ilikestuff_2010 said:

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Unfortunately, Probst was our pediatrician. Im happy to see she immediately got the axed.
She is a vile human to have those thoughts. Undiagnosed stage 4 mind virus.
It sickens me to know that we trusted our children with a crazy radical that would wish ill will on anyone based on politics.

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With where medical schools have gone in the last 2 decades, I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of doctors under the age of 33 are just like that.

Sad state of affairs.

Pass an undeserving or get sued into oblivion.

NWS union chief; 'Trump's right on NWS doing it's job in Texas.'

Some claimed they never received alerts.

Quote:

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Fahy said, "The forecasters did their job. There [are] very few times when I'll be in a position that I have to agree with the President of the United States. When he spoke last night that the forecasters at the National Weather Service offices at San Angelo and San Antonio got the forecast right, the President said they did their job, and they did."

He added, "I saw one timeline from one of the forecast stations at 3:38. I realize that's only a 22 a 20-minute difference from 4:00, but, in this case, minutes count. The forecasters immediately saw what they had to do and issued a catastrophic alert, which triggered, of course, the flood emergency warning. That, of course, goes out onto the…weather emergency alert, that weather emergency alert is then disseminated via our warning infrastructure system that we share with FEMA, and then it broadcasts to all the state emergency communication channels."

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He references "Flash flood alley" as a name for this section of the Guadeloupe, and that NOAA installed the emergency transmitter for this area (after a 1987 flood here), which for folks with a 'NOAA emergency radio' (he describes in the video as a $50 mobile unit similar to a cell phone, used by campers/hikers) would have received these alerts. The weather emergency alerts though were integrated in 2006 under FEMA etc. changes, though. This is the first I've heard of most of these details.

He reports that the alerts were received in Travis County but apparently some issue with phones in Kerr County not getting them.

I doubt there were many phones in those younger cabins, and if so, 3-4am mobile alerts prob weren't very effective.

This should have been the messaging by Dan Pat instead of throwing the alert systems under bus for not being accurate on severity.

Flash flood warnings are too common and almost always results in a few roads and underpasses flooding. Which is another issue around how to differentiate alerts for dwellings in danger vs roadways.

Yeah. Trying to wake my kids up to shelter during weather events when they were about that age was just about impossible.

I can't remember where I heard it in the last few days - a press conference or something - but someone noted that, like the notification alarms for Amber Alerts, you can turn off weather alarms on your phone.

Aside from it being in the middle of the night, in an area with spotty cell service, how many people had turned those notifications off on their phones?

I downloaded a new weather app a few weeks ago, and it happened to coincide with a bad storm in my area. I received a notification every damn time there was a flash of lightning. So that app got deleted.

All of that to say, even if the alarms were sent, how many people just disregarded them?

Quote:

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Flash flood warnings are too common and almost always results in a few roads and underpasses flooding. Which is another issue around how to differentiate alerts for dwellings in danger vs roadways.

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Correct. The warnings need to come with a severity number. 1 through 5 just like hurricanes.

1 - localized street flooding
2
3
4
5 - seek higher ground immediately

A huge amount of the worst anti-semites and pro-Hamas crowd are in the medical profession here in the USA

nortex97 said:

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Camp Mystic on a bus to the reunification center. The girls are singing to try and calm everyone.

This is footage from the evacuation and everything they saw.

“I wish you could see before shots to show how truly devastating it is.”

Wow 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/3E70NTfyfz

— TONY™ (@TONYxTWO) July 6, 2025

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In the middle of devastation, loss of life, and so much destruction, these sweet young voices lift up their eyes and sing praise to God.

There's always hope, as long as there is Jesus, no matter what happens down here.

Regarding 'regular iPhones' most of us have extreme weather events turned off. I certainly do (and don't ever go camping). I don't think it's an issue for 99 percent of people.

I do not think the management staff at a kids camp in a flood basin falls in that group though, and hopefully they'd have had the referenced NOAA mobile radio devices (not dependent on cell tower signals, they seem to operate on regular VHF frequencies). I looked those up and came up with a bunch of options on amazon etc. ($30-70 bucks) but I am not sure if those are the ones he was referencing in the video I posted up above (sorry for fake-news CBS source, but the NWS guy was on-point I believe).

Anti-taxxer said:

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I can't remember where I heard it in the last few days - a press conference or something - but someone noted that, like the notification alarms for Amber Alerts, you can turn off weather alarms on your phone.

Aside from it being in the middle of the night, in an area with spotty cell service, how many people had turned those notifications off on their phones?

I downloaded a new weather app a few weeks ago, and it happened to coincide with a bad storm in my area. I received a notification every damn time there was a flash of lightning. So that app got deleted.

All of that to say, even if the alarms were sent, how many people just disregarded them?

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I know for a fact that Mystic does not allow campers to keep their phones with them. All counselors had phones and walkie talkies

The camp mystic issue seems to be more around the fact what they thought was safe higher ground/evac point ended up not being high enough due to the freak nature of this storm. But we'll see what the facts hold when there is more time to determine what happened .

Now as far as RVs and homes nearby, likely a combo of ignoring or not hearing the warnings, being visitors and not being fully aware of the high water danger, and maybe in some cases cellphones connectivity being an issue

I apologize if this comes off rude, I'm just angry about the whole thing and I'm not trying to call you or anyone out really
This is mostly a musing of my own as a parent that texts and calls my kids regularly with weather alerts when they are at their own camps.

Making alerts more complicated isn't the answer in my opinion. I mean, how many damn warnings do you need? They had THREE that have severity levels. We have warnings, watches and emergency gawdam notifications. The ones they got were like….

1. Hey dudes, just a friendly reminder that lots of rain is happening and there is some serious and well documented ingredients in place to create a life threatening flood situation . Please prepare to save your own and others lives.

2.) HEY!!! Flooding is now absolutely going to happen. Prepare now.

3.). HELLOOOOOOOO????? IF YOURE STILL ON THE RIVER THERE IS A WALL OF WATER HEADING DOWN. YOU WILL DIE IF YOU DONT MOVE. MOVE. NOW. LIKE RIGHT GAWDAM NOW!!!!!!!! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. THIS JS A BIG DEAL. GO NOW.


The answer is to have responsive staff that take existing weather alerts seriously when they have children sleeping in boxes situated at the confluence of three water ways in a 100 year flood plain in a terrain that is basically an exponential amount of funnels dumping water into bigger funnels. THERE IS A 1% chance of this happening every single year.

I am curious to know how many parents tried to reach their kids and staff beforehand or during the middle of the night and how many staff saw the weather alerts. I don't have that answer but there are currently 20+ mean cut throat attorneys finding out that exact information I bet. If mystic does not allow their campers to have their phones, that is going to be a really simple catch for the attorneys and expensive decision that will likely shutter the camp forever.

We have a set of non negotiable items when our kids go to camp…1. Their phones remain on them at all times. 2. Their vehicle keys remain on them at all times.

Yeah, I just can't find fault with the NWS warnings. The issue with trying to rate flash floods is how unpredictable and severe a very isolated impact can be. You see one, it's up to you to evaluate the risk of your location due to the geography or whether you are crossing bridges, etc.

I am not rooting for the attorneys in any way, but thank you. There's a lot to consider here, and again I am sorry for the horrible, tragic loss of young lives especially.

On another thread there is discussion of camp certifications etc. I don't know how all of that works but it seems to me based on stories of kids being woken up to flooding on bottom bunks the earlier (1-4am) alerts did not get passed on sufficiently to 'all' of the cabins/campers, though I realize some of the challenges involved in waking up kids at those times, and that some of the 'high ground' was not 'high enough.'

There are no simple answers. It's just heartbreaking, and I'll go ahead and apologize here again for being angry about it earlier this past weekend.

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Quote:

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Flash flood warnings are too common and almost always results in a few roads and underpasses flooding. Which is another issue around how to differentiate alerts for dwellings in danger vs roadways.

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Correct. The warnings need to come with a severity number. 1 through 5 just like hurricanes.

1 - localized street flooding
2
3
4
5 - seek higher ground immediately

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Will be tough to do something like this given how localized flooding be. The same area may have flash flooding in one section of the river and not in others.

Yeah, in this area, you've got spots that saw 12" dumped right next to those that go 2". Then mix in how terrain and low areas impact the risk. Best you can really do is warn that dangerous flooding rains could be dumped and flooding rains are being dumped.

River height warnings are a secondary option that locals can employ, but that's not NWS territory.

You don't need to apologize for being angry. Anyone that isn't angry or sorrowful right now should seek therapy.

For a variety of reasons, hurricanes are much easier to predict and classify...and even then mistakes are made.

You call for a level 3 flood and it's only a level 1, people are going to grow more dismissive. You call for a 3 and it's a 5 and you are gonna get crucified.

Our weather forecasters do amazing work on an incredibly complex system and in this case amplified by an incredibly challenging terrain. Reasonable people need to understand the limits of what is possible.

I see it all the time. They call for a 10-15% chance of damaging storms and they either don't develop or develop somewhere else and everyone says "they missed it". The next storm prediction is a 5% chance and spins up a tornado and everyone says "5% hell, that was 100% a tornado."

Heck, school systems can't even make a decision about a weather day without pissing off half the population one way or another. Everybody is an expert after it happens.

I do agree with the language in the warnings. I k ow they tried to modify it to make it easier to guage thr threat level......

Bur, they need to speak human. Somewhere around a 6th grade level.

Level 1- where expecting a lot of rain and it might flood
Level 2- it's going to rain and going to flood, take precaution.
Level 3.- get the **** outta the way and get to high ground

You could possibly have a "you're too stupid to make good decisions so we'll make them for you" regulation whereby a max severetit level alert is issued via EAS and it CANNOT be defeated. In other words, you just have to listen to the siren and be forced to look at the message to turn it off.

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Level 3.- get the **** outta the way and get to high ground

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Did you see the videos of people filming the surge across a bridge hours later?

They knew the surge was coming and were there to film it. They thought their vehicles were on high ground and they ended up moving them even higher because even at that point with all the information out there about what a massive flood it was, they still didn't know what was high enough.

So I'm not going to second guess someone who wasn't on high enough ground at 4:00 am operating with far less info than we have now.

(and I'm not saying you are criticizing them, I just know many people are)

BrazosDog02 said:

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You could possibly have a "you're too stupid to make good decisions so we'll make them for you" regulation whereby a max severetit level alert is issued via EAS and it CANNOT be defeated. In other words, you just have to listen to the siren and be forced to look at the message to turn it off.

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Can't do that anymore because too many abuse victims had their safety phone discovered by their abuser when the alerts sound.

BrazosDog02 said:

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This is mostly a musing of my own as a parent that texts and calls my kids regularly with weather alerts when they are at their own camps.
...
I am curious to know how many parents tried to reach their kids and staff beforehand or during the middle of the night and how many staff saw the weather alerts. I don't have that answer but there are currently 20+ mean cut throat attorneys finding out that exact information I bet. If mystic does not allow their campers to have their phones, that is going to be a really simple catch for the attorneys and expensive decision that will likely shutter the camp forever.

We have a set of non negotiable items when our kids go to camp…1. Their phones remain on them at all times. 2. Their vehicle keys remain on them at all times.

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I have read and then heard it stated by Sen. Cruz that Camp Mystic did not allow cell phones on the campers. Kind of like how some schools are banning phones for students. If this was the policy, the parents consented.

Our kids need less cell phones in their lives. They need real friendships and outdoor experiences. They need summer camps where they can escape being wired in 24/7. Less social media, predators, "influencers", bullying, pornography, FOMO, body shaming, social contagions and envy. They also need chances to learn independence. If you don't want your kids at a camp without constant cell phone access, then don't send them. Those of us that want those experiences for our kids will.

Frankly, the problem for those sweet 9 year olds was not the lack of an iphone by their bed, or even notifications in general. The camp leadership was a aware of the danger and had begun evacuating some of the cabins to higher ground a couple of hours before peak intensity, if the initial reporting is correct. The problem was that the severity of the situation and water levels exceeded the expectations of the leaders in charge and the emergency evacuation plan that was in place. It appears they thought their campers were on high enough ground for the situation, until it was too late. I know emotions are high, but sadly, no number of calls from parents in the middle of the night passing along weather alerts would have changed things.

TexasRebel said:

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BrazosDog02 said:

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You could possibly have a "you're too stupid to make good decisions so we'll make them for you" regulation whereby a max severetit level alert is issued via EAS and it CANNOT be defeated. In other words, you just have to listen to the siren and be forced to look at the message to turn it off.

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Can't do that anymore because too many abuse victims had their safety phone discovered by their abuser when the alerts sound.

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Well then I guess it's just a matter of the price of liberty. Some risks you just have to accept as a human that doesn't want to live in a bubble. That's the way I've been working through it. I've hav loved ones die in cars and by drunk drivers and looking back, it's easy to say "man, they shouldn't have driven that day". Same with campers…they shouldn't have put cabins at the water, the kids shouldn't have been at camp, etc etc. But we can't live life free of risk and still live life. There is a 1% chance that flood happens next year and every year after. Same odds as dying in a car any given trip. Sometimes we gotta say "we donate what we can and hope for the best and enjoy life". I think the campers were and have always done exactly that.

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Making alerts more complicated isn't the answer in my opinion.

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A number system is making it less complicated. The NWS gives a warning along with a wall of text written on a 19th century type writer. I need a tldr version.

Space City Weather has a flood scale in their forecast. It makes it easier to digest.
https://spacecityweather.com/the-space-city-weather-flood-scale/

DannyDuberstein said:

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Yeah, in this area, you've got spots that saw 12" dumped right next to those that go 2". Then mix in how terrain and low areas impact the risk. Best you can really do is warn that dangerous flooding rains could be dumped and flooding rains are being dumped.

River height warnings are a secondary option that locals can employ, but that's not NWS territory.

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Actually it is NWS territory, I live on the Upper Delaware River and use their River crest forecasts all the time, though the station up River from us would have to crest at more than double the record set in 2006 for our house to be at risk.

Here's the link to our basin, and you can easily go find a particular measuring station: https://www.weather.gov/marfc/Upper_Delaware_Stages

For example I just looked up the Guadalupe at Comfort and the actuals side of the measurements still shows the morning of July 4.

I get that. Imagine if they hadn't already moved to the ground they were on.

The point though is to use language everyone can understand and recognize.

Only of the intended recipient knows what each number represents

I dont have kids or run a campground, but I know how many weather alerts I've ignored/not noticed. heck I drove straight through the derecho because by the time I knew, it was too late.

when I taught swim lessons in high school, I remember my spideysense tingling and I thought I heard something. asked a lifeguard to pop a door that is not allowed to be opened real quick so I could confirm it was the tornado sirens. no one else even knew what the sirens were for but we started herding children into the locker rooms just in case...a few minutes later my mom busted into the aquatics center telling us to take shelter.

nothing happened to us and everyone was "annoyed" that we did "all that" "for nothing"

it only takes a few of those for people to stop following protocol or assuming drill or whatever.

ask safety compliance guys in O&G. Osha inspectors, etc. then add 99 years of nothing happening

That is a fair point.

And I suppose my point is we should temper our expectations and know that every "solution" will fall short of perfection.

Fully agree that opportunities for improvement should be taken.

P.H. Dexippus said:

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Frankly, the problem for those sweet 9 year olds was not the lack of an iphone by their bed, or even notifications in general. The camp leadership was a aware of the danger and had begun evacuating some of the cabins to higher ground a couple of hours before peak intensity, if the initial reporting is correct. The problem was that the severity of the situation and water levels exceeded the expectations of the leaders in charge and the emergency evacuation plan that was in place. It appears they thought their campers were on high enough ground for the situation, until it was too late. I know emotions are high, but sadly, no number of calls from parents in the middle of the night passing along weather alerts would have changed things.

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They were prepared.

They had a disaster plan.

They executed the plan.

The water kept rising and overcame that plan.

Martin Q. Blank said:

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Quote:

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Making alerts more complicated isn't the answer in my opinion.

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A number system is making it less complicated. The NWS gives a warning along with a wall of text written on a 19th century type writer. I need a tldr version.

Space City Weather has a flood scale in their forecast. It makes it easier to digest.
https://spacecityweather.com/the-space-city-weather-flood-scale/

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Yeah this is a great system for Houston. I always pay attention to it.

Having said that, Harris County is flat as a pancake and slowly slopes down into the ocean. Water spreads out and drains in an orderly way. Even with 50+ inches of rain during Harvey the majority of Houston didn't flood.

The parts that did were due to bayou or reservoir overfills, leading to flood waters of a couple of feet over the course of hours.

In the Hill Country you are talking flood waters of 20 feet over the course of minutes. A few inches of quick rainfall can cause a disaster due to topography. A slight change in the location or development or direction of a storm cell could mean the difference between no impact or a 100-year impact. I don't know how you can predict to that level of granularity.

Serotonin said:

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Martin Q. Blank said:

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Quote:

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Making alerts more complicated isn't the answer in my opinion.

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A number system is making it less complicated. The NWS gives a warning along with a wall of text written on a 19th century type writer. I need a tldr version.

Space City Weather has a flood scale in their forecast. It makes it easier to digest.
https://spacecityweather.com/the-space-city-weather-flood-scale/

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Yeah this is a great system for Houston. I always pay attention to it.

Having said that, Harris County is flat as a pancake and slowly slopes down into the ocean. Water spreads out and drains in an orderly way. Even with 50+ inches of rain during Harvey the majority of Houston didn't flood.

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And with all that fancy forecasting, warnings, notices, emails, calls, ...... People STILL ended up in their attics telling us "they didn't know".

88planoAg said:

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P.H. Dexippus said:

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Frankly, the problem for those sweet 9 year olds was not the lack of an iphone by their bed, or even notifications in general. The camp leadership was a aware of the danger and had begun evacuating some of the cabins to higher ground a couple of hours before peak intensity, if the initial reporting is correct. The problem was that the severity of the situation and water levels exceeded the expectations of the leaders in charge and the emergency evacuation plan that was in place. It appears they thought their campers were on high enough ground for the situation, until it was too late. I know emotions are high, but sadly, no number of calls from parents in the middle of the night passing along weather alerts would have changed things.

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They were prepared.

They had a disaster plan.

They executed the plan.

The water kept rising and overcame that plan.

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This.

These folks are better than some parents are protecting the children that they are entrusted with. I can tell you that they took every precaution. I can also tell you that they sacrificed their lives saving these children. Sometimes, nature overwhelms even the best plans.