Floods

Here in Central Texas we have recently been slammed with severe flooding -- what is likely the most severe freshwater flooding incident in the United States in at least half a century. The death toll is currently around 80 and slowly rising; it might well reach 100 by the end. Most of the deaths occurred in Kerr County as a large thunderstorm system (distant after-effects of Tropical Storm Barry) essentially parked itself over the Guadalupe River on the evening of July 3; over ten inches of rain fell and the Guadalupe River rose 23 feet overnight. This is a problem given that the river runs directly through the town of Kerrville, and even worse given that Kerr County is camping country, and is in the middle of summer camp season. (A summer camp for young girls, Camp Mystic, was entirely flooded, and there are still several girls missing.) The same thing happened, on a smaller scale, in western Travis County on July 5. Meteorologists had been expecting rain but not major flooding (they knew the rain was coming in but didn't expect it to stay more or less in one place), so people were caught off guard. 

It was a lot of rain; I live on the other side of Austin from all of this, safely up near the top of a large ridge with reasonably good drainage, and for most of July 5 my backyard was a pond an inch and a half deep. In places harder hit, rescue operations are still going on, and there is still chance of more flooding until Tuesday.

A major reason such a bad situation has not been even worse was the Texas Military Department, which ended up saving over five hundred people. The Texas Military Department is one of the oldest and most prestigious state agencies, founded in 1836 when Texas was an independent republic; the Texas Military Forces today primarily consist of the Texas National Guard and the Texas State Guard. It has a significant number of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters that it was able to mobilize for air rescue.

Obviously, in the broader country politically brain-damaged people try to tie the problem into their pet political issues, but although there is some question of whether the relevant authorities were too slow to issue warnings, there's really no way to prepare for having several months' worth of rain unexpectedly dumped on an area overnight.