As the death count from the Independence Day flooding in central Texas has now surpassed 100, with dozens of children reported dead and missing who were camping at Camp Mystic in Kerr County, Texans are asking why a warning system wasn’t in place and why the camp didn’t evacuate when others did.
On Wednesday and Thursday, a series of emergency weather alerts were issued by the National Weather Service and Texas Division of Emergency Management.
Despite a decades-long history of flash floods in the Texas Hill Country, and a 1987 flash flood that killed 10 teenagers at a Christian Camp in neighboring Kendall County, Kerr County didn’t have an emergency warning system in place.
The NWS-Austin/San Antonio issued a Flood Watch Wednesday for several counties, including Kerr County; the NWS San Angelo also issued a flood watch for several counties.
