Tragedy near Kerrville

WardenRoss said:
kerrcountylead.com

Rescuers find 2 girls in tree, 30-feet up, near Comfort – The Kerr County Lead

The dramatic rescue occurred closer to Comfort, which is in Kendall County, witnesses said. The girls were found in the tree during ongoing search operations for victims of Friday's catastrophic flooding that has killed 59 people across Kerr County.
kerrcountylead.com kerrcountylead.com
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The story has since been withdrawn as total fiction.

kerrcountylead.com

The miraculous story of 2 girls found, turns out to be not so miraculous – The Kerr County Lead

Editor's Note: Like everyone, we wanted this story to be true, but it's a classic tale of misinformation that consumes all of us during a natural
kerrcountylead.com kerrcountylead.com
 
ralph7 said:
How the F could someone do that?

Facebook

www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
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These days it can be pure mischief or somebody who just has to insert "good news" into a bad event in a futile attempt to establish some control over the situation in their tiny mind. No, I don't get it, either.
 
LVSteve said:
Yes, the NOAA emergency systems are still there, but you have to be actively listening to them or be on FB at 0400 to receive the warnings in this case. I get weather warnings via my cell during monsoon season, and maybe there is a way to silence them. Some people are in the habit of totally silencing their phones totally at night so they are not woken by spam calls and texts. How is the cell service down in the TX hill country? A cellphone is basically a radio, and it can be a bear to get consistent coverage in rolling hill country.

As for "that can't be the case", why not? That's how accidents/disasters happen. Murphy's Law applies. It's pretty clear from events that there isn't a night watchman (again, who pays him/her)and the people in the campground did largely sleep through it until it was too late. In little places in the boonies once the last campfire is out the day is done, the sidewalks are rolled up, and it's time for all to sleep. It can be very hard to create a proper sense of preparedness in Mayberry type places even with warnings, not that Kerrville really received any until too late.
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Other than having a NOAA weather radio turned on and properly set, there is no need to "monitor" it. The warning tone is wide open and its volume is fixed. It'll wake the dead. RF signals are much more reliable and available than cellular signals.
 
Stay humble. You do the job as a team. Yes, this is what first responders do.

“But Ruskan’s reaction to her glowing praise was to share the glory with his fellow guardsmen.

“Honestly, I’m mostly just a dude. I’m just doing a job. This is what I signed up for, and I think that any single Coast Guard rescue swimmer or any single Coast Guard pilot, flight mechanic, whoever it may be, would have done the exact same thing in our situation,” he said.

“That’s what we were asked to do and we’re gonna do it. Any one of us, if anyone else was on duty that day, they would have done the same thing as us. We just happened to be the crew that got the case.”


nypost.com

Exclusive | New Jersey native on first rescue mission with Coast Guard helps save 165 Texas flood victims: ‘American hero’

“This is what it’s all about, right? Like, this is why we do the job,” said Scott Ruskan, 26.
nypost.com nypost.com
 
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bamashooter said:
Other than having a NOAA weather radio turned on and properly set, there is no need to "monitor" it. The warning tone is wide open and its volume is fixed. It'll wake the dead. RF signals are much more reliable and available than cellular signals.
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Technical point, cell phones and the NOAA system both use the RF spectrum, the only differences are the frequency and modulation scheme.
 
LVSteve said:
Technical point, cell phones and the NOAA system both use the RF spectrum, the only differences are the frequency and modulation scheme.
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And the broadcast signal POWER. Which is the critical point in this case.
I've picked up regular FM radio broadcasts as far as 120 miles from the transmitting station.
You don't get that kind of range with cell service due to a much weaker broadcast signal.
 
I heard Ruskan paying homage to those who helped get people out of harms way, those still living and those who perished in the effort.
A humble man in action and deed.
 
BC38 said:
And the broadcast signal POWER. Which is the critical point in this case.
I've picked up regular FM radio broadcasts as far as 120 miles from the transmitting station.
You don't get that kind of range with cell service due to a much weaker broadcast signal.
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That's because they are never trying to get that kind of range, each cell is designed to be more localized. Snag with that is when the mains power goes out and the towers don't have a backup.:oops:

As for picking up commercial FM broadcasts at long range, sure. Give me a hilltop, a big tower and the antenna off one of those Russian VHF radars and we can really see what can be done. Thing is those stations often pump out 100 kW, the NOAA system is never more than 1 kW, although it is over a narrower bandwidth.

Take a look at the NOAA coverage maps available here. The Kerr County area seems well covered, as does much of Texas. Compare that with Nevada, that has lots of blank space.

 
I never read all of this thread, but heard there was a forecast for bad weather a day in advance.

Looked it up and saw this.

"The afternoon before the disaster struck, the National Weather Service office in Austin/San Antonio issued a flood watch on July 3 at 1:18 p.m. CT that included Kerrville. The alert stated: "Rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches with isolated amounts of 5 to 7 inches are possible."

Whats done is done, and it's truly a tragedy, but could it have possibly been avoided?
 
Except the actual rainfall was far greater than the predicted 5-7 inches. Estimated to have exceeded 13 inches in some areas. Fatalities now exceed 100 in all affected counties, and more are expected. Local news was showing unusual scenes of large trees still standing, but with all bark scoured off their trunks by the raging floodwater. One case reported of a woman who was carried 15 miles downstream and survived.
 
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And it happened in the middle of the night.We had one in the 70s that killed 150+ people in a single canyon. It happened again ten years ago in the same spot and a couple more canyons with just 2 casualties this time
 
Its awful fellas - just awful
We barely survived Helene last year
We had to run for our lives - wound up losing everything we had - save our house, which we almost did- it was almost ripped off the foundation completely-
They actually just found my truck about a month ago- i had a 2021 Silverado 2500HD- I loved that truck
Of course, we lost all our vehicles
Ive lived here (Southern Blue Ridge) for all my life & the worst flooding i saw was in 1989 by Hugo - a thousand Hugos probably wouldn't have matched Helene
Here's a before & after of my truck
Ill also post a pic of my little brothers '06 Tundra
I pray for the good people of Texas & we also donated what money we could
They'll definitely need anything they can get
Screenshot_20250521_105019_Samsung Internet.jpgScreenshot_20250530_091048_Gallery.jpg
My little brothers '06 Tundra below
Screenshot_20250429_213925_Messenger.jpg
 
Heard on the news that there had been cloud seeding in the area of the floods. First thing I thought about when terrible news broke.
Anyone else hear this????
 
biku324 said:
I can't imagine parents' anguish.

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Texas parents frantically posted photos of their young daughters on social media with pleas for information as more than 20 campers from an all-girls summer camp were unaccounted for Friday after floods tore through the state’s south-central region overnight. https://apnews.com/article/texas-flooding-girls-missing-camp-mystic-395992e236e35c4486f9a6a97eed7704
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It is a real tragedy, and that severe and widespread flash flooding is not common, even in the Hill Country. We live approximately 30 miles south of Kerrville. We are on the edge of the Hill Country. Prayers for dead, missing and their families.
 
biku324 said:
Or for those who don't use it. Reverse 9-1-1 has some bugs, but it works for everyone with phones in that area.
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Kerr County explored the Idea of having warning sirens along the river several years ago. Once they found out what it would cost, in was unaffordable. Kerr County does not have a high population, and tax base. It is not like San Antonio/Bexar Co. with over 2 million tax payers.
 
More expensive than 104 dead? It was $1 million in grant money.

Kerr County, part of a region whose rivers’ and creeks’ high flooding potential earned it the nickname “Flash Flood Alley,” was among the communities that sought preventative funding. It asked for $1 million to build a flood warning system that would have upgraded 20 water gauge systems, added new water level sensors and posts, and created software and a website to distribute that information to the public in real-time.

Summer camps were top of mind during county leaders’ discussions of the project, meeting minutes show. Then-County Commissioner Tom Moser envisioned designating point people at each camp who would monitor a website and alert camp counselors and attendees if evacuation was needed.

The Texas Division of Emergency Management denied Kerr County’s 2017 application, meeting minutes show. Kerr County applied again in 2018, when more federal funding became available after Hurricane Harvey. But meeting minutes indicate that Texas’ emergency authority again did not approve it. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ounty-flood-warning-money-denial/84499153007/
 
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taz666 said:
This sort of thing used to be standard fare and paid for by the taxpayer. Radio weather alerts aren't anything new, unless they got the ax?. The campground should have an employee or two on a night shift ... I'd think anyway? Everyone can't be asleep through emergencies at a campground. Fire, tornado, flood? What, ... just sleep through it? That can't be the case.

www.forbes.com

Texas Flood Disaster - The Case For A Weather Radio Renaissance?

Do the catastrophic Texas floods make the case for NOAA weather radios? Experts weigh in.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
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We have weather alerts all the time, sometimes it is like the little boy crying wolf. We had a storm/flood alert for where I live on the 5th. We got less than 1/4 inch of rain. What you have ahead of time is a watch alert, often when the evacuate now alert comes, depending on where you are, it is too late.
 
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