Incredibly sad: the Texas flood victims
We are getting more information on the victims of the Texas flash flood. It’s almost indescribably sad to see their photos and read their stories, including those of so many young girls. Many of the victims at the camp were around eight years old, which leads me to believe that particular cabin was hardest hit. There are also some sisters, including a pair of twins.
See this as well as this. So so sad. And now the governor of Texas is saying that at least 160 people remain missing.
And yet the left is trying to make political hay of such a tragedy. No surprise there; Katrina was the template.
The tragedy stirs up the age-old question of why bad things happen to good people. There are a number of choices. The first is that God exists but is not omnipotent. The second is that God exists but does not micromanage the world and create constant miracles; floods are the consequence of natural forces in nature. The third is to be an atheist. The fourth is the response of the Book of Job, which if I understand it correctly says that God exists but we cannot possibly understand His ways and should trust Him.
RIP.
The fundamental problem of faith.
“I heard upon his dry dung-heap
That man cry out who cannot sleep:
‘If God is God He is not good,
If God is good He is not God;
Take the even, take the odd,
I would not sleep here if I could,
Except for the little green leaves in the wood,
And the wind on the water.”
Archibald MacLeish, from his play J.B., based on the book of Job.
So much of what comes from the left these days boils down to “you deserve it, bigot.” A bunch of sickos.
The Texas Hill Country is prone to flash floods. Why Texas Hill Country is one of the deadliest places in the US for flash flooding
In 1998 I was teaching math in San Marcos, about halfway between Austin and San Antonio, at the eastern edge of the hill country. San Marcos got 25 inches of rain in 24 hours, flooding out many homes. After the deluge, San Marcos didn’t have any rain for five months.
Many of our friends on the Democrat side of the aisle will try to make political hay out of this. Or should I say former friends?
I found Dreher’s reflection on this whole tragedy rather interesting. In a way, it split the difference between a couple of the alternative interpretations that Neo mentions. But in another sense, he went beyond mere interpolation, as it were.
With a history like that, might one dare ask WTH all those summer camps were doing there?
And if those camps JUST HAD TO be there why there wasn’t extraordinary vigilance set up just in case history might decide to repeat itself (instead of merely rhyme)?
Sounds like Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport redux…
I have nothing to add here but to ramble. These things upset me immensely. I’ve read nothing beyond the headlines, that’s enough. The loss of a child is the worst thing that can happen to a person. I know a few who have. A dear friend of mine went from arm-chair atheism to militant atheism when his son died. That upsets me greatly, but what the hell am I going to say to him?
I despise atheists because they set themselves up, in effect, as being little gods. Who are they to say, emphatically, that there is no God, no Higher Power, only themselves? When the history of mankind, all cultures and all locations, worships a god or two? Atheists exempt themselves from the rest of mankind.
Yes, these are somber times.
My wife worked as a swimming instructor in one of those camps in Texas back in 1955. She has beautiful memories of that summer.
And we know what it means to lose a child. So many young ones gone or missing. The grief is enormous and takes a long time to process.
In the meantime, right here, we have lost a friend. Our daughter’s partner inn her counseling business passed away rather unexpectedly. She was a fit woman of 48 who ran marathons and did long distance swimming. She had recently (two months ago) been diagnosed with a tumor on her liver. She was being treated with chemo for the last month and a half. It was not considered to be a big deal. It would be cured.
About two weeks ago, our daughter was told that her partner had now been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had three months to live. A week later she died suddenly.
She leaves a husband and two wonderful children. Our daughter is devastated. He partner was also her best friend.
We thought the world of her and always enjoyed her company. She will be missed. RIP.
I’m so sorry, J.J.
This afternoon the lefty minions started posting how the deaths are Trump/Republicans fault. These people are truly the lowest. I’m trying hard not to sink into my own hatred of them. Just recognizing that there is something seriously wrong with many of our fellow citizens.
Mrs Whatsit:
MacLeish was an excellent poet.
Deepest condolences, J.J.
Yes, the youngest girls at Camp Mystic were in the two cabins closest to the river. They weren’t VERY close, and had never been washed away in previous floods.
The Alabama mother says that this will never be right short of heaven.
The LORD giveth, and the LORD taketh away. Blessed be the name of the LORD.
I had an exceptionally busy series of events starting on July 3, and missed all of the early and not so early news on this tragedy.
So I looked up the timeline of events and got this:
(More at the link)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/texas-flooding-timeline-how-rapidly-rising-waters-killed-dozens/ar-AA1I20Tn?ocid=BingNewsSerp
And there is Gringo and Bary Meislin’s comments above.
It’s kind of hard for me to fathom the story. Some news item mentioned that there is no cell service at one or more of these campgrounds. My quote above says that notices went out on weather radio and WEAs for mobile devices. So some people couldn’t get the WEAs without cell service?? But they could have used weather radio if they really wanted to be prepared. That first urgent emergency notice went out at 1:14AM, which is rather late at night.
I don’t know much about the specific technology involved in the WEAs, except that it sounds like it is tacked onto SMS text messaging technology. Which is OK as far as it goes, but really is rather substandard for emergency purposes, especially when there is little signal strength.
I have the impression that we, as a nation, aren’t really trying hard enough to resolve this rather basic issue of communication during emergencies.
A Birmingham, AL, NWS employee pointed out that a NOAA weather alert radio would work without cell connectivity and would definitely wake people up. These radios are inexpensive. He says all people living in or visiting in these flash flood-prone areas should have them. The problem appears to have been local emergency notifications and not the NWS, which did its job. From stories I have read, people who got out in time were people who happened to be awake and looked at their phones or looked out the door.
The Alabama NWS man also said he thinks there is a problem with the weather service, in many locations, issuing too many warnings. People begin to assume that it really isn’t too bad because it never has been before. In many places people do the same with tornado watches and warnings. Ho hum, another one, we’ll be fine.
I went to college in Seguin, TX, which is on the Guadalupe River. I remember a day in 1982, when from a cloudless sky, within 15 minutes we got 16 inches of rainfall. My friend left his window rolled down on his VW, and after all this, it had water above the seats in it. Seguin is in the hill country and flash floods are common, but people still insist on building in the flood zones.
Barry Meislin:
I have read that Camp Mystic has been there for 100 years, with nothing like this having happened. Perhaps there were previous floods there – although perhaps not – but I’ve not read about previous fatal floods at the camp. I think this may have lulled them into a false sense of security.
It’s terrible, but keep in mind that every generation that came before us has died. Every person they ever knew died also.
Tomorrow our church is having the funeral for the former long time lead pastor – about 30 years. Neither young nor old at 73 – died of heart trouble.
Sunday at church the younger pastor spoke moving words about the loss of lives in the flood and the loss of our former pastor.
But he also reminded us that believers have hope.
There were six baptisms in the service I was at.
Hi Alan,
Seguin is south of the Balcones fault line…technically “not” the hill country, but the Gulf Coastal Plains that stretch from San Marcos to the Gulf of America.
The Guadalupe there, like along much of its course, IS prone to floods because of the limestone formations that are so close to the surface. I grew up canoeing the Guadalupe & have fought my way through a flash flood like you describe in a canoe on the river north of New Braunfels…buckets fell upstream & the waterwall caught us before we could get to higher ground…so we paddled & prayed until we got to where we could get out.
The problem is intrinsic…geography & topography. Nothing for years & then…
I wouldn’t say false sense of security…but risk assessments don’t factor “acts of God & nature” very well.
Interesting Kate,
I’ve had a weather radio around since about 1987 when I started board sailing off the coast of California, so I could get timely wind info. Some weeks ago, I thought about tossing it out. ? It’s so passé isn’t it? Until it saves your life.
It is possible to transmit modest amounts of text data reliably with incredibly low radio signal strength. There’s nothing about that process that is more sophisticated than the tech that’s already in our smartphones. Except it’s a little bit different than what’s in them. But emergency preparedness always seems to be an afterthought because the need for it is rare.
I wrote this po(l)em(ic) nine months ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, when the usual suspects on the Left were not at all upset about the way the Biden Regency had politicized FEMA, with dire outcomes for people in Deplorable Country (in this case, western North Carolina).
_____
CLEANSED
listen
I tried hard
to wrestle
this pissed off poem
into a nice dress
with ruffles
& a lacy skirt
& a petticoat
layered in
finest crinoline
to attain the height
of southern
ladylike fashion
but here on the roof
we’re watching
an SUV surf
the Swannanoa
& you can’t
even imagine
not because you’re dull
but because
Party loyalists
in the media
judge it best
not to spill the tea
just thirty-one days
in advance
of the election
so instead you hear
Dear Leader
interrupt his nap
& say we’re happy
as clams in
FEMA Region 4
delighted to be
so fully
washed
so gratefully
economically
cleansed
in sum
I hope you’ll excuse
this pissed off poem’s
unlovely
pissed off appearance
forgive me
but I’m
pissed off too
must be the weather
Well ok, Biblically speaking, Enoch and Elijah didn’t die. But everyone else has.
But it hurts so much when we loose someone close.
Here we are four days out from the disaster North of Us here in the Hill Country, the Guadalupe runs from NW out from us, Mystic Camp 45 miles away, Kerrville 30 and the river is seven miles right North of Us. I was up on the bridge across the Highway South of Sisterdale two days ago just driving past and looking. The rescue and recovery people have requested civilians stay out of the way and let them work, with their helicopters, horses and dogs as they recover more folks who were killed. The riverbed is a total mess of uprooted trees, cars, trucks and trash stacked up in a chaotic mess.
We are doing well here in Boerne we are a few hills away from Kerrville where one of my best friends from childhood Joe C. lives, now that he retired from Seattle, Washington ten years ago. My friend lives up hill North of Kerrville and he has a generator that runs on propane that he can get working when he needs it. My friend and his wife have an older friend who lived (past tense) in a mobile home in a low area, it was large and she rented out part of it to another couple and the wife is 6 months pregnant. Long story short, the lady friend ended up in a tree where she was able to get down the next morning and the couple were rescued from a tree a bit later when a farmer heard them calling for help. He took a long extension cord, not plugged in and used it for a rope, tied to a tree where he waded out to the folks in the tree, they tied the cord to the tree and they were all able to make it back to land safely. This is the only second hand story I have so far but that was a bad situation and so very sad.
We do live in an imperfect world where things, unforeseen things, can and will happen, and as we reflect back our human nature wants to attach fault to someone who could and should have prevented these terrible occurrences. The desire to file a lawsuit against those responsible is part of our culture and it’s even better to some it they can find fault with the opposing political party because of Karma or something instead of allowing folk to grieve and feel their pain. Let’s respect all who are in mourning and share the grief for those who have passed on.
I read that they were about 100 yards from the river’s edge.
I read today a quote to the effect that the camp personnel went to bed the night before aware of “routine flash flood warnings.” Evidently they’re issued so often and so broadly that they’ve lost much of their effect. People are discussing sirens, which some counties already have, and they do seem like a good idea. There needs to be a loud, urgent audible warning, for people outside cellphone range, when it’s not just “flash flood danger as usual” but “terrifyingly huge wave coming your way, get to high ground NOW.”
A “flash flood” can be considerably less dangerous and still get the label. After a dozen or so warnings over a couple of years which do no damage, what’s one more?
The Cry Wolf issue is real.
A story from NOTUS (site discovered following link in a Blazing Cat Fur post from Barry) —
https://www.notus.org/virginia/glenn-youngkin-family-texas-flooding-storm
“Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin revealed on Tuesday that his family was rescued from the deadly flooding in Texas last week.
His wife, Suzanne Youngkin, and other members of his family were stranded at a property they own on the Guadalupe River in Texas on Friday. Youngkin told reporters that Texas officials offered to help rescue the family, but he said they should first help out others in more immediate danger when it became apparent his family was secure.
“My family was there, along with friends, and by the grace of God, my family was safe,” Youngkin said after an event Tuesday celebrating his cutting of regulations in Virginia.”
CNN’s daily story feed has actually been pretty good, although they mentioned Schumer’s criticisms of Trump & DOGE, they also mentioned the rebuttals.
Some items of interest were their graphs and maps.
The layout of Camp Mystic
https://ix.cnn.io/dailygraphics/graphics/20250706-tx-flooding-mystic/static/media/ai2html-graphic-mobile375.44f2236a.jpg
A map showing the extent of the flooding. You would have to get the city names from somewhere else, but it is interesting that there is a long stretch that doesn’t show any overflow; I wonder if there are cliffs there along the river?
https://ix.cnn.io/dailygraphics/graphics/20250707-tx-flooding-extent/static/media/ai2html-graphic-mobile375.20342db3.jpg
A story about a dog named Superman, rescued by an animal shelter.
I loved his expression in this picture.
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/superman1.JPG?c=original&q=w_1280,c_fill
I live on the outer, northern edge of suburban San Antonio, and know the Hill Country pretty well. The rainstorms and potential flash flooding are always given predicted warnings before they hit, but only a few delivered more than a sprinkle. Another storm about two weeks ago, delivered 6.5 inches of rain as noted by my rain gage … and at 5 in the morning, a flood surge on Salado Creek took out a line of cars waiting at a stop light on Perrin-Beital Road, just down the road from where I live. A horrific storm system on Memorial Day weekend in 2015 flooded the Blanco River and barreled through the town of Wimberley – again, at night. (my daughter and I were coming back from a blog-gathering in Austin, and skirted the edge of that storm. The rain poured down like Niagara Falls.) On a holiday weekend, where there were many visitors who weren’t as familiar with the area as locals are. in 1998, another huge storm dropped more than 24 inches on the Hill Country – and the next day, all that water poured down the various rivers and creeks and flooded out large sections of San Antonio.
I do agree with the above – about flash flood warnings given out so frequently that very soon one begins to ignore them. I also suspect that it being a long holiday weekend brought a lot more people into the Hill Country – into hotels, campgrounds and rental cottages, which otherwise might have been emptier.
I did see one story on FB about a RV park in the Hill Country which evacuated in time, as one of the visitor’s dogs kept barking and barking in the wee hours. Finally, the dog’s owner got up to see what was the matter – saw the water rising (which had agitated the dog) and went around, pounding on the doors of the other RV guests. I will remember this, the next time that my dogs annoy me by barking in the wee hours of the morning.
Rod Dreher has video of rescued Camp Mystic girls singing songs of praise as they are driven out of the flooded area. Powerful:
https://roddreher.substack.com/p/youths-praising-god-in-the-flood
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” I try to keep these words of St. Paul (Romans 8:28) in mind when it’s hard to wrap my brain around tragic events like this.
Glad for the links. It was a unavoidable tragedy.
There’s an interesting observation for those not from Texas and similar climes. It’s the size of the storm drain openings.
In Michigan, the drain openings along the gutters or in parking lots is about a foot by a foot and a half.
My daughter lived in an apartment in the Dallas area some years ago. Their parking lot had twelve slots. At the lower end, the storm drain looked like a whale’s mouth. For those of you of a certain age…remember the grill on a ’55 Chevy?
And you can see the same thing all over the state.
Whatever the annual accumulation in Texas and similar areas, they get it HARD when it happens.
Now a flood in New Mexico:
___________________________________
New Mexico flooding leaves 3 dead as fast-moving water sweeps through mountain resort town:
Rio Ruidoso rises 5 feet above previous record, governor signs emergency declaration
https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-mexico-flooding-leaves-3-dead-fast-moving-water-sweeps-through-mountain-resort-town
___________________________________
This includes quite a video of a house uprooted and hurtling down a brown river.
@huxley:Now a flood in New Mexico:
This is going to be “flood summer”, is it? Like “shark attack summer” in 2001? Is the national media going to latch on to every flood and try to make the country hallucinate some kind of sui generis flood crisis?
Where I live we get flooding in fall almost always and spring sometimes. There’s a few roads where the houses have one, or two, blank stories. If I see those in national media I will know what is up. It’s easy get dramatic-looking pictures of it.
Philip Sells: “I found Dreher’s reflection on this whole tragedy rather interesting.”
Someone else also linked Dreher’s piece. I appreciated it. He pushes back hard against “everything happens for a reason”. One of my best friends wrote an excellent book after their eight year old son died within 24 hours from a blood infection. He also pushed back against those who say God wills and controls everything that happens. Dreher focuses largely on the example of Christ who cried (as did my friend when they learned their son had died) “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
We cry out. And trust God. We hold these two in tension.
In Morgoth’s Ring (edited by Christopher Tolkien) is a dialogue between Finrod Felagund and an elderly woman named Adanel. Finrod carefully distinguishes two elven words for “hope”. One (amdir?) is hope in the sense of optimism. The other is estel, which Finrod explains means something more like deep trust. We get a taste of that when Gandalf and Pippin are in Minas Tirith and boy it looks like the forces of Sauron are going to win. And when Aragon leads the combined armies of the free peoples of Middle Earth to the Black Gate of Mordor.
“We’re going to die. But we trust and don’t give up”.
In my own preaching – especially at the dear church in Livingston where we served for five years and which experienced grief and loss during the pandemic – I have sometimes said something along the lines of “the purposes of God are ultimately for good”. Which is not wrong. But might not be the best thing to preach to families reeling from the illness and death of a beloved family member.
My mentor in the United Methodist Church gently corrected me and said “it’s a mystery” and to leave it at that.
I don’t know how it rains elsewhere. Here on the coast north of Corpus Christi, I follow storm cells often on Weather Underground, and it’s not at all uncommon for the severe ones to show an intensity of 10 inches an hour. I see them fairly nearby every few weeks. The area affected tends to be small, but if it happens at the head of a funnel-shaped riverbed, it can generate a very high very fast flash flood.
Lucky for us, we’re near the coast where it’s nearly flat. When we get 10-20 inches of rain, some areas flood, but the water isn’t moving fast.
People forget that the actual range of a cellphone is quite low…it just seems unlimited because there are a lot of cell antennas around. But when you’re in an area remote from antenna coverage…
AM radio signals, though, should be receivable just about anywhere.
Also, for cell phones, there are conditions where a voice call cannot be completed but a text message will get through.
@ David Foster > “Also, for cell phones, there are conditions where a voice call cannot be completed but a text message will get through.”
We learned to communicate that way when AesopSpouse goes camping and I’m at home (which is most of the time).
He also takes at least one of his portable ham radios, more if the adults know how to use them, and has a mobile unit in each car.
Plus the 40′ antenna at the house.
And lots more toys.
@@Niketas Choniates : This is going to be “flood summer”, is it? Like “shark attack summer” in 2001?
New Mexico has flash floods every year and according to the average, one person dies every year. So three dead in a NM flash flood is unusual.
Plus I’ve never seen footage of a large NM house plummeting down the brown waters of a flash flood.
I don’t know whether this flood relates to the one in Texas, beyond being an area prone to such floods.
Re: shark attacks — I feel required to mention we just had the 50th anniversary of “Jaws” a couple weeks ago. 🙂
It’s never a mistake to cue up Dreyfuss, Scheider, Shaw and the Great Fake Shark to relive the magic of the first modern Hollywood summer blockbuster.
@huxley:every year and according to the average, one person dies every year. So three dead in a NM flash flood is unusual.
If one person dies on average once a year, then in 37% of years nobody dies, in 37% of years one person dies, and the rest of the time more than one person dies. 3 people would die in about 6% of years, roughly 1 in 20. Unusual, certainly.
Plus I’ve never seen footage of a large NM house plummeting down the brown waters of a flash flood.
There we’d get into media selection bias. Video of a house being washed away in a flood is rarer than houses washing away in floods, but more common than it used to be with the ubiquity of phone cameras. I can find a lot of them online for floods in recent years that I don’t remember anything about. I don’t have any way to ballpark how common that should be.
The worst flooding where I live was in 1975, long before I was here. The only fatalities, fortunately, were cattle, but hundreds of people had to be evacuated from their homes. There was a rush of water when a dike failed, but the real problem was just that everything was under water for days.
In the Seattle metropolitan area you will see million-dollar houses (i. e. 3-4 bedrooms) packed in tight together next to giant, flat, open green areas without trees. There is a very good reason they are not built on… For the most part the flooding here is very predictable. The annual flooding usually closes some of the roads and some towns where people commute are entirely cut off.
I see previously, CV quoted Romans 8:28. Earlier in the passage, Paul talks about the future hope Christians have as creation is restored to it’s original purpose. Paul was writing to Christians in Rome who were suffering for their faith.
Tragedies like the one in Texas remind all of us that none are exempt from the forces of nature that God has put in place.
That hope is available to everyone that accepts Jesus as their Savior.
Michigan gets its Great Lakes ration of rain, but it’s a matter of frequency, not intensity. Don’t recall getting more than three inches in a day since 1985 when there was a heck of a storm on the center and eastern portions of the Lower Peninsula..
It’s “monsoon season” in the Southwest. This means thunderstorms and flash floods happen. The horrible flood in Texas was from the remnants of a tropical system which unfortunately stalled and dumped incredible amounts of water in a small area. Awareness and improved warning systems are the only possible defense.