8 posts were merged into an existing topic: Home Projects and Gardening
2" of rain last night over 4 hours, and THE LOUDEST THUNDER all night (Multiple social media posts from around the area of explosions and buildings being shaken).
One area of PA got 5-6" of rain last night, farm/Amish area. More rain expected tonight.
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That can wash out a LOT of their crops. Bad news for their way of life.
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Video shows the over-topping of the normally tranquil Guadalupe river in Texas by flood waters filled with debris. Supposedly, the river reached levels of 20-30ā over flood levels (thatās a 2-3 story building).
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Since a lotta TEXAS is just down-right ugly (including my native, below sea-level Houston and other parts of coastal, swampy TX ) plus prone to hurricane damage, weāve been looking in the borders of TEXAS HILL Country for housing.
There was a flood there that killed 12 motorists about a month ago and last week, over 20 young campers were tragically swept way by the Guadalupe River(my mom, who grew up on its banks, pronounced it-Gwa-da-lup).
Weāve decided that weāre too old/fat to clamber on top of a roof(car or house), in case of flash flood, and beg for first responders to save us. Now weāre; looking in N or N.E Texas. At least parts are scenic-very green-and weāve been living in the desert for the last quarter-century..
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ā¦ with a storm cellar or a storm room
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Consider college townsālots of books available.
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While house-huntinā, visited the library of the town of our choice(there is a university there plus a community college). Donated books and ex-library were 10 cents! We bought 4 bags full. At that price, the titles can be a little banged up-but many were pristine.
Plus the town is chock full of early Texas history!! Sam Houston and Thomas J. Rusk(early TX senator and Brigadier General of Republic of Texas Army) once lived there! As did Stephen F. Austin, for which the state capital is named. (Weāre not moving to Austin, where the median price house in a desirable area once zoomed to right at a million-reduced to 600+ this year but stillā¦weāre not looking in WA or Cali but small-town rural Tejas where the avg. price is about half-that or 300K!
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Oh my God now 51 dead in that catastrophic Texas flash flooding. What a terrible tragedy, so much worse when these things happen in the night like that.
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Thatās the reason the death-count/missing is so high. NWS gave out warnings but most people were asleep.
We turn off our cell-phones when go to bed-my husbandās phone stops dinging at 10pm so wonāt continue to get the superfluous advertising alerts .If weāre getting bad news, and weāve had a lot lately, with my BIL(expected) and a sonās best friend (unexpected at age 34), dying within a week of each other, 6 am, when our brains are half-way working, is early enough.
Have been gone from TEXAS for over 40 years but I had never heard the area called āFlash Flood Alleyā as some news agencies have termed it. Again, my mom/ her family managed to survive in the area for nearly 2 decades. Since several of them were great tellers of family history, would have heard stories of evacuation/flooding or drowning. 'Course, they lived there before cell phones, computers and 24-hour news, just depended on their wits.
Yes, a great tragedy, those poor parents and affected families, some losing up to 5 loved ones. Donāt know how one would deal w/ such massive lossā¦/
In our house hunt, weāve asked very carefully about flood plains and needing flood insurance. Donāt recall seeing one sign and we were looking in the effected areas.
We lived in Colorado for years and there is Flash Flood signage everywhere in the mountainous areas, āIn case of flood, climb to higher ground.ā plus warnings over media, just as they do here in the desert where monsoon rains come hard/fast and often unexpectedly. .
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Siren systems are cheap and available for over a century compared to other things Texas pays for. As a former resident of Texas, I am surprised they still have not installed these since the floods of 98 when I was in Texas for those floods. (not actually in the flood zone).
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There are a variety of sirens in various areas of Texas - including along the Guadeloupe further south along its course than Kerr County, some of which are as nearly as old as am I - but the advent of smart-phone technology has resulted in a shift of infrastructure costs to that medium by governmental agencies far & wide, primarily because doing so represents savings in costs.
Iād posit that one of the problems with that approach, as our friend Tejas alludes upthread, is that not everyone maintains a capability to receive such notifications - or even connection with other forms of such notifications via other mediums - on a 24/7/365 basis, as is unquestionably the notification providerās presumption in shifting infrastructure to such a volatile resource.
If thereās any valid argument to be made for governmental entities not requiring notification systems independent of the currently-supported technological solutions for notifying likely-to-be-impacted citizenry DIRECTLY - i.e., w/in earshot, no matter the state of slumber said citizen might be in, when thereās even the slightest chance that this or that watercourse overflows its banks, or any other out-of-the-usual weather-related event occurs, near where the space which they are at the time inhabiting - Iāve yet to see it.
That being said, it also escapes me why any organizational entity entrusted with the care of citizens would not consider it de rigueur to maintain an alert system specifically designed to alert them of ANY possibility of impending danger, 24/7/365 - which tragically does not appear toāve been the case in this horrific occurrence.
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I canāt believe parents with children away at camp were not monitoring the weather in the vicinity. My son was at camp in the Catskills (upstate NY) during a hurricane and I certainly tracked the weather reports at the time.
The campers and their minders were asleep at the switch, with no night watchman and everyoneās cellphones turned off in an effort towards purity and an old-fashioned camping experience, but what were they thinking?
No flood drills? Housing the youngest campers at the lowest elevation near a river often prone to flooding?
For those who want to know more about this camp, a Washington Post reader offered a link to the history of the camp from Texas Monthly:
https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-not-so-happy-campers/ (The paywall is easily bypassed).
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As a Yankee, when I think of Texas and floods, this song comes to mind.
The singer, another Yankee from NH.
Although I have experienced trial by water, mine has been trivial in the total scheme of the universe.
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They got 4X more rain than predicted. Nobody could have forecasted what happened. It also happened in the middle of the night when most people were sleeping.
Plus the NWS and NOAA had their resources cut. Hopefully that didnāt have anything to do with the warnings or lack thereof. I doubt it did.
Total tragedy. Prayers for those that lost people. So sad.
Yea, getting close to mother nature to enjoy her beauty sometimes has consequences. Itās a risk, as is walking out the door every day.
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This is to my mind the most-troubling aspect of the disaster - the apparently-evident fact that the folks in charge seem to have been overly-complacent in expecting circumstances to remain unchanged, ad ifinitum.
An overwhelming abundance of the available information would seem to be unsuggestive of this being a wise approach
Granted - but Iām with our friend VTRās take on the tragedy in Post #723 upthread, and with our friend Selgās take in Post #725 - this COULD have ameliorated IF everyone involved had been diligently keeping a sharp eye-peeled on the possibilities in play.
Thereās NO argument that will convince me that thereās ANY excusing of not walking a wide-awake firewatch, when lives are at stake, and you are the responsible entity for ensuring their safety - by this or that contractual agreement, or otherwise.
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I am an hour from the flood zone in TX, Itās been pouring rain for the last 2 days. 25+ children 7-9 years old and I think currently they estimate about 120+ total dead, about 1/3rd children. it wasnāt foreseeable. That camp has been there a hundred years. Racist camp too, but thatās not the kids fault, pretty sure they didnāt realize that no child or counselor out of the 800 there is ever blackā¦
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