[Commuter bike amidst flooding, Credit to Unsplash]

On July 4, the Guadalupe River overwhelmed Texas Hill Country, resulting in at least 134 dead and 166 people reported missing. While investigations are ongoing, the disaster appears to be the outcome of increasing changes in climate, insufficient alerts and evacuation, and long term state ignorance towards flooding. 

The Guadalupe River has inundated Texan homes for the last century. Texas, already prone to numerous natural disasters, has been hit hard by the deteriorating climate issue. 

With the gulf surrounding Texas heating up by a few degrees Celsius, the warm water has contributed to an increasingly unstable atmosphere, not to mention that storms feed on warm seawater.

Additionally, Texas Hill Country is  particularly a  geologically very thin topsoil, layered underneath only by granite and limestone. 

Both minerals are incapable of absorbing water. 

Shortly before midnight, rain began to fall across Texas Hill Country. 

The aforementioned instability in the surrounding atmosphere triggered  intense downpours and thunderstorms, allowing the storm to dump 2-4 inches of rain per hour. 

At this time, the national weather service sent a warning through a mobile message, describing life-threatening flash flooding to be imminent. 

By 2 a.m., the river had overtaken the first floor and ground floor of many residences in Kerr County, a sub-region in Texas HIll Country. With roads already flooded, residents were unable to escape in their cars. 

By 3 a.m., a nearby camp, Camp Mystic, positioned adjacent to the river, found itself confronting rapidly rising waters. 

A group of young girls were quickly evacuated from their rooms and waded through ankle-deep water to a nearby recreation hall. 27 of them, including teenage counselors and staff, would later be found dead.

At the same time, a man named Christian Fell, amid the rising flood levels in his home, dived underwater and escaped through a shattered window. 

Although he’d attempted to call 911, he’d been disconnected three times. 

Some local officials were still asleep at this hour. 

At 5:31a.m., Kerr County’s first alert was posted on facebook, urging residents to move to higher ground immediately with the phrase, “Turn Around - Don’t Drown!” 

Homes, cars, trees, and camp sites had already been swept downstream. 

Caroline Cutrona, a counselor at Camp Mystic, said in an interview with CNN, “The first thing I thought was, “This is not real. Wake up, Caroline.” 

Within just 45 minutes, the Guadalupe River had risen 26 feet. At its peak, the river rose to a height of 37.5 feet. 

Search and rescue operations by the US Coast Guard commenced at 6:30pm that day. 

Currently, at least 134 individuals have been found dead, with 166 more missing. At least 37 of the dead are children. Kerr County constitutes 107 of the total deaths, and all children deaths. 

Yet, city officials stubbornly assert that nothing more could have been done to prevent the disaster. 

At 10 a.m. on July 3rd, the County judges and city mayors were invited to a daily call about weather forecasts. 

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick later stated that a regional coordinator reached out personally to officials in the area, making sure they were “aware there could be flooding.” 

“The message was sent,” Patrick asserted. “It is up to the local counties and mayors under the law to evacuate if they feel the need.”

However, Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr. told reporters later that he “did not receive a call.” 

Camp Mystic’s director Dick Eastland, despite receiving a flood warning on his phone at 1:14am, did not issue evacuation orders until an hour later. 

However, it may be possible that the warning was not seen. 

Camp counselors surrendered their phones at the start of the program, leaving them cut off from emergency alerts, and campers themselves were not allowed to bring mobile phones. Spotty networking issues are also to be considered.

Eastland died while trying to relocate a group of young girls to safety. 

Despite repeated denials of accountability by local officials, Kerr County lacked even a basic  alarm system to warn residents. 

Reflecting on years of debate, officials have referenced the required budget of 1 million dollars to install a siren as a much too costly endeavor. 

For comparison, Texas’s state budget is 320 billion dollars. 

But would it have made a difference? 

Cruz Newberry, owner of Table Rock Alerting Systems, says, “The nice thing with an outdoor warning system is it’s one of the few methods that local officials have at their disposal where they can literally press a button and warn citizens themselves… It’s difficult to ignore a siren blaring for three minutes straight.”

The HB 13 bill, which would have installed a siren alarm system in Hill Country, was voted against by Wes Virdell, a Republican representative whose district covers much of the flooded area.

Another critical factor to consider is the federal funding cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its offshoot, the National Weather Service (NWS).

 These organizations have been held in high regard due to their ability to predict accurate local forecasts and warn residents of any potential climate dangers. 

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, warns that further funding cuts will be “100 percent responsible for costing lives.” 

Economically as well, it has been estimated that every dollar invested in the NWS reaps more than $9 in return.

And the crisis is far from over. 

The weekend following the initial disaster brought an additional 6 to 10 inches of further rainfall catalyzed by  more flooding across the Llano, Lampasas, and San Saba rivers. The Lampasas River rose 30 feet in less than five hours. 

As of now, Texas remains submerged and devastated.