My mother's house is in between two rivers that flood nearly every year, we are blessed they have not been catastrophic thus far but people have lost their homes and vehicles in the past. They have solar powered
alarms on the riverbanks that sound an alarm like a tornado siren when the river gets too high. It seems like something like this would have been helpful on the Guadalupe given the remoteness and lack of cell coverage.
If a specific area like Camp Mystic experiences a flash flood this big, is it more likely to happen again in the same area due to the changes in terrain? Obviously the loss of life is the biggest tragedy here, but I also feel bad for the business owners and families who have memories in the area who may not be able to return.
This is a huge vacation area. (I can't emphasize this enough!!)
It floods, but in the past lost of life has been minimal.
It's our little "slice of heaven" 60 miles from home. We've rented several AirBnB's and it's always been on the 4th of July. I figured out from media reports that one was ruined and the other one likely was. I don't know what our family we have done. We've got five grandkids and one of them is only 2 months old! Two of them are toddlers. One is 6, the other is nine, but has developmental delays.
One AirBnB is west of Hunt and the other was in Kerrville. At least in Kerrville, you can cross the street to get to high ground.
I don't know what we would have done in Hunt. You can't escape in a vehicle without crossing low water. Our gang of toddlers would have had to climb a steep cliff in the back of the property to escape high water. However, I can picture us gang of adults arguing about what to do until it was too late.
The house in Hunt is quite a distance from the river too,. The river was across the street from FM 1340 and you had to go down about a 10 foot gently sloped bank to access the water. Additionally, the
house was setback about 100 yards from FM 1340. It's easy to assume that the river would not reach the house or cross the road.
And the only way to determine that water was approaching the house was for someone to walk down the long driveway.
However, yesterday, when I looked at the FEMA maps, it was in the flood plain and there was not enough elevation rise from the river. If the river rose 10 feet, we would have been OK, but over 10, the house would have been flooded.
I can picture us in the black of the night, thinking that the river would not cross the road and that we were actually in "high ground" when we weren't. Of course, we would not have had cell service at the Hunt house, but we did have internet at the house. Of course, if the electricity went out, we would lose internet.
It would have taken sirens and someone from emergency management to properly alert us in Hunt. In the old days, they would go door to door. That's why only 10 people died in 1987 and they died when a bus went through a low water crossing. (Bus should not have done that and they were sued) Someone from a emergency management could have given us instructions in Hunt before it was too late.
I agree, this beautiful vacation area is going to lose business. It was our favorite spot. Our son worked at one of the camps when he was a teen.
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