A Warning Unheeded: Camp Mystic’s Tragedy Was Years in the Making
A community nestled in “Flash Flood Alley” had years of warnings, near-misses, and proposals for sirens and river gauges. But when the water came, all they had was silence.
Eight years before the July 4 flood that killed at least 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic in Kerr County, Texas, local officials considered a familiar question: Should the region invest in a modern warning system for the Guadalupe River?
The answer then, as it had been in years past, was no.
In 2017, following yet another flood along the Guadalupe, a river that cuts through Texas Hill Country and is lined with popular summer camps, Kerr County commissioners debated installing sirens, river gauges and digital alert systems. At the time, they relied on an informal, decades-old tradition: when the waters rose upstream, camp leaders would call or radio those further downriver.
Tom Moser, then a county commissioner, voiced concern that such reliance on word of mouth was inadequate. “We can do all the water-level monitoring we want,” Moser said, “but if we don’t get that information to the public in a timely way, then this whole thing is not worth it.”
Still, the plan went nowhere. A $1 million federal grant that might have funded a more robust system never materialized. Commissioners, working with an annual budget of roughly $67 million, considered the proposal too costly, per the New York Times.
Even as recently as May of this year, local officials discussed a possible partnership with a regional agency that was developing a flood alert system. But there was little urgency, even as the summer season approached.
Then came the storm.
On July 4, the Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet in under two hours. Without sirens, without real-time alerts, dozens of girls and staff at Camp Mystic were caught unaware. Many were swept away. Emergency text warnings came too late for some, and were ignored or unnoticed by others.
Kerr County, with a population just over 50,000, sits in a region ominously nicknamed “Flash Flood Alley.” The danger is well known. Yet officials repeatedly deferred preventive investment.
In a recent interview, Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected official, admitted that resistance from residents played a role. “Taxpayers won’t pay for it,” he said. Whether that changes now, he added, remains uncertain.
The idea of a regional flood warning system was first raised in 2015, following a deadly flood in Wimberley, 75 miles east of Kerrville, the county seat. Like then, the question after this tragedy will be whether the political will and the funding finally materializes.