9 inches fell in three hours once. My immediate neighborhood in San Antonio absorbed six inches in 24 hours three weeks ago without me thinking it had been anything dramatic or any sign of flooding at all. Five miles away eleven people died when their cars were swept into a raging creek at a low lying crossing. When that much drops into the thin soil and bedrock of the Hill Country, none gets absorbed and it flows right into the creeks and rivers, picking up massive amounts of debris along the way. The debris dams up the water in places, backing it up, until it becomes catastrophic flood waters. Also even without debris exacerbating it, the natural flow ways of the rivers in this largely dry environment reflect that they're only used to carrying a foot or two of water most of the time. They're totally unequipped in their natural flow path to handle even 10 foot water levels, much less 20 to 30 foot water levels.

The NWS got its first flash flood warnings to evacuate to higher ground out around midnight Thursday night. We get these as loud alert warnings on our cell phones in this area. Impossible to miss. At that point it's on people in danger areas to take action. The staff of Camp Mystic and other camps on the river should have immediately woken all the girls and started moving everyone to higher ground. Tragically, one of the attractions of the camp for parents sending their kids there is no cell phones or social media for the kids during their stay. So unlike in some school shooting incidents where kids notifying the outside world saves lives, all the kids were completely unaware of the danger. It was all on camp staff to take action. Maybe they did the best they could and the logistics were too much and it all happened too fast, I don't know. The other thing is we get flash flood warnings in heavy rains all the time, it's the nature of this area. So maybe complacency has set in since it's been decades since the last similar tragedy in that part of the Guadalupe. Only a decade ago the tragic Wimberley flood happened on the Blanco River, though, devastating the area between Wimberley and San Marcos.

While NWS did its job on issuing flood warnings early enough, the next steps of coordination with local emergency management was apparently diminished by NWS no longer having a local emergency management coordinator due to Trump's cuts. On top of that Kerr County doesn't apparently have a lot of emergency management to coordinate with and take effective action across a sprawling rural Hill Country county. They don't have their own flood warning system either - when asked about that the county judge, the senior elected public official, said people didn't like paying taxes for such things so that was why they didn't have one. Also Kerrville officials in general seemed to be blithely unaware as late as 7 or 8 in the morning what was coming downriver, when people upstream had already been swept away. They were posting warnings that July 4th festivities might be dampened due to the excessive rain, and there was some growing flood danger. Maybe people will start to learn there is a purpose for government, and taxation to provide critical government services that save lives. Too many people seem totally disconnected from the importance of government and don't want to pay for it until disaster strikes, and then they wonder where it is.

Anyway, this was an unimaginable tragedy and my heart goes out to all those who lost loved ones. But as the blame game takes hold in the aftermath, let's keep our eyes on the fact that while some level of tragedy is unavoidable in natural disasters, a lot is avoidable through good government, strong public services, and planning. For every major hurricane that has hit Florida in the past few decades, I'm always amazed at how little loss of life there is in each one. And many of the deaths attributed to the storms are people out on the roads getting into accidents. It's because the whole state knows every year it can happen to them, and a system has been put into place both on a government level and individual preparation to be ready. The refrain of everyone who got complacent in coastal areas and said "I'll ride it out, it's never as bad as they say" is immense regret of "I should have listened, never again" when they do get overwhelmed by a massive storm surge and are lucky enough to live.

Since writing this, I found an NPR timeline of events with a lot more detail. https://www.npr.org/2025/07/05/nx-s1-5457759/texas-floods-timeline

The Guadalupe at my favorite park in Comfort, Texas on an ordinary summer day in the drought. The flood waters would have been twenty feet up the cypress trees in this photo.