Scary info from a USGS gauge on the Guadalupe River

[LeftInTX]

4. The area is full of hills. You walk toward the top of a hill.

Usually an uphill walk of several hundred feet will get you out of the floodplain. You don't drive. In one case, a family had water up to their necks and all they had to go was go across the street. These are flash floods, not hurricane floods.

I feel like the area became complacent. It used to flood frequently, but the last two decades have been plagued with droughts and people forgot. A woman who owns an RV park got everyone to safety except one family. RV parks where the owners weren't present had poorer outcomes.

There were camps where they were actively monitoring the weather and they had much better outcomes.

I don't know what happened at Camp Mystic. Mystic also has cabins which are also pretty much on water's edge. I don't see that at other camps. There is often a 100 ft setback.

Camp Mystic has a "hill top"

Patrons may not understand flash flood safety. I do know that trying to drive out of a flash flood is very dangerous. Driving is what killed 10 girls in 1987. If they had remained at the camp, they probably would not have died. Most camps have high ground areas.

Yes, this flood was catastrophic, but something was "off" about how all of this was managed and contributed to the tremendous number of deaths. The last big flood on the Guadalupe was in 2002. People were going door to door. My son worked at a camp. . Nowadays, people check into an AirBnB which is owned by someone who lives in another town. In 1998, we stayed at a cottage next to a house, where the owner lived.