Texas Floods Leave Behind Chaos and Desperation
In the darkness of the 4th of July morning, waves swept through areas in Texas Hill County, catching the citizens there off guard and leaving behind destruction and chaos. At least 60 citizens have died in the floods, and many have yet to be recovered.
Search efforts for 13 girls at a girls’ summer camp continue. However, it is still hard to say whether even a few are still alive. However, officials added that more than 850 people have been rescued, including over 100 airlifted from the region.
Even more concerning, after the children went missing, the press asked Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the country’s top elected official, why the summer camps were not evacuated. He said, “I can’t answer that, I don’t know.”
The Texas Department of Emergency Management did indeed say that there were “increased threats of flooding in parts of West and Central Texas.” However, they noted that they “did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.” The rain could be seen sinking entire houses and leaving only their chimneys popping through the surface of the rough waves.
People around here are also getting more worried when Kerville City Manager, Dalton Rice, dodged a question from reporters asking “Why when the TDEM said on July 2 and July 3, that something like this could’ve happened, and the threat was possible that information didn’t get down to the camps and why they weren’t evacuated. ”
The camp, Camp Mystic, is an all-girls private Christian summer camp. 27 counselors and kids were lost in the flooding, as well as the owner of the camp, when he heroically tried to save some of the girls.
But at least 10 of the girls who went missing have still not yet been found.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said on Sunday that rescue efforts would not cease until all of the missing citizens were found.
More than 80 people have already been found dead, and now, many more are being recorded. In some areas, the water height went up 24 feet in just an hour, catching many off guard.
This flash flooding may have been deadly, but there are still many ways that future hazards like these could be prevented.
First, people should have been notified immediately that something like this could happen. Second, sirens should have been activated to tell the whole city that there was danger.
Rescue efforts are continuing, but everyone is hoping for all the missing people to be survivors.
