July 7, 2025 • 39 mins
Grab your emergency radio and whatever’s left of your faith in infrastructure, because today we’re getting a broader understanding of what happens when a system fails and the water comes anyway as we look at the devastating floods that hit Texas, the failure of leadership and lawmakers, the unsavory online discourse that followed, and a reminder that we should care about every child, not just the ones whose parents vote like us.
Donations & Resources:
Texsar
https://texsar.networkforgood.com/projects/254910-responding-to-the-july-4-texas-floods?fbclid=IwY2xjawLWSV9leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFLM0g0MlJ2OFBNNkVmSUFSAR6gXCX9A5Qywv5AsNa_zAkbR17lH893hGuqVTGMRxjrLTo65rgxp7ojXjOrDA_aem_3cb4WaDPlYOOe56jww2s5w
“The Austin-based nonprofit specializing in emergency response has deployed swiftwater rescue teams, boats, drones and search dogs to aid in the search for the missing. The group is aiming to raise $100,000 to sustain its efforts. Donations can be made online for those who are not local.”
Kerr County Flood Relief Fund
https://cftexashillcountry.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=4201
“This fund will direct donations to vetted organizations providing rescue, relief, and recovery efforts as well as flood assistance. The Fund will support the communities of Hunt, Ingram, Kerrville, Center Point, and Comfort. It is in support of nonprofit organizations, first responder agencies, and local governments actively involved in response, relief, and recovery efforts.”
Mercy Chefs
https://mercychefs.com
“providing free hot meals to families, first responders and volunteers impacted by the floods. They are also accepting donations to support their meal operations.”
International Medical Corpshttps://intlmedcorps.donorsupport.co/page/TexasFloods2607&appeal=DPHHT2607
“providing health facilities in Kerrville and the surrounding areas with medical supplies that will help these facilities remain operational and ensure that patients receive lifesaving services, and stands ready to send medical and mental health volunteers if requested.”
The Uvalde Foundation for Kids
https://www.theuvaldefoundation.com/post/uvalde-foundation-for-kids-launches-fundraiser-to-aid-kerr-county-flood-victims-volunteers-urgently
“The Uvalde Foundation for Kids is accepting donations online as well as supplies for flood victims. Here's where you can drop off items. If interested in volunteering for search efforts or general relief assistance, email the foundation here or call (254)499-8027.”
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.
Donations & Resources:
Texsar
https://texsar.networkforgood.com/projects/254910-responding-to-the-july-4-texas-floods?fbclid=IwY2xjawLWSV9leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFLM0g0MlJ2OFBNNkVmSUFSAR6gXCX9A5Qywv5AsNa_zAkbR17lH893hGuqVTGMRxjrLTo65rgxp7ojXjOrDA_aem_3cb4WaDPlYOOe56jww2s5w
“The Austin-based nonprofit specializing in emergency response has deployed swiftwater rescue teams, boats, drones and search dogs to aid in the search for the missing. The group is aiming to raise $100,000 to sustain its efforts. Donations can be made online for those who are not local.”
Kerr County Flood Relief Fund
https://cftexashillcountry.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=4201
“This fund will direct donations to vetted organizations providing rescue, relief, and recovery efforts as well as flood assistance. The Fund will support the communities of Hunt, Ingram, Kerrville, Center Point, and Comfort. It is in support of nonprofit organizations, first responder agencies, and local governments actively involved in response, relief, and recovery efforts.”
Mercy Chefs
https://mercychefs.com
“providing free hot meals to families, first responders and volunteers impacted by the floods. They are also accepting donations to support their meal operations.”
International Medical Corpshttps://intlmedcorps.donorsupport.co/page/TexasFloods2607&appeal=DPHHT2607
“providing health facilities in Kerrville and the surrounding areas with medical supplies that will help these facilities remain operational and ensure that patients receive lifesaving services, and stands ready to send medical and mental health volunteers if requested.”
The Uvalde Foundation for Kids
https://www.theuvaldefoundation.com/post/uvalde-foundation-for-kids-launches-fundraiser-to-aid-kerr-county-flood-victims-volunteers-urgently
“The Uvalde Foundation for Kids is accepting donations online as well as supplies for flood victims. Here's where you can drop off items. If interested in volunteering for search efforts or general relief assistance, email the foundation here or call (254)499-8027.”
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Catastrophic flooding in Texas, where the Lieutenant Governor is now
saying there are children unaccounted.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
For from a girls camp in the sea for the
parents who are waiting, particularly that had children in Camp Mystic.
Camp Mystic is a camp that has over seven.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
And fifty kids right now.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
They're twenty some that aren't accounted for. That does not
mean they've been lost. They could be in a tree,
they could be out of communication. We're praying for all
of those missing to be found alive.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends, and anyone who knows the sound
of summers should be sprinklers and screen doors, not helicopters
and search parties. I'm Danielli, screama and this is Broad's
next door. Grab your emergency radio and whatever's left of
your faith in infrastructure, because today we're getting a broader
(01:00):
understanding of what happens when a system fails and the
water comes anyway. As we look at the devastating floods
that hit Texas on the fourth of July, the unsavory
online discourse that followed, and a reminder that we should
care about every child, not just the ones whose parents fot.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
Like us wiped off their foundations cars in trees. Parts
of western Travis County, including the southern tip of Leander,
devastated by floods this weekend. Crews are still searching for
missing people.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
My car floated off.
Speaker 7 (01:36):
We still haven't found it.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
And then we watched our neighbors in their double wide
float passes with their whole family in the house.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
This family says they're lucky to be alive after being
swept away while trying to escape in.
Speaker 6 (01:51):
This truck, bumped into the trailer and then ended up.
You'll see our truck right here up against the tree.
My dad got me out.
Speaker 8 (02:00):
I find the tree.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
He handed my daughter to me, and then we sat
in that tree for about an hour and a half
two hours.
Speaker 9 (02:06):
Just a few streets down.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
A list of people who may still be missing posted
at the front of the Round Mountain Baptist Church.
Speaker 7 (02:12):
Greatest need is information people need.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
They just want to know what's going on.
Speaker 7 (02:17):
They want to know where their loved ones are.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
The church is serving as a makeshift meeting place for
this community near Sandy Creek and for crews still searching
on Sunday, Cool.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Hi, Hello, how is everyone? I hope you're doing okay?
I know the news out of Texas is really devastating.
If you're in Texas, my heart goes out to you.
If you've been personally affected by this, I don't I
don't even have words, but I'm going to try and
put some together because I think this is important to
(02:51):
talk about.
Speaker 9 (02:52):
We keep seeing stuff like this happen more and more.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Often, and anything that impacts children the way this did
is just even more devastating. So we're going to talk
about what happened with the flooding over the fourth of
July weekend in Texas and a lot of other similar
storms that have happened over the last few years, plus
the response and how some of it has been deeply
(03:17):
unkind but maybe why people are feeling that way with
the defunding of things like the National Weather Service.
Speaker 9 (03:25):
But I also want to.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Remind people that is important to keep your empathy. So
let's get into what happened and why. This is from
Local Texas News Texas kho U eleven with meteorologists Pat
Calvin explaining what caused the Texas the Texas Hill County,
(03:47):
the Texas Hill Country flooding.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I'm me derologis Pat Calvin here at KHOU in Houston, Texas.
It's been a really rough week for folks in the
Hill Country and central Texas, especially the last few days
with the prolific flooding that happened through Kurrville and also
in the Austin area, and it's left a lot of
folks asking a lot of questions. This is an extreme event.
It's a freak event, really, and so I think it's
(04:11):
important that we take a minute to kind of break
down why it happened, what the factors were that led
to it, and what kind of event.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
And he is right that it's a freak event. But
what I feel like is missing from a lot of
this discourse is that these once every one thousand year
floods are happening every year or every few years, maybe
not to this scope, but we'll talk about that later.
(04:38):
Like with Hurricane Helene in northwest North Carolina and the
Gulf Coast of Florida last September October, how devastating that was.
But let me continue playing this.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Warning those that were in harm's way got leading up
to this, So let's just kind of break this down.
We're gonna start first with why this prolific flooding event happened,
and it all has to do with tropical moisture from
Tropical Storm Berry. And you might be asking yourself, what
tropical storm We didn't have anything make landfall here in Texas,
(05:13):
And that's correct. Tropical Storm Berry formed in the Gulf
last week and ended up making landfall in northern Mexico.
That moisture then moved up into Texas and interacted with
a slow moving batch of storms over the middle of
the state. Those two combined and pretty much happened over
(05:36):
one of the worst parts of the state when it
comes to flash flooding events, the Hill country where you
have all of these ravines and these creeks and these streams.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
They kind of were a lot of warnings that this
area was just super super prone to flooding all I
mean it being called hill country itself.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
In these areas, flash flooding becomes a huge problem. So
let's take a look at how this kind of panned
out on a map. This is the path that tropical
Storm Berry took. It formed in the Bay of Campeche
and then kind of drifted into northern Mexico and again
wasn't an issue for anyone here in the United States.
Speaker 9 (06:14):
It looks pretty far from up to Texas.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Here's the problem.
Speaker 10 (06:18):
Much further south the circulation, so.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
That it becomes landburry fll apart.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
All of that moisture in the atmosphere doesn't just disappear.
It's still there. And notice you've got the Sierra Madre
Mountains here through central and northern Mexico just off the
coastline here. When you've got low level tropical moisture that
comes on shore, it has to go somewhere, and it
can't go up and over the mountains, and so it
(06:43):
starts to stream up north. And so you take all
of that tropical moisture from this dissipating storm and you
funnel it northward. Now, typically this will lead to maybe
a couple of days of unsettled weather, more clouds, a
couple showers for us. Here in South Texas. Situation unique
was the presence of what's known as a measoscale convective vortex.
(07:06):
It's basically a mini area of low pressure, and it
was very slow moving, pretty much stationary over central Texas. Now,
forecasters knew that this MCV mesoscale convective vortex was going
to be over the area about twelve to eighteen hours
before this event unfolded, and that'll go to the timeline.
(07:27):
We'll talk about that in just a second. But once
they saw this feature and they saw the interaction that
was happening with that tropical moisture, that's when the first
alarm bell started to go off. And again we'll break
down timeline in just a second. But when you married
that tropical moisture with this trigger for the development of thunderstorms,
it just unleashed a freak event here across the hill
(07:49):
country with slow moving, localized, prolific heavy rain producing thunderstorms
first in the Curville area and then the day's following
up in the Austin area. So let's break down this
timeline about what the forecasters knew and how they communicated
this information to the public. Thursday afternoon, so July third,
(08:11):
just afternoon so one eighteen pm Central time, floodwatches were
issued that did include the Kerrville area. Basically, a floodwatch
is the National Weather Service's way of saying, hey, conditions
are possible for the potential to see flooding. It's not imminent,
it's not happening right now, but within the next twenty
(08:34):
four hours. Those conditions may start to develop later that
evening as the forecast started to become a little more clear,
as more high resolution model data, which is what forecasters
used to develop these forecasts, became more consistent. That's when
they put out a special discussion about a flash flooding threat,
(08:54):
so the messaging starts to become a little more specific.
Thursday evening, now we get into overnight hours and just
after midnight, so one am Friday, July fourth, is when
thunderstorms begin to develop right over Kirk County and that's
when the first flash flood warning is issued. This is
a warning that is issued for stationary training heavy thunderstorms
(09:18):
that are producing a tremendous amount of rainfall in a
localized area that can lead to the development of rapidly
rising floodwaters. Three hours later, at four oh three in
the morning, that's when that flash flood warning is upgraded
to a rare flash food emergency. Flash food emergencies are
reserved for the most significant types of flash flooding events.
(09:42):
This is when there is an imminent, ongoing threat.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
To life and and a lot of people, myself included,
I feel like this system is a little flash warning
is not enough.
Speaker 9 (09:53):
There should be.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Sirens, there should be that step, more people working.
Speaker 9 (09:58):
We'll get into that next.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
This is a critical situation. Seventeen minutes later, at four
twenty in the morning is when the Guadalupe River at
Hunt hit that major flood stage. And we know what
happens after that. So here's a radar loop. This radar
loop goes from one o'clock in the morning Friday all
(10:20):
the way through Saturday evening. And you can see notice
that little spin. And I'll kind of segment this and
break it up, but you see the spin on the
radar there, that's the MCV again, metal scale convective vortex.
Vortex is that word that really gives us that hint
of that spin in the atmosphere. This is like a
mini tropical storm almost over land because we're picking up
(10:41):
tropical moisture from the remnants of Berry. You got that
spin in the atmosphere, and this just becomes a self
you know, a self serving engine basically. And so we
see this just persistent rainfall across the hill country for
hours and hours and hours. We get a break. More
develops here across the Austin area, and then it continues
(11:02):
through Saturday and even during the day to day on Sunday,
let's hone in on Friday, specifically, we go from one
am all the way through the day. Here comes that
swirl in the atmosphere. That's the MCV coming in. But
before the MCV actually reaches the hill country, look what's
happening over Kerrville. This one little training thunderstorm in here
(11:23):
where its rounds and rounds and rounds of heavy rain,
and then the MCV comes in. It was that initial
thunderstorm that prompted the first flash flood warning. And as
we kind of pause the clock here two point thirty
in the morning, remember that first flash flood warning came
out just after two am, or actually just after one am,
and this is the reason why there was one loan
(11:44):
thunderstorm right over the north and south fork of the
Guadaloupe River, and that's what prompted the initial flooding. Then
you get the MCV coming in on top of that.
Notice the spin there, and that's just kind of enhancing everything,
enhancing thunderstorms, enhancing rainfall rates. It was the absolute perfect storm.
(12:04):
And the problem is that this presents for forecasters on
TV at the government level and the private sector across
the board, is that this is really pushing the science
of meteorology to the limit. We are not at a
point yet where we can pinpoint exactly where these thunderstorms
are going to pop up and where that flooding is
going to happen.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
And now we're going to hear a little bit about
the cuts to funding and how this could have played
an impact, not that that makes it anyone's fault that
they drowned. And by anyone, I do mean the individuals
impacted this, not the people in power who should absolutely
always be held accountable.
Speaker 9 (12:43):
This is from News Nation.
Speaker 7 (12:45):
Ant Mystic has now confirmed that all twenty seven campers
and counselors previously reported as missing after this weekend's devastating
floods are dead. Of course, our continued thoughts with those
parents who are just living their absolute worst nightmare right now.
Cannot get those little girls faces out of my head.
Has communities their grieve and continue to search for answers.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
A political storm is bring people have questions about this.
Speaker 7 (13:12):
Some critics are blaming DOGE cuts to the National Weather
Service for putting those lives at risk. Mills Hayes has
been digging into this one for US and is here
to sort all the facts from the finger pointing that's
going on mills. A lot of people, especially parents right now,
are looking for some sort of answer.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
What do you find out?
Speaker 11 (13:30):
Well, good morning to you. Markie had awful news coming out.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Of Can't Mistick this morning.
Speaker 11 (13:33):
And we have reviewed some of those budget sheets and
warning timelines and also the rainfall data to see whether
those DOGE cuts really did slow the alarms or not.
Oh God, the cuts are real. About fifteen percent of
NOAA staff were fired or took a buyout since President
Trump took office, with Houston's forecast office without a head meteorologist.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Thick your favorite team, and now imagine that team has, instead.
Speaker 10 (14:03):
Of eleven players, has eight players.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
They're gonna lose no matter how good they are.
Speaker 12 (14:09):
They can't do the job of the full team.
Speaker 10 (14:12):
And that's what's happening at NOAH.
Speaker 11 (14:15):
Forecasters warned of flash floods the night before, but their
predicted totals came in low, just five to seven inches,
far less than what actually fell, with as much as
twenty inches of rain reported in parts.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Of Central Texas.
Speaker 11 (14:29):
Alerts went out hours before the worst flooding, but local
officials say many people received the alerts in the middle
of the night while they were sleeping. Others never received
the alerts, and some didn't take them seriously. Now local
officials are being held to task about how this was
allowed to happen.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
All of the.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Questions this skill hasn't been answer three days into this
is just.
Speaker 11 (14:51):
Like eachy as warning on high second for something like
this could have had.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Before it existed.
Speaker 9 (14:57):
Why that information didn't get down in camps and why
word back to the Andrews.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Now, that is a great question, But again, we want
to make sure that we continue to focus. We still
have eleven missing children that we want to get reunited
with our families.
Speaker 9 (15:09):
Until we can get until we can.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Get reunited with our family with their families, we are
going We are not going to stop. We are not
going to stop until we do so.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Thank you question sir for.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
Any emergency alert giving out on the board that morning.
Speaker 11 (15:24):
An union leaders say the skeleton crew worked double shifts
and still met every warning deadline. They blamed the missed
rain totals on extreme localized downpours.
Speaker 13 (15:36):
There is a failure somewhere along the lines when it
comes to the communication of the forecast and the implementation
of actions that help try and save life.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Experts warn the real.
Speaker 11 (15:45):
Danger is next time hurricane season peaks in six weeks,
and a shrinking inn WS could miss a life or
death alert.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
So it seems like it's a combination of factors.
Speaker 9 (15:57):
I liked the little football in that.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
Well, sorry, I liked the football analogy that was made
that it's like going from a team of eight to
of eleven to eight. I don't even know how many
football players there aren't a team. I thought there were
like thirty. But we can't say that it's people working
over time, people taking buyouts. We can't act like that
(16:20):
doesn't affect this stuff, because of course it must. But
it's also changing weather, the weather getting worse, and these
things happening more often. But I do want to take
a little bit of time to talk about Camp Mystic
and the campers there, and just what a nightmare this was.
It is Monday morning while I'm recording this, and the
(16:42):
information is still really mixed. There's the twenty seven campers
confirmed dead, and then there's also stuff coming out that
says the campers that some of them are still missing,
so hopefully more of them will be found alive.
Speaker 9 (16:58):
I really truly hope.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
So well, let's hear some news about what happened there.
This is from the Today Show from this morning, about
an hour ago. I'm trying to share with you the
most recent things that I can find.
Speaker 12 (17:16):
For nearly a century, Camp Missed It has been a
safe haven for young girls who spent summers there forging
friendships that last a lifetime. But early Friday morning, the
idyllic retreat was ravaged by torrential rain.
Speaker 8 (17:32):
You'd see kayaks like in trees, and it was kind
of horrific.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It didn't look like can't miss it anymore.
Speaker 12 (17:40):
And raging floodwaters that rose thirty feet in a single hour.
Heroic counselors and staff members jumped into action, saving more
than seven hundred campers caught in the storm, like Emma Foles,
who officials say helped get her fourteen campers to safety.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
The camp's director godd seven hundred of them did back.
Poor man died too, but seven hundred of them did
make it. There were so many girls at this camp.
It seems like the camps, the ones with the younger
girls because they start accepting girls after the second grade,
were right on the Guadalupe river, and the other campers
(18:17):
who had a better chance of survival were by a lake,
so they had a little bit of more time, whereas
the younger campers, it seems like the cabin was basically
just swept. Cabins were basically just swept away girls.
Speaker 12 (18:28):
From the rising waters. His grandson writing, if he wasn't
going to die of natural causes, this was the only
other way saving the girls that he so loved and
cared for. His impact will never leave the lives he touched.
Staff member Brooke Beard says she managed to escape through
a cabin window as waste high water rushed in.
Speaker 14 (18:50):
We had no clue about what those little girls were
going through at that time.
Speaker 12 (18:54):
Soon word of the damage and the dozens missing began
to spread.
Speaker 8 (18:58):
Girls were looking for their system and their cousins, and
there was.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
A lot of tears. Brooks says.
Speaker 12 (19:04):
In those moments, the camp counselors stepped up to help
anyone they could.
Speaker 14 (19:09):
So many lives were saved because of eighteen year olds.
Speaker 12 (19:13):
These photos depicting the heartbreaking aftermath as we're learning some
of the names of the young lives lost.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
This is from CNN making an announcement about the camp
Mystic girls and we are.
Speaker 13 (19:26):
Getting breaking news out of Central Texas in Kerr County.
Camp Mystic just released a statement about its campers and councilors.
Let's get right to see Ann anchor Pam Brown who
is nearby for the latest. Pam, what are you hearing?
Speaker 14 (19:41):
This is the first time Camp Mystic is releasing a
statement with a number of deaths, and in this statement,
John Camp Mystic says it is grieving the loss of
twenty seven campers and counselors following the catastrophic flooding on
the Guadalupe River. The statement goes on to say, our
hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this
(20:01):
unimaginable tragedy. We are praying for them constantly. We have
been in communication with local and state authorities who were
tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls.
We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of support from community,
first responders and officials at every level. We asked for
your continued prayers, respect, and privacy.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
What a nightmare for those parents I truly cannot imagine.
I truly can't imagine, and then having to find out
this way. Camp Mystic also had a no cell phones policy,
and most of the camp counselors are still girls themselves.
Speaker 9 (20:35):
They're adults, but.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
They're like eighteen nineteen years old. There were only a
few adult adults that were there, so having to find
out this way.
Speaker 9 (20:46):
I don't know if you went to camp as a kid.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
I did not go to camp as a kid, but
I was a camp counselor when I was in my
late teens and early twenties at a camp.
Speaker 9 (20:56):
In Florida, Boggie Creek, which.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Was fun by founded by Paul Newman, and a lot
of what it focuses on is kids with developmental disabilities
or kids who have terminal illnesses. And I always worked
with the kids with terminal illnesses, and I.
Speaker 9 (21:13):
Would have died for those kids if I could have.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
I would have truly died for those children, because you
love the kids that are in your bunk so much.
You get so attached to them, especially with me having
kids that were already so sick. A lot of them
who had gone through chemo, had really severe health issues,
but you just bond so much in such a short
(21:37):
period of time, like we had each of them for
I think it was just a week. It might have
been two weeks. This is twenty something years ago now,
But I mean it just just you do want to
do anything to protect them and have them have the
best time and have it memorable. But then being a
parent on the other side of this, I can't imagine
(21:58):
finding out something like this in this way, I'm going
to play a little bit more of this clip for you.
Speaker 14 (22:04):
See, for each of our families affected, may the Lord
continue to wrap his presence around all of us. Twenty
seven young souls, these young campers, John, and young counselors.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Remember these counselors or teenagers.
Speaker 14 (22:18):
For the most part, many of them jumped into action.
Speaker 11 (22:20):
They were heroes.
Speaker 14 (22:22):
But as we are getting from this statement, some died
as well. The cam't Mystic did not say how many
of those twenty seven were campers versus counselors were presumably
the bulk of them are campers. And I just can't
stop thinking, John that it was just a little over
a week ago that parents dropped their young children off
to have the best four weeks of their life at
(22:44):
Camp Mystic, a camp I attended thirty years ago, And
now some of those same parents are going to the
local funeral home to potentially identify their child. It's just
beyond comprehension.
Speaker 9 (22:57):
The heartbreak here. You feel it all around John.
Speaker 13 (23:00):
It just has to be overwhelming to be there, Pam.
And again this statement from Camp Mystic is really the
first time we have heard them address fatalities. They grieving
the loss of twenty seven campers and counselors, I think,
confirming many of the worst fears that so many have
been having there.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Thank you for being there.
Speaker 13 (23:20):
Keep us post is obviously this is developing. This news
just coming.
Speaker 10 (23:24):
In new reporting today. They long held concerns in Kerr
County over the ongoing flooding threat. Their records show that
even nine years ago the county started considering building an
early warning system.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
They where with some of the things where the local
elected leaders drop mission or governor outset that.
Speaker 8 (23:46):
The county was probably the highest risk area in the
state for flooding, adding our system is quite simply pretty antiquated,
it's the marginal at best, and then a follow up
meeting a year later.
Speaker 10 (24:00):
Saying we can do all the water level monitoring we want,
but if we don't get that information to the public
in a timely way, then this whole thing is not
worth it. The county's top elected official said Friday, they
still don't have a warning system with sirens, and a
local city manager then said this yesterday.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
And the thing is, the cost of doing this preventative
things far is so much less than the cost of
the cleanup, the devastation, the death that happened and occurred,
the homes, the animals, the human lives lost. It's just
it's an unfathomable amount of death.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
We know questions are being asked about the emergency notification.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
And while while it is.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Not the time to speculate, local and regional partners.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Are committee, it is the time to speculate. It is
the time to speculate right now.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
It's when we speculate, we'll take clear steps to strengthen
our future preparedness.
Speaker 10 (24:59):
Joining us right now is and senior national security analyst
Juliet Kayams. She's also a former assistant secretary at the
Department of Homeland Security. For much more on this, Juliette,
there is some of what is known, a lot of
what is not because of just the scope and magnitude
of this disaster. You heard that city manager promising a review.
You heard that from other officials as well. But seeing
the level of destruction these floods brought, how fast it happened,
(25:22):
has left many officials saying that there's nothing that could
have prevented something like this.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Do you see it that way?
Speaker 15 (25:30):
With all due respect, no, And I don't want you
to fail hard to gratitude about disaster management preparation. Flash
floods happen often, bad flash floods often, and we have
to learn about what happened.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
And that's why I hate them doing this whole once
every thousand years. It was unpredictable. Nothing could have been
done because if the right systems are put in place,
even for these camps, even these camps that are on
a river, should be held a care on a ble
for flooding. Like I was saying, the camp that I
volunteered at Boggy Creek that was in Florida, and I
(26:07):
think it was pretty inland, but we had a whole
system for if there was a hurricane or there was
a storm, or how you would communicate because this was
pretty early where not everyone had cell phones, but we
had walkie talkies. We got briefed on news reports and
what was safe and when.
Speaker 9 (26:24):
And this was.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Twenty twenty years ago at least for even twenty five
years ago for some of it. But I also think
that that was because this was funded by Paul Newman,
who was just such a giving, giving person, the actor
turned salad dressing guy. But I cut this off, let
me continue here.
Speaker 15 (26:46):
Because of the devastating impact that this has had on
that community that it hasn't had in other communities. Because
we look at this comparatively, right, I mean, we're hitting
I don't know if we're at one hundred yet, but
this is a mass casualty event that we don't generally see.
So there's three focuses of this study, and I'm grateful
(27:06):
that the Kirk County.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Is committed to this.
Speaker 15 (27:08):
The first is notifications that something bad is happening.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
As we've seen.
Speaker 15 (27:13):
From National Weather Service, those notifications were getting more and
more frantic overnight. It is nighttime, it's a holiday weekend,
but those were occurring. The second is the connectivity between
those alerts and someone doing something. Alerts aren't self executing.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
You need emergency.
Speaker 15 (27:30):
Managers, locals, camp counselors, trailer park owners, all of them
to know what's going on.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
And then the third is are.
Speaker 15 (27:38):
People acting in response to this, there is a breakdown.
We know that, and we know that because of the
impact on one particular place, camp missed it.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I mean, if you look at the numbers.
Speaker 15 (27:53):
Which is what we have to do, we owe it
to the dead and those girls. You know, you have
to look why at this particular camp what happened in
terms of notification and readiness, and that is the review
that we have to do apolitical, so that we're committed
to being ready for the next one and more lives
can be saved next time.
Speaker 10 (28:14):
And as another official said this morning, it's something when
people say it's something I've never seen anything like this,
It is something. Saying those words is something that people
are going to have to get more and more used
to saying because of the nature of the climate crisis,
the effects of which we're already seeing harsher, faster, bigger flooding,
(28:35):
and that also impacts preparation for which is exactly kind
of what you're getting at. As the ballgame changes, they
all need to start looking at it a slightly different way.
And part of and Elena was talking about this, there
are questions being raised about the impacts the role of
the federal government in this preparation and kind of the
(28:59):
nature of the federal government cuts that.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
And I'd really like to remind you that these were
children and not everyone that passed away. I mean, fifty
something people were not. But the kids had no say
in climate policy, no vote in budgets cuts, yet they're
the ones who bore the brunt of systemic failures. And
the National Weather Service, though understaffed and partially defunded, did
(29:24):
issue warnings that floodwatch you heard about, but a lot
of people did not get these warnings. The system in
place is not good enough, the response in place is
not good enough, and the effectiveness of these warnings is
rightfully under scrutiny. And people are arguing that staffing cuts
(29:45):
at the NWS under Doge and the Trump administration have
hampered coordination with emergency responders. We also can't ignore climate
change here, because with our changing climate, these events are
becoming alarmingly more frequent. The Guadalupe River rose over forty
(30:06):
feet in some places, over twenty feet in one hour,
tearing through roads, homes, and sumber camps. Entire neighborhood spanished.
So did cell service, so did warning systems. And here's
the part where people start pointing fingers, and not always
in the right direction. Yes, the National Weather Service issued warnings,
(30:27):
but they were hours apart, scattered, and came too late
for many. And yes, the National Weather Service has been
gutted in recent years, particularly this year, with huge staffing cuts.
But here's what no flood cares about, your party affiliation,
your governor's approval rating. This wasn't just a failure of
(30:48):
weather models. It was a failure of investment, of foresight.
And this is the kind of failure that kills people
no matter who.
Speaker 9 (30:55):
They voted for.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
If you've been online in the past forty eight hours,
you've probably seen in the takes some people saying Texas
is getting what it voted for. Maybe now they know
how Gaza feels, which is just ridiculous to me. I
saw a lot of people saying that, like, you can
care about both things. You can care about the little
girls from the Mystic camp and the children of Gaza.
(31:18):
At the same time, wishing this on people in Texas
is not going to protect anyone in Palestine. We can't
start rationing empathy based on zip codes and political voting maps,
or we've already drowned. Children don't vote children don't deserve
any of this, and a lot of adults they were
lied to, They were manipulated and tricked into cheering for
(31:42):
their own abandonment. That doesn't mean they deserve to die
in a flood best case scenario. It means that they
will demand accountability from the people that they voted for.
That's what we should hope for instead of wishing death
upon others. And this isn't just Texas. This is very,
very familiar. Think about Katrina in two thousand and four,
(32:05):
where poor black communities bore the brunt of the levees breaking.
That's what caused so many deaths with Katrina was the
preventable repairs that were not made to these levees and
then they broke and people drowned in their homes. Just
last year, September twenty twenty four, Hurricane Helene slammed northwestern
(32:26):
North Carolina and the Gulf Coast of Florida, where I
currently am. Hundreds of people died in North Carolina. The
entire towns were swept away underwater. Different states, different presidents.
That was under Biden at the time, but it's the
same story. Because so much of this is not karma
it's climate change and lack of preparation, and it's coming
(32:51):
faster than our systems, and our leaders are willing to
keep up with the big beautiful bill that just passed.
There's nothing in there about webs alert systems or climate
change or what to do about any of that. So
what do we do when the floodwaters come? We fight
to fund science. We call out the grift, the deregulation,
(33:11):
the de investment, and we remember that empathy is not
a limited source. We extend our hands not just to
the people who look like us or vote like us,
but to anyone who needs one, because that is the
right thing to do. These things should always make us
feel more empathy, not less, And instead of turning on
each other, we should turn on the people in power,
(33:33):
because the power of the people is always stronger than
the people in power, and that's something they often want
us to forget.
Speaker 9 (33:41):
My hearts are with.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
The families of Camp Mystic and with every parent still
waiting for news. My hearts are with the citizens of Texas,
just like they've been with the people of Palestine. To me,
people are still people at.
Speaker 9 (33:57):
The end of the day.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
I'm sorry, I know that that's unpopular with some of you,
but it just it kind of just has to be
that way.
Speaker 9 (34:06):
It just we have to do better.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
It's not a when they go low, we go high thing.
It's just literal human decency. It's literal human decency of
caring for people. And not all of Texas is red.
I mean, Austin is a super blue city and they're
being deeply impacted too. And they're a deeply blue city
that has had this kind of flight flooding for years.
(34:31):
They had a really bad flood in twenty seventeen, they
had a boil water warning. I mean, these things aren't
new in Florida. They're not new in North Carolina. It
seems a bit newer, but it's still not new. And
the peak we're in hurricane season, the peak of hurricane
season is a little over a month away. It just
(34:53):
makes me really really angry. And if you're angry, that's good.
Just don't waste it. Aim at where belongs that the
people who let this happen and walked away dry from it.
Link resources on how you can help, who you can
write to, where you can donate. In the show notes,
thank you for listening to this one. I know It's
(35:16):
shorter than usual for me and very news clip heavy,
but I wanted to get as much information out there
as possible. I know a lot of you are deeply
personally affected by this. My heart is with you. I'm
praying for you. I'm going to donate and write and
see what kind of policy changes can be made, what
(35:36):
kind of systems can be put in place, because this
just breaks my heart. And this isn't the end of it.
This isn't a once in one thousand years thing, like
the meteorologists keep saying. Maybe at one point it was,
maybe it was a once every one hundred year flood,
but now this is every year all over the country,
(35:56):
the West Coast on fire, and the resources not like
there were six when there was those fires in Los
Angeles in January, they had like six planes that could
drop water onto the fires. And we have a military
budget that is higher than like the next twelve countries
behind US military budgets put together. They just increased the
(36:18):
ice budget by exponential amounts that are unfathomable. And these
are the things that get put aside people's people's lives
and livelihoods. It feels like the system is just turning
toward punishing and never ending war and cutting medicaid instead
of helping anyone with anything. It's horrifying. It's horrifying. It's
(36:39):
absolutely horrifying. So if you're horrified, I get that too.
I think we kind of all should be right now.
In Florida where I am, Alligator Alcatraz also flooded like
the first day it was supposed to open, and it's
only built to withstand, and that's where they're going to
take like undocumented immigrants, to keep them in like a
(37:01):
makeshift prison that they surrounded with alligators and snakes for
like six miles something insane, maybe even more than that.
My nemesis, one of them, Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis,
his sister was my sixth grade bully. So I've a
vendetta against their entire family, both personally and politically. It's
(37:23):
the money can be spent to something like that, more
so that it was spent to help Florida victims of
natural disasters, just to punish people and put them in
a prison they don't deserve to be into is insane.
And that was only built to withstand a hurricane, to
a level two hurricane in the freaking Everglades, which is insane.
(37:45):
I mean, Helene made landfall is a Category four. When
Hurricane Andrew happened, I believe that was a Category.
Speaker 9 (37:51):
Five and that was southern Florida.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
So it's just so incomprehensible to me that this the
way that this is unfolding, the way that the last
to freaking five years have unfolded, and maybe the last
twenty five years. Honestly, maybe since I became sentient of
all of this. But I'm getting very worked up. I
don't want to just yell at you, so I'm gonna
(38:17):
end this one. Thank you so much for listening to
another episode.
Speaker 9 (38:22):
Of Brad's next Door.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
I know this one was a freaking bummer, but everything
is kind of a freaking bummer right now. I'll try
and think of some more fun, lighthearted episodes just because
everything is so awful. I'm kind of in a state myself,
if you can't tell. I'm also still in the state
of Florida visiting my parents.
Speaker 9 (38:42):
So that's its own whole thing.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
I could do like a whole separate podcast about. But
if you enjoyed this episode or you enjoy this show,
send it to a.
Speaker 9 (38:52):
Phone, please, like rate and review. It really helps me out.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
I'm a one woman show over here. When I say we,
I mean you, and so I appreciate you. I hope
you're hanging in there. I'm sending you all of my
love and I'll talk to you very soon. Bye.
Catastrophic flooding in Texas, where the Lieutenant Governor is now
saying there are children unaccounted.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
For from a girls camp in the sea for the
parents who are waiting, particularly that had children in Camp Mystic.
Camp Mystic is a camp that has over seven.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
And fifty kids right now.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
They're twenty some that aren't accounted for. That does not
mean they've been lost. They could be in a tree,
they could be out of communication. We're praying for all
of those missing to be found alive.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends, and anyone who knows the sound
of summers should be sprinklers and screen doors, not helicopters
and search parties. I'm Danielli, screama and this is Broad's
next door. Grab your emergency radio and whatever's left of
your faith in infrastructure, because today we're getting a broader
(01:00):
understanding of what happens when a system fails and the
water comes anyway. As we look at the devastating floods
that hit Texas on the fourth of July, the unsavory
online discourse that followed, and a reminder that we should
care about every child, not just the ones whose parents fot.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
Like us wiped off their foundations cars in trees. Parts
of western Travis County, including the southern tip of Leander,
devastated by floods this weekend. Crews are still searching for
missing people.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
My car floated off.
Speaker 7 (01:36):
We still haven't found it.
Speaker 6 (01:38):
And then we watched our neighbors in their double wide
float passes with their whole family in the house.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
This family says they're lucky to be alive after being
swept away while trying to escape in.
Speaker 6 (01:51):
This truck, bumped into the trailer and then ended up.
You'll see our truck right here up against the tree.
My dad got me out.
Speaker 8 (02:00):
I find the tree.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
He handed my daughter to me, and then we sat
in that tree for about an hour and a half
two hours.
Speaker 9 (02:06):
Just a few streets down.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
A list of people who may still be missing posted
at the front of the Round Mountain Baptist Church.
Speaker 7 (02:12):
Greatest need is information people need.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
They just want to know what's going on.
Speaker 7 (02:17):
They want to know where their loved ones are.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
The church is serving as a makeshift meeting place for
this community near Sandy Creek and for crews still searching
on Sunday, Cool.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Hi, Hello, how is everyone? I hope you're doing okay?
I know the news out of Texas is really devastating.
If you're in Texas, my heart goes out to you.
If you've been personally affected by this, I don't I
don't even have words, but I'm going to try and
put some together because I think this is important to
(02:51):
talk about.
Speaker 9 (02:52):
We keep seeing stuff like this happen more and more.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Often, and anything that impacts children the way this did
is just even more devastating. So we're going to talk
about what happened with the flooding over the fourth of
July weekend in Texas and a lot of other similar
storms that have happened over the last few years, plus
the response and how some of it has been deeply
(03:17):
unkind but maybe why people are feeling that way with
the defunding of things like the National Weather Service.
Speaker 9 (03:25):
But I also want to.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Remind people that is important to keep your empathy. So
let's get into what happened and why. This is from
Local Texas News Texas kho U eleven with meteorologists Pat
Calvin explaining what caused the Texas the Texas Hill County,
(03:47):
the Texas Hill Country flooding.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I'm me derologis Pat Calvin here at KHOU in Houston, Texas.
It's been a really rough week for folks in the
Hill Country and central Texas, especially the last few days
with the prolific flooding that happened through Kurrville and also
in the Austin area, and it's left a lot of
folks asking a lot of questions. This is an extreme event.
It's a freak event, really, and so I think it's
(04:11):
important that we take a minute to kind of break
down why it happened, what the factors were that led
to it, and what kind of event.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
And he is right that it's a freak event. But
what I feel like is missing from a lot of
this discourse is that these once every one thousand year
floods are happening every year or every few years, maybe
not to this scope, but we'll talk about that later.
(04:38):
Like with Hurricane Helene in northwest North Carolina and the
Gulf Coast of Florida last September October, how devastating that was.
But let me continue playing this.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Warning those that were in harm's way got leading up
to this, So let's just kind of break this down.
We're gonna start first with why this prolific flooding event happened,
and it all has to do with tropical moisture from
Tropical Storm Berry. And you might be asking yourself, what
tropical storm We didn't have anything make landfall here in Texas,
(05:13):
And that's correct. Tropical Storm Berry formed in the Gulf
last week and ended up making landfall in northern Mexico.
That moisture then moved up into Texas and interacted with
a slow moving batch of storms over the middle of
the state. Those two combined and pretty much happened over
(05:36):
one of the worst parts of the state when it
comes to flash flooding events, the Hill country where you
have all of these ravines and these creeks and these streams.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
They kind of were a lot of warnings that this
area was just super super prone to flooding all I
mean it being called hill country itself.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
In these areas, flash flooding becomes a huge problem. So
let's take a look at how this kind of panned
out on a map. This is the path that tropical
Storm Berry took. It formed in the Bay of Campeche
and then kind of drifted into northern Mexico and again
wasn't an issue for anyone here in the United States.
Speaker 9 (06:14):
It looks pretty far from up to Texas.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Here's the problem.
Speaker 10 (06:18):
Much further south the circulation, so.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
That it becomes landburry fll apart.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
All of that moisture in the atmosphere doesn't just disappear.
It's still there. And notice you've got the Sierra Madre
Mountains here through central and northern Mexico just off the
coastline here. When you've got low level tropical moisture that
comes on shore, it has to go somewhere, and it
can't go up and over the mountains, and so it
(06:43):
starts to stream up north. And so you take all
of that tropical moisture from this dissipating storm and you
funnel it northward. Now, typically this will lead to maybe
a couple of days of unsettled weather, more clouds, a
couple showers for us. Here in South Texas. Situation unique
was the presence of what's known as a measoscale convective vortex.
(07:06):
It's basically a mini area of low pressure, and it
was very slow moving, pretty much stationary over central Texas. Now,
forecasters knew that this MCV mesoscale convective vortex was going
to be over the area about twelve to eighteen hours
before this event unfolded, and that'll go to the timeline.
(07:27):
We'll talk about that in just a second. But once
they saw this feature and they saw the interaction that
was happening with that tropical moisture, that's when the first
alarm bell started to go off. And again we'll break
down timeline in just a second. But when you married
that tropical moisture with this trigger for the development of thunderstorms,
it just unleashed a freak event here across the hill
(07:49):
country with slow moving, localized, prolific heavy rain producing thunderstorms
first in the Curville area and then the day's following
up in the Austin area. So let's break down this
timeline about what the forecasters knew and how they communicated
this information to the public. Thursday afternoon, so July third,
(08:11):
just afternoon so one eighteen pm Central time, floodwatches were
issued that did include the Kerrville area. Basically, a floodwatch
is the National Weather Service's way of saying, hey, conditions
are possible for the potential to see flooding. It's not imminent,
it's not happening right now, but within the next twenty
(08:34):
four hours. Those conditions may start to develop later that
evening as the forecast started to become a little more clear,
as more high resolution model data, which is what forecasters
used to develop these forecasts, became more consistent. That's when
they put out a special discussion about a flash flooding threat,
(08:54):
so the messaging starts to become a little more specific.
Thursday evening, now we get into overnight hours and just
after midnight, so one am Friday, July fourth, is when
thunderstorms begin to develop right over Kirk County and that's
when the first flash flood warning is issued. This is
a warning that is issued for stationary training heavy thunderstorms
(09:18):
that are producing a tremendous amount of rainfall in a
localized area that can lead to the development of rapidly
rising floodwaters. Three hours later, at four oh three in
the morning, that's when that flash flood warning is upgraded
to a rare flash food emergency. Flash food emergencies are
reserved for the most significant types of flash flooding events.
(09:42):
This is when there is an imminent, ongoing threat.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
To life and and a lot of people, myself included,
I feel like this system is a little flash warning
is not enough.
Speaker 9 (09:53):
There should be.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Sirens, there should be that step, more people working.
Speaker 9 (09:58):
We'll get into that next.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
This is a critical situation. Seventeen minutes later, at four
twenty in the morning is when the Guadalupe River at
Hunt hit that major flood stage. And we know what
happens after that. So here's a radar loop. This radar
loop goes from one o'clock in the morning Friday all
(10:20):
the way through Saturday evening. And you can see notice
that little spin. And I'll kind of segment this and
break it up, but you see the spin on the
radar there, that's the MCV again, metal scale convective vortex.
Vortex is that word that really gives us that hint
of that spin in the atmosphere. This is like a
mini tropical storm almost over land because we're picking up
(10:41):
tropical moisture from the remnants of Berry. You got that
spin in the atmosphere, and this just becomes a self
you know, a self serving engine basically. And so we
see this just persistent rainfall across the hill country for
hours and hours and hours. We get a break. More
develops here across the Austin area, and then it continues
(11:02):
through Saturday and even during the day to day on Sunday,
let's hone in on Friday, specifically, we go from one
am all the way through the day. Here comes that
swirl in the atmosphere. That's the MCV coming in. But
before the MCV actually reaches the hill country, look what's
happening over Kerrville. This one little training thunderstorm in here
(11:23):
where its rounds and rounds and rounds of heavy rain,
and then the MCV comes in. It was that initial
thunderstorm that prompted the first flash flood warning. And as
we kind of pause the clock here two point thirty
in the morning, remember that first flash flood warning came
out just after two am, or actually just after one am,
and this is the reason why there was one loan
(11:44):
thunderstorm right over the north and south fork of the
Guadaloupe River, and that's what prompted the initial flooding. Then
you get the MCV coming in on top of that.
Notice the spin there, and that's just kind of enhancing everything,
enhancing thunderstorms, enhancing rainfall rates. It was the absolute perfect storm.
(12:04):
And the problem is that this presents for forecasters on
TV at the government level and the private sector across
the board, is that this is really pushing the science
of meteorology to the limit. We are not at a
point yet where we can pinpoint exactly where these thunderstorms
are going to pop up and where that flooding is
going to happen.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
And now we're going to hear a little bit about
the cuts to funding and how this could have played
an impact, not that that makes it anyone's fault that
they drowned. And by anyone, I do mean the individuals
impacted this, not the people in power who should absolutely
always be held accountable.
Speaker 9 (12:43):
This is from News Nation.
Speaker 7 (12:45):
Ant Mystic has now confirmed that all twenty seven campers
and counselors previously reported as missing after this weekend's devastating
floods are dead. Of course, our continued thoughts with those
parents who are just living their absolute worst nightmare right now.
Cannot get those little girls faces out of my head.
Has communities their grieve and continue to search for answers.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
A political storm is bring people have questions about this.
Speaker 7 (13:12):
Some critics are blaming DOGE cuts to the National Weather
Service for putting those lives at risk. Mills Hayes has
been digging into this one for US and is here
to sort all the facts from the finger pointing that's
going on mills. A lot of people, especially parents right now,
are looking for some sort of answer.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
What do you find out?
Speaker 11 (13:30):
Well, good morning to you. Markie had awful news coming out.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Of Can't Mistick this morning.
Speaker 11 (13:33):
And we have reviewed some of those budget sheets and
warning timelines and also the rainfall data to see whether
those DOGE cuts really did slow the alarms or not.
Oh God, the cuts are real. About fifteen percent of
NOAA staff were fired or took a buyout since President
Trump took office, with Houston's forecast office without a head meteorologist.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Thick your favorite team, and now imagine that team has, instead.
Speaker 10 (14:03):
Of eleven players, has eight players.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
They're gonna lose no matter how good they are.
Speaker 12 (14:09):
They can't do the job of the full team.
Speaker 10 (14:12):
And that's what's happening at NOAH.
Speaker 11 (14:15):
Forecasters warned of flash floods the night before, but their
predicted totals came in low, just five to seven inches,
far less than what actually fell, with as much as
twenty inches of rain reported in parts.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Of Central Texas.
Speaker 11 (14:29):
Alerts went out hours before the worst flooding, but local
officials say many people received the alerts in the middle
of the night while they were sleeping. Others never received
the alerts, and some didn't take them seriously. Now local
officials are being held to task about how this was
allowed to happen.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
All of the.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Questions this skill hasn't been answer three days into this
is just.
Speaker 11 (14:51):
Like eachy as warning on high second for something like
this could have had.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Before it existed.
Speaker 9 (14:57):
Why that information didn't get down in camps and why
word back to the Andrews.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Now, that is a great question, But again, we want
to make sure that we continue to focus. We still
have eleven missing children that we want to get reunited
with our families.
Speaker 9 (15:09):
Until we can get until we can.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Get reunited with our family with their families, we are
going We are not going to stop. We are not
going to stop until we do so.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Thank you question sir for.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
Any emergency alert giving out on the board that morning.
Speaker 11 (15:24):
An union leaders say the skeleton crew worked double shifts
and still met every warning deadline. They blamed the missed
rain totals on extreme localized downpours.
Speaker 13 (15:36):
There is a failure somewhere along the lines when it
comes to the communication of the forecast and the implementation
of actions that help try and save life.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Experts warn the real.
Speaker 11 (15:45):
Danger is next time hurricane season peaks in six weeks,
and a shrinking inn WS could miss a life or
death alert.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
So it seems like it's a combination of factors.
Speaker 9 (15:57):
I liked the little football in that.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
Well, sorry, I liked the football analogy that was made
that it's like going from a team of eight to
of eleven to eight. I don't even know how many
football players there aren't a team. I thought there were
like thirty. But we can't say that it's people working
over time, people taking buyouts. We can't act like that
(16:20):
doesn't affect this stuff, because of course it must. But
it's also changing weather, the weather getting worse, and these
things happening more often. But I do want to take
a little bit of time to talk about Camp Mystic
and the campers there, and just what a nightmare this was.
It is Monday morning while I'm recording this, and the
(16:42):
information is still really mixed. There's the twenty seven campers
confirmed dead, and then there's also stuff coming out that
says the campers that some of them are still missing,
so hopefully more of them will be found alive.
Speaker 9 (16:58):
I really truly hope.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
So well, let's hear some news about what happened there.
This is from the Today Show from this morning, about
an hour ago. I'm trying to share with you the
most recent things that I can find.
Speaker 12 (17:16):
For nearly a century, Camp Missed It has been a
safe haven for young girls who spent summers there forging
friendships that last a lifetime. But early Friday morning, the
idyllic retreat was ravaged by torrential rain.
Speaker 8 (17:32):
You'd see kayaks like in trees, and it was kind
of horrific.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It didn't look like can't miss it anymore.
Speaker 12 (17:40):
And raging floodwaters that rose thirty feet in a single hour.
Heroic counselors and staff members jumped into action, saving more
than seven hundred campers caught in the storm, like Emma Foles,
who officials say helped get her fourteen campers to safety.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
The camp's director godd seven hundred of them did back.
Poor man died too, but seven hundred of them did
make it. There were so many girls at this camp.
It seems like the camps, the ones with the younger
girls because they start accepting girls after the second grade,
were right on the Guadalupe river, and the other campers
(18:17):
who had a better chance of survival were by a lake,
so they had a little bit of more time, whereas
the younger campers, it seems like the cabin was basically
just swept. Cabins were basically just swept away girls.
Speaker 12 (18:28):
From the rising waters. His grandson writing, if he wasn't
going to die of natural causes, this was the only
other way saving the girls that he so loved and
cared for. His impact will never leave the lives he touched.
Staff member Brooke Beard says she managed to escape through
a cabin window as waste high water rushed in.
Speaker 14 (18:50):
We had no clue about what those little girls were
going through at that time.
Speaker 12 (18:54):
Soon word of the damage and the dozens missing began
to spread.
Speaker 8 (18:58):
Girls were looking for their system and their cousins, and
there was.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
A lot of tears. Brooks says.
Speaker 12 (19:04):
In those moments, the camp counselors stepped up to help
anyone they could.
Speaker 14 (19:09):
So many lives were saved because of eighteen year olds.
Speaker 12 (19:13):
These photos depicting the heartbreaking aftermath as we're learning some
of the names of the young lives lost.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
This is from CNN making an announcement about the camp
Mystic girls and we are.
Speaker 13 (19:26):
Getting breaking news out of Central Texas in Kerr County.
Camp Mystic just released a statement about its campers and councilors.
Let's get right to see Ann anchor Pam Brown who
is nearby for the latest. Pam, what are you hearing?
Speaker 14 (19:41):
This is the first time Camp Mystic is releasing a
statement with a number of deaths, and in this statement,
John Camp Mystic says it is grieving the loss of
twenty seven campers and counselors following the catastrophic flooding on
the Guadalupe River. The statement goes on to say, our
hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this
(20:01):
unimaginable tragedy. We are praying for them constantly. We have
been in communication with local and state authorities who were
tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls.
We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of support from community,
first responders and officials at every level. We asked for
your continued prayers, respect, and privacy.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
What a nightmare for those parents I truly cannot imagine.
I truly can't imagine, and then having to find out
this way. Camp Mystic also had a no cell phones policy,
and most of the camp counselors are still girls themselves.
Speaker 9 (20:35):
They're adults, but.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
They're like eighteen nineteen years old. There were only a
few adult adults that were there, so having to find
out this way.
Speaker 9 (20:46):
I don't know if you went to camp as a kid.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
I did not go to camp as a kid, but
I was a camp counselor when I was in my
late teens and early twenties at a camp.
Speaker 9 (20:56):
In Florida, Boggie Creek, which.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Was fun by founded by Paul Newman, and a lot
of what it focuses on is kids with developmental disabilities
or kids who have terminal illnesses. And I always worked
with the kids with terminal illnesses, and I.
Speaker 9 (21:13):
Would have died for those kids if I could have.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
I would have truly died for those children, because you
love the kids that are in your bunk so much.
You get so attached to them, especially with me having
kids that were already so sick. A lot of them
who had gone through chemo, had really severe health issues,
but you just bond so much in such a short
(21:37):
period of time, like we had each of them for
I think it was just a week. It might have
been two weeks. This is twenty something years ago now,
But I mean it just just you do want to
do anything to protect them and have them have the
best time and have it memorable. But then being a
parent on the other side of this, I can't imagine
(21:58):
finding out something like this in this way, I'm going
to play a little bit more of this clip for you.
Speaker 14 (22:04):
See, for each of our families affected, may the Lord
continue to wrap his presence around all of us. Twenty
seven young souls, these young campers, John, and young counselors.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Remember these counselors or teenagers.
Speaker 14 (22:18):
For the most part, many of them jumped into action.
Speaker 11 (22:20):
They were heroes.
Speaker 14 (22:22):
But as we are getting from this statement, some died
as well. The cam't Mystic did not say how many
of those twenty seven were campers versus counselors were presumably
the bulk of them are campers. And I just can't
stop thinking, John that it was just a little over
a week ago that parents dropped their young children off
to have the best four weeks of their life at
(22:44):
Camp Mystic, a camp I attended thirty years ago, And
now some of those same parents are going to the
local funeral home to potentially identify their child. It's just
beyond comprehension.
Speaker 9 (22:57):
The heartbreak here. You feel it all around John.
Speaker 13 (23:00):
It just has to be overwhelming to be there, Pam.
And again this statement from Camp Mystic is really the
first time we have heard them address fatalities. They grieving
the loss of twenty seven campers and counselors, I think,
confirming many of the worst fears that so many have
been having there.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Thank you for being there.
Speaker 13 (23:20):
Keep us post is obviously this is developing. This news
just coming.
Speaker 10 (23:24):
In new reporting today. They long held concerns in Kerr
County over the ongoing flooding threat. Their records show that
even nine years ago the county started considering building an
early warning system.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
They where with some of the things where the local
elected leaders drop mission or governor outset that.
Speaker 8 (23:46):
The county was probably the highest risk area in the
state for flooding, adding our system is quite simply pretty antiquated,
it's the marginal at best, and then a follow up
meeting a year later.
Speaker 10 (24:00):
Saying we can do all the water level monitoring we want,
but if we don't get that information to the public
in a timely way, then this whole thing is not
worth it. The county's top elected official said Friday, they
still don't have a warning system with sirens, and a
local city manager then said this yesterday.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
And the thing is, the cost of doing this preventative
things far is so much less than the cost of
the cleanup, the devastation, the death that happened and occurred,
the homes, the animals, the human lives lost. It's just
it's an unfathomable amount of death.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
We know questions are being asked about the emergency notification.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
And while while it is.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Not the time to speculate, local and regional partners.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Are committee, it is the time to speculate. It is
the time to speculate right now.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
It's when we speculate, we'll take clear steps to strengthen
our future preparedness.
Speaker 10 (24:59):
Joining us right now is and senior national security analyst
Juliet Kayams. She's also a former assistant secretary at the
Department of Homeland Security. For much more on this, Juliette,
there is some of what is known, a lot of
what is not because of just the scope and magnitude
of this disaster. You heard that city manager promising a review.
You heard that from other officials as well. But seeing
the level of destruction these floods brought, how fast it happened,
(25:22):
has left many officials saying that there's nothing that could
have prevented something like this.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Do you see it that way?
Speaker 15 (25:30):
With all due respect, no, And I don't want you
to fail hard to gratitude about disaster management preparation. Flash
floods happen often, bad flash floods often, and we have
to learn about what happened.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
And that's why I hate them doing this whole once
every thousand years. It was unpredictable. Nothing could have been
done because if the right systems are put in place,
even for these camps, even these camps that are on
a river, should be held a care on a ble
for flooding. Like I was saying, the camp that I
volunteered at Boggy Creek that was in Florida, and I
(26:07):
think it was pretty inland, but we had a whole
system for if there was a hurricane or there was
a storm, or how you would communicate because this was
pretty early where not everyone had cell phones, but we
had walkie talkies. We got briefed on news reports and
what was safe and when.
Speaker 9 (26:24):
And this was.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Twenty twenty years ago at least for even twenty five
years ago for some of it. But I also think
that that was because this was funded by Paul Newman,
who was just such a giving, giving person, the actor
turned salad dressing guy. But I cut this off, let
me continue here.
Speaker 15 (26:46):
Because of the devastating impact that this has had on
that community that it hasn't had in other communities. Because
we look at this comparatively, right, I mean, we're hitting
I don't know if we're at one hundred yet, but
this is a mass casualty event that we don't generally see.
So there's three focuses of this study, and I'm grateful
(27:06):
that the Kirk County.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Is committed to this.
Speaker 15 (27:08):
The first is notifications that something bad is happening.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
As we've seen.
Speaker 15 (27:13):
From National Weather Service, those notifications were getting more and
more frantic overnight. It is nighttime, it's a holiday weekend,
but those were occurring. The second is the connectivity between
those alerts and someone doing something. Alerts aren't self executing.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
You need emergency.
Speaker 15 (27:30):
Managers, locals, camp counselors, trailer park owners, all of them
to know what's going on.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
And then the third is are.
Speaker 15 (27:38):
People acting in response to this, there is a breakdown.
We know that, and we know that because of the
impact on one particular place, camp missed it.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
I mean, if you look at the numbers.
Speaker 15 (27:53):
Which is what we have to do, we owe it
to the dead and those girls. You know, you have
to look why at this particular camp what happened in
terms of notification and readiness, and that is the review
that we have to do apolitical, so that we're committed
to being ready for the next one and more lives
can be saved next time.
Speaker 10 (28:14):
And as another official said this morning, it's something when
people say it's something I've never seen anything like this,
It is something. Saying those words is something that people
are going to have to get more and more used
to saying because of the nature of the climate crisis,
the effects of which we're already seeing harsher, faster, bigger flooding,
(28:35):
and that also impacts preparation for which is exactly kind
of what you're getting at. As the ballgame changes, they
all need to start looking at it a slightly different way.
And part of and Elena was talking about this, there
are questions being raised about the impacts the role of
the federal government in this preparation and kind of the
(28:59):
nature of the federal government cuts that.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
And I'd really like to remind you that these were
children and not everyone that passed away. I mean, fifty
something people were not. But the kids had no say
in climate policy, no vote in budgets cuts, yet they're
the ones who bore the brunt of systemic failures. And
the National Weather Service, though understaffed and partially defunded, did
(29:24):
issue warnings that floodwatch you heard about, but a lot
of people did not get these warnings. The system in
place is not good enough, the response in place is
not good enough, and the effectiveness of these warnings is
rightfully under scrutiny. And people are arguing that staffing cuts
(29:45):
at the NWS under Doge and the Trump administration have
hampered coordination with emergency responders. We also can't ignore climate
change here, because with our changing climate, these events are
becoming alarmingly more frequent. The Guadalupe River rose over forty
(30:06):
feet in some places, over twenty feet in one hour,
tearing through roads, homes, and sumber camps. Entire neighborhood spanished.
So did cell service, so did warning systems. And here's
the part where people start pointing fingers, and not always
in the right direction. Yes, the National Weather Service issued warnings,
(30:27):
but they were hours apart, scattered, and came too late
for many. And yes, the National Weather Service has been
gutted in recent years, particularly this year, with huge staffing cuts.
But here's what no flood cares about, your party affiliation,
your governor's approval rating. This wasn't just a failure of
(30:48):
weather models. It was a failure of investment, of foresight.
And this is the kind of failure that kills people
no matter who.
Speaker 9 (30:55):
They voted for.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
If you've been online in the past forty eight hours,
you've probably seen in the takes some people saying Texas
is getting what it voted for. Maybe now they know
how Gaza feels, which is just ridiculous to me. I
saw a lot of people saying that, like, you can
care about both things. You can care about the little
girls from the Mystic camp and the children of Gaza.
(31:18):
At the same time, wishing this on people in Texas
is not going to protect anyone in Palestine. We can't
start rationing empathy based on zip codes and political voting maps,
or we've already drowned. Children don't vote children don't deserve
any of this, and a lot of adults they were
lied to, They were manipulated and tricked into cheering for
(31:42):
their own abandonment. That doesn't mean they deserve to die
in a flood best case scenario. It means that they
will demand accountability from the people that they voted for.
That's what we should hope for instead of wishing death
upon others. And this isn't just Texas. This is very,
very familiar. Think about Katrina in two thousand and four,
(32:05):
where poor black communities bore the brunt of the levees breaking.
That's what caused so many deaths with Katrina was the
preventable repairs that were not made to these levees and
then they broke and people drowned in their homes. Just
last year, September twenty twenty four, Hurricane Helene slammed northwestern
(32:26):
North Carolina and the Gulf Coast of Florida, where I
currently am. Hundreds of people died in North Carolina. The
entire towns were swept away underwater. Different states, different presidents.
That was under Biden at the time, but it's the
same story. Because so much of this is not karma
it's climate change and lack of preparation, and it's coming
(32:51):
faster than our systems, and our leaders are willing to
keep up with the big beautiful bill that just passed.
There's nothing in there about webs alert systems or climate
change or what to do about any of that. So
what do we do when the floodwaters come? We fight
to fund science. We call out the grift, the deregulation,
(33:11):
the de investment, and we remember that empathy is not
a limited source. We extend our hands not just to
the people who look like us or vote like us,
but to anyone who needs one, because that is the
right thing to do. These things should always make us
feel more empathy, not less, And instead of turning on
each other, we should turn on the people in power,
(33:33):
because the power of the people is always stronger than
the people in power, and that's something they often want
us to forget.
Speaker 9 (33:41):
My hearts are with.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
The families of Camp Mystic and with every parent still
waiting for news. My hearts are with the citizens of Texas,
just like they've been with the people of Palestine. To me,
people are still people at.
Speaker 9 (33:57):
The end of the day.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
I'm sorry, I know that that's unpopular with some of you,
but it just it kind of just has to be
that way.
Speaker 9 (34:06):
It just we have to do better.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
It's not a when they go low, we go high thing.
It's just literal human decency. It's literal human decency of
caring for people. And not all of Texas is red.
I mean, Austin is a super blue city and they're
being deeply impacted too. And they're a deeply blue city
that has had this kind of flight flooding for years.
(34:31):
They had a really bad flood in twenty seventeen, they
had a boil water warning. I mean, these things aren't
new in Florida. They're not new in North Carolina. It
seems a bit newer, but it's still not new. And
the peak we're in hurricane season, the peak of hurricane
season is a little over a month away. It just
(34:53):
makes me really really angry. And if you're angry, that's good.
Just don't waste it. Aim at where belongs that the
people who let this happen and walked away dry from it.
Link resources on how you can help, who you can
write to, where you can donate. In the show notes,
thank you for listening to this one. I know It's
(35:16):
shorter than usual for me and very news clip heavy,
but I wanted to get as much information out there
as possible. I know a lot of you are deeply
personally affected by this. My heart is with you. I'm
praying for you. I'm going to donate and write and
see what kind of policy changes can be made, what
(35:36):
kind of systems can be put in place, because this
just breaks my heart. And this isn't the end of it.
This isn't a once in one thousand years thing, like
the meteorologists keep saying. Maybe at one point it was,
maybe it was a once every one hundred year flood,
but now this is every year all over the country,
(35:56):
the West Coast on fire, and the resources not like
there were six when there was those fires in Los
Angeles in January, they had like six planes that could
drop water onto the fires. And we have a military
budget that is higher than like the next twelve countries
behind US military budgets put together. They just increased the
(36:18):
ice budget by exponential amounts that are unfathomable. And these
are the things that get put aside people's people's lives
and livelihoods. It feels like the system is just turning
toward punishing and never ending war and cutting medicaid instead
of helping anyone with anything. It's horrifying. It's horrifying. It's
(36:39):
absolutely horrifying. So if you're horrified, I get that too.
I think we kind of all should be right now.
In Florida where I am, Alligator Alcatraz also flooded like
the first day it was supposed to open, and it's
only built to withstand, and that's where they're going to
take like undocumented immigrants, to keep them in like a
(37:01):
makeshift prison that they surrounded with alligators and snakes for
like six miles something insane, maybe even more than that.
My nemesis, one of them, Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis,
his sister was my sixth grade bully. So I've a
vendetta against their entire family, both personally and politically. It's
(37:23):
the money can be spent to something like that, more
so that it was spent to help Florida victims of
natural disasters, just to punish people and put them in
a prison they don't deserve to be into is insane.
And that was only built to withstand a hurricane, to
a level two hurricane in the freaking Everglades, which is insane.
(37:45):
I mean, Helene made landfall is a Category four. When
Hurricane Andrew happened, I believe that was a Category.
Speaker 9 (37:51):
Five and that was southern Florida.
Speaker 4 (37:53):
So it's just so incomprehensible to me that this the
way that this is unfolding, the way that the last
to freaking five years have unfolded, and maybe the last
twenty five years. Honestly, maybe since I became sentient of
all of this. But I'm getting very worked up. I
don't want to just yell at you, so I'm gonna
(38:17):
end this one. Thank you so much for listening to
another episode.
Speaker 9 (38:22):
Of Brad's next Door.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
I know this one was a freaking bummer, but everything
is kind of a freaking bummer right now. I'll try
and think of some more fun, lighthearted episodes just because
everything is so awful. I'm kind of in a state myself,
if you can't tell. I'm also still in the state
of Florida visiting my parents.
Speaker 9 (38:42):
So that's its own whole thing.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
I could do like a whole separate podcast about. But
if you enjoyed this episode or you enjoy this show,
send it to a.
Speaker 9 (38:52):
Phone, please, like rate and review. It really helps me out.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
I'm a one woman show over here. When I say we,
I mean you, and so I appreciate you. I hope
you're hanging in there. I'm sending you all of my
love and I'll talk to you very soon. Bye.
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