If I can post this link to the flood in July of 2002, July 1-6, it will show you how we historically repeat mistakes by failing to pay attention to detail.


23 years ago a massive flood inundated our area. July 1-5, 2002 produced over 15" of rain in SA with some parts of the hill country near Comfort getting over 48" of rain that week. By the end of that week Canyon Lake overflowed its spillway for the first and only time ever, carving out a huge gorge and washing out the road below the dam. Medina Lake threatened to go over the top of its dam on July 5th which led Judge and Mayor Wolff to issue an evacuation order to those livin… See more
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Meteorologist Steve Browne
I remember on Saturday morning July 6, 2002 I tuned into KSAT and who is flying around in our helicopter reporting on the Medina Dam as our expert reporter? Our main sports guy Greg Simmons. Proving what I always say about Greg, he's really a newsman that loves sports (and weather). Greg had googled and crash learned as much as he could about dam nomenclature and there he was explaining on live TV about dam headers, and footers, and spillways. Behind the scenes we affectionally called Greg our (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) Dam expert. Hahaha!
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Greg Simmons
How could I forget. I think I spent 3 days hovering over Medina Dam in Sky 12. I even remember Judge and Mayor Wolff in the newsroom showing us the emergency message he had received questioning the integrity of the dam. That’s when News Director Jim Boyle ordered Sky 12 into the air as an early warning for our community in case water did start to overflow the dam. As it turned out the spillway worked although Mother Nature carved out a much bigger route.

What's the mistake you are talking about?

Failing to pay attention to the weather warnings I do believe

The warnings are sent out.

People dont react appropriately to the warnings.

That's not EMA's fault.

Everyone has a phone that has weather apps and local alerts.....who is at fault if the warnings are not heeded?

Figure Texans are independent enough they dont need big brother to take care of them

I had been watching that system move up out of Mexico and on Tuesday, I spoke with another Tman member that is on here. He lives just NE of that area. I told him then that I hoped The TDEM and county OEM groups were communicating, because this system was setting up to do the very same thing that happened in 2002. At this point we have far better technology, forecasting models and warning systems. All of those freaking FEMA schools that Police, Fire and county governments as well as municipalities were mandated to attend. There is simply no excuse to evenly remotely use, to escape the responsibility of those in these positions, whose JOB is to be on your A game for the safety and wellbeing of the Citizens and People in an area that is vulnerable.

What Mr. Benson stated above. but far more egregious, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the area where this occurred is absolutely full, and I mean to capacity with vacationers, elderly campers, various church camps and tourists from all over the country. Not to mention the local residents.

It is their Duty to be paying attention and setting plans in motion, having assets and resources available and staged should they need to begin getting into those areas and preemptively getting those out who cant recognize the gravity of what is about to occur. Children, elderly, disabled........ You dont get to be on a paid holiday, I always worked these times and because it was my sworn duty to do so. It isnt like we didnt have vast resources within a couple of hours already on the Texas border, Troops, Helo's and rescue boats/patrol boats. With Austin a fart sniff away from this area, that is where the calls are made.

This was very much something that should have been being watched with the best you have at your disposal to make the calls to set in motion the preemptive measure to move those out of harms way. If for whatever
reason, it doesnt get as bad as it was shaping up to be. what is lost???? Nobody!!! Our citizens are worthy of our best we have. Even more so are our precious kids.

The problem with that is in those canyons, you most likely do not have a cell signal. Warrior, I do understand what you are saying, yet, the very reason for funding of the emergency management systems is to monitor these very things.

where I live is like where you live. If its flooding, I am most likely very much aware as it is falling straight down on my head. But as Leftlane posted on my other call for prayers, when it rains 30-40 miles as a crow flies, upstream, but the river systems within that basin are 75 miles upstream as the river winds. If those upstream sensors are knocked out, you arent getting any advanced warnings.

Nobody can predict over a foot of rain falling in a small area in a matter of an hour or two.

They can with hindsight

experience, not hindsight. when you have seen these systems set up and the atmospheric conditions are such that it isnt likely to move and is in the highest probability of stalling out. on top of the fact that they have been getting above average rainfall throughout the spring and June.

I haven't been following this sad situation that much but did hear that supposedly the 700 person kid camp had no cell coverage, as sheepdog1 has mentioned before probably because of the topography. Two basic and blunt points.

1) No body should be camping in a canyon flood plain without a serious escape plan, such as when it starts raining even a bit, get people out NOW.

2) And if your an organization running such a camp and do not have a satellite phone capacity in 2025 to monitor potentially MINUTE BY MINUTE changing conditions, then you have no business in running such a camp in such a location. I suspect that organization will be sued out of existence when this is all said and done. However, that won't bring back the lives of those little girls and anyone else that died with them.

And as sheepdog1 has pointed out, employees of the Administrative State get complacent with their jobs, even though they know that such events, although infrequent, still can happen. It doesn't really matter if many of the civilians have no brains to think of such disasters, its the Administrative State officials that have have the ears perked even if was ONLY going to be 3 to 5 inches in that area. Holy , 3 inches of rain in certain canyon landscapes is very bad news for anyone in the canyon.

My federal agency wasn't involved in any immediate public safety issues, at least in my branch of it, but the middle to upper middle management were mostly worthless when it came to real leadership. Most got to their positions by who they knew and who they "knew"...

I guess if your living or operating a camp or business in an area we're flooding is such a danger one would be wise to heed flooding warnings. Individual responsibility is quickly waning in this society.

I believe flood warnings came out Thursday and kept being up graded leading up to the floods.

Well, I have been on the phone for the past hour or so talking to the state about the digital subpoena i was sent to my email address. I will gladly be there with bells on to talk about this cluster....
so all of you that were talking crap earlier, you dont live here., if you do you have no idea as to the vulnerability of this area. Let alone the sheer volume of how many church camps traverse the tributaries within this basin. Especially from Memorial day To Labor day when kids are out of school.

You havent heard a word from the state reps from these districts, nor the state legislators. I am fairly certain I will be answering calls for the coming days about the emails that I sent with the developing weather pattern In which I received not a single freaking response. nor did any of these Jackarse elected turds even open those emails.

This area of Texas is a special area and I so hope others on here from that area reiterate how many church camps are dispersed up and down these tributaries within this specific basin. I know for a fact that there are several other members on here that can speak up if they choose to do so.

,This should have never happened

The EMA folks (Fed, state, or local) can only issue the warnings. The residents and visitors must research/heed the warnings.

Responsibility for remaining in the danger zone lies squarely on those that were in that zone.

From what I've read it appears the last major flood there was 20 or 30 years ago. That length of time results in complacency by everyone.

The canyons have a great flood danger.....why are folks allowed to build/reside there?

Even down on Florida's coastlines, folks are re-thinking those beach houses........knowing full well that the next hurricane is on them after the re-build.

I agree...there are people paid big money to protect the public from these disasters. Especially when this happened just 23 yrs ago
How soon people forget. Flash flood waters moves at 6 mph from what I found.

Those "people" are NOT paid to protect the public from disasters. They can only warn based on weather forecasts and past incidents. Looks to me like that was done.

If a fireman tells you your house is likely to catch on fire due to a fire nearby.....do you stay or go? If you stay and burn up...is it the fireman's fault?

It kind of sounds like a historical problem my hometown of Birmingham had. Lots or poorer neighberhoods sited along creeks would get flooded from time to time. Historical because business knew better than to build in a floodplain even if the risk was an every few years or once a decade thing. Hence the land was cheap, and the labor business required ended up living in those neighborhoods. Eventually business shifted and the city got saddled with the repairs and dealing with it.
Finally the feds, state and city came in and bought up those neighborhoods and moved folks out.

Sounds like those camp lands aren't suitable for camps, limited use maybe but not largescale.

It was too late Thursday night, Swamp Wolf. In that basin if more like 60 mph Sir. constriction of the water headed downhill elevates the pressure and speed. If you havent been here to see this area, stop trying to smash me. I know what the (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) i am talking about. i have been doing this for a very, very long time. Statewide, dangit. everyone wants to be an armchair quarterback but none of you have any intel on this area. Ydayum sure havent been in the thick of this crap as it is developing but yet so many of you want to put in your two cents but you have none, zero experience with this specific basin complex.