For those of us who do t know about these camps, I thought very good too the interview with the young woman who’d explained the multigenerational tradition and memories, a bit like an old family cabin where everyone meets or remembers - whose mother had attended Camp Mystic, who had asked to go when she was 7 and had to be put on a wait-list, who still knew all the songs and had hoped her daughter would want to go too (but can’t bear the thought now, obviously, and so she’s mourning both the loss of transmission of something precious to her and her mother, and the loss of the girls’ and counselors lives.)
(Upthread or I can repost)
Texas Monthly is doing a lot of good reporting. And they have covered this camp in the past. I found this article interesting for context, because this is a big business, not just a happy little family tradition. The Not So Happy Campers – Texas Monthly
Reminded me of this one time when we spent a week at family camp at Forest Home near Big Bear in the San Bernardino mountains of CA. Similar set up. Spotty cell phone reception. Many people returned religiously year after year. And it’s been around for >75 yr. AND has been through floods before. The people who go back to Forest Home yearly love it like the people talked about in that article you posted.
I don’t know if this article has been posted, but it provides some historical context for flood warning systems along the Guadalupe, or the lack thereof. It appears that the camp owner was well aware of the risks. But why didn’t the night security person have a weather radio? And where was he during the night? That’s a huge question for me that I haven’t seen addressed anywhere. https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/11/us/camp-mystic-owner-warnings-texas-flooding-invs
Being ‘non=profit’ is just a tax status. It doesn’t mean a non-profit can’t make a great deal of money (like the Red Cross that pays its execs million$$$) or that a for profit actually makes any money at all.
I saw this article on FB, also from Texas Monthly about one family’s experience when their home was ripped off its foundation and into the floodwaters last week. It’s chilling to read
Arguably a controversial opinion, and admittedly borderline extreme, but my position is that houses in floodways and on active fault lines and such should be torn down (with compensation to the existing owners, of course) and nothing ever allowed to be built there.
But no, we just keep doing stuff like letting people build in floodways or tear down sand dunes and build on beaches or build on unstable hillsides. The idea that buying a piece of land means you can freely build on it is going to keep killing people.
I think the bigger question we should be asking is how much control do we want the local, state, or nation to impose on recreation. There are ways to mitigate living close to areas that flood… raising the foundations, moving structures back etc. But then there were the majority of fatalities happening because people had camped or parked next to the river. It is a huge economic piece in this part of the country as I am sure other rivers, lakes, and waterways are in other places. If Camp Mystic had not built those two cabins 27 lives would be saved. However, that still leaves arguably over 200+ that still lost their lives on that holiday weekend.
Exactly. Newscasters often omit “the.” I’ve spent a lot of time there. My mom liked a B&B outside of Fredericksburg we went to often. I’ll be in Blanco in October for my nephew’s wedding.
At our first house, we got a notice that our house insurance was going to go up since we were in a flood zone. What?? Fortunately, DH is a civil engineer in addition to structural, so he went to the city and interpreted the flood maps. The end of our street was in a flood zone, but not our house. So he wrote a letter and stamped it with his engineering seal, and they left us alone.
FEMA maps can definitely be wrong. Stormwater calcs are more of an art than a science. And modeling a basin? I’ve seen our river flood after a 3” storm but not after a 6”storm. But another time we got 6-7” in 90 min and our little world flooded more than when we got > 20” in 1 week. And they just need to do away with the whole 100 yr nomenclature. That messes with people’s heads. In ‘96 they told us we had two 500 year events within 1 week. And our river has flooded more than that 3 times that I know of - and those 3 times were within a 3 month period.
When FEMA revised our maps in ‘98 our office had a good laugh. They included a part of the mall parking lot. Generally the zones follow contours slightly increasing as you go upstream. But they had this weird blob that included a 300 foot section on only one side of the creek that was up a 50-75’ embankment. We had them revise that part. And just recently we had them change what was considered flood elevation for our river by several feet. Someone higher than me decided the number should be when the first structure gets affected. So that’s what it is now.
But again - it’s so complex and fema is supposed to do the entire country? And make a map that covers all kids of weather events? Of course there are going to be appeals and revisions. If your house was now considered to be in the floodway and either uninsurable or so sky high that nobody would buy it and now it worthless, wouldn’t you try to appeal? If you could pay an engineer to do a more detailed analysis of your property, wouldn’t you try? I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s more understandable why someone would do so.
I am curious if it’s in the floodway, how many times did the properties get water in them? Our rivers flood at least 1-2 times a year. Surely these had to have some water in them before - not even counting the 1987 event. So what was the protocol then?
I am just more of the mindset that it’s the warning system that failed. Especially with a camp of kids, you’d think you’d have a good one. What went wrong there? And how can we learn from this in the future. It’s a horrible and tragic situation, but unfortunately nothing will bring the victims back. We need to try to improve the future.
Rivers flow and rivers flood is another of his sayings.
There was a warning system but it was disabled in 1999 because it wasn’t functioning properly. I read that but can’t remember where. The owner of the camp had been trying to get the county to install another system. Without success as we know now.
