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Re: Fema From what I remember from the Hurricane Katrina (2005) discussion about the timing of a Fed response, the timeline of events was some like this: Event is coming, Hurricane Katrina (2005), everyone (Louisiana) started flat footed, Hurricane Rita, 1 month later (Texas), The Good; National Guard on standby, supplies (food, water, gasoline) were pre-positioned at various locations (along major arteries) in anticipation of coming events.) The Bad; evacuate Houston, instead of just the low lying areas. Day 1. Hurricane Landfall, help is needed. The State petitions the Federal Government, the Fed is in motion (Best case, response is immediate. The levy failure and flooding of New Orleans did not happen immediately.) Day 1-2, Call up National Guard; National Guard ~ 24 hours to show up at rally point Day 2-3, National Guard begins acquiring necessary supplies and equipment, deploys to location Day 3-4, National Guard on site, responds to emergency. The takeaway from Katrina was that the Local and State responses were the critical first lines of support until Federal assistance showed up in force, which would still be at least 2-3 days after the event. It seams every "natural disaster", before and since, follows this same script. There is no substitute for the local governments (Volunteer Fire Departments, City & County) having some resources that can be called upon and deployed immediately, before the State and Federal resources can deployed in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, the demands that places on certain individuals and the skill sets necessary to effectively manage the situation are rarely in the same place at the same time.
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
PTINS replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
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Thank you for your great and informative posts. This was tragic. No other way to frame it. I view this as a combination of "An Act of God", not reasonably within the control of an individual, and a series of decisions, that when combined, was catastrophic. Having read every post in this thread, the legacy of these camps, family ownership for 100 years, the multiple generations of kids that have gone to them, the personal experiences and contacts that so many of you have had over the years, those are the nuggets that make life special. Now, none of us will think about those wonderful times, or July 4th, without thinking of this tragedy, and I am sad for you. You are my people. My frame of reference as a camper is as BSA Scoutmaster. I was fortunate to have a 2:1 ratio of scouts/dads on our campouts, and a great group of boys who grew into young men, half of which became Eagle Scouts. Good or bad, most of the dads were engineers, geologists and IT guys. Say what you will about the Boy Scouts, but having a plan and being prepared was a given. Though the reasons for having 2 deep leadership was unfortunate, having 2 deep leadership worked. Working and growing up professionally in a culture of safety is something one appreciates, especially when you see others who don't embrace that ethic. It makes me angry that the young, and the innocents were the victims, and their friends and families have to carry the burden. When I go to the ranch, the phone is for my convenience, not for others to contact me. I am not saying this is smart, or reasonable, or respectful to my family, that is just the way it is. I go there to be unplugged. I try to check in every day to let them know I am ok, and I check the weather every day; in the evening, texts, emails, etc. If its is important, I respond, if not, it can wait. Two big differences. (1) the house is a higher elevation than the water has ever been. The summer we bought the ranch, our box canyon that drains through my ranch got 35" of rain in 2-3 days (500 year rain event). The house is ~ 10 feet above that level and sits on a shelf 300 ft wide. (2) I don't have 700 children sleeping on my ranch. Yes, when I saw the topography of the area, my first thought was the main Guadalupe River backing up and flooding the camps from the downstream side. I can't imagine anything worse than having floodwaters coming from both directions, in the dark and in unfamiliar surroundings. I had similar trauma in 1970, when I was 13. I never talked about it til 10 years ago, once, and until last month. The survivors will be scarred for life. Talk with them. Don't let, or make them carry that inside, alone.
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The dining hall is in the foreground. It looks like they partially covered the tennis courts. The cluster of buildings towards the NW/4 of the photo are the girls cabins. They are shown better in the screen shot below. I deleted the NY Times words and added my own. My updated screen shot based on information in this thread. (Same disclaimer, relying on Google Earth and info in this thread.) The map is inverted to match the pictures above. Up on the screen shot is facing almost due south. The orange polygon is the 1850' and below asl elevation, the older part of Camp Mystic that is the lower elevation. The South Fork of the Guadalupe River flows right to left along the bottom of the screen shot, with Cypress Creek entering from the top. Zoomed in w/o the 1850' polygon. All of the house icons are the girls cabins, I think. If the younger girls were in the cabin closest to the river (in elevation), that would be "Twins 1 & 2". These are the only cabins at or below the 1850' above sea level (asl) elevation, 20-25' higher than the normal river level, and ~ 370 ' from waters edge. The "Bug House" cabin is closer to the river, and the road and all the cabins in a line are higher than 1850' asl, +25' above waters edge. The "Twins 1&2" cabins are within sight of the office, adjacent to the other cabins, and close to the dining hall & rec center, all of which seem reasonable. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an easy way to run uphill. It is hard to imagine the water rising that quickly, that there was not enough time to evacuate safely. So sad.
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EDIT; OTHER POSTS INDICATE THIS MAY NOT BE CAMP MYSTIC. I RELIED ON GOOGLE EARTH 100% FOR MY POST, AND IT MAY BE IN ERROR. I HAVE NO OTHER FACTUAL INFORMATION TO PROVE OR DISPROVE MY ORIGINAL POST. I WILL KEEP THE ORIGINAL POST AS IS. These renderings are 100% my opinion from looking at Google Earth, and any comments, markings or observations are mine alone and are not meant to be taken as factual or further relied on for any purpose other than to facilitate this discussion. A Google Earth screen shot of Camp Mystic. The 2 cabins shown (Light Blue) are closest to the water, presumably the younger girls cabins. Note the water appears to be Cypress Creek (Orange), which flows into the South Fork of the Guadalupe (Dark Blue) downstream of Camp Mystic. The "dam" is shown in red. I would use that word "dam" loosely, as it is most likely a "non-engineered structure" meant to impound water for purely recreational services and not flood control. A wider view that shows Cypress Creek & the South Fork of the Guadalupe. The yellow/red lines are dams or earthen berms that have been constructed long the water ways. The shaded area is a 30 second best guess (not a topographic analysis) on what the Cypress Creek water shed might look like, meaning any rainfall within that polygon would make it down to the shores of Camp Mystic. Be aware that a failure of 1 upstream dam could cause a cascade of failing damns downstream as they are not meant to get hit with a surge in water, but rather a slow filling of the bathtub. It is also possible that the waters in the Guadalupe River backed up into the South Fork of the Guadalupe River, which backed up into Cypress Creek and raised the water level from the back (downstream) side.
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I've had my ranch 20 years. ATT & Verizon are the only carriers that have service there. All it takes is one lost tower to lose service.
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Life in the country is different. You can't take what you know about the city and translate it, it doesn't work like that. It is in the country, a big area with very few people. My ranch is in Bandera & Uvalde Counties. Bandera is the County Seat and had 829 people in 2020 (~ 35 miles away), and Uvalde is the County Seat, w/ 15,217 people in 2020 (~ 50 miles away). That is an 80+ mile stretch of roadways with no town over 1,000 people in it. It is in a box canyon, one way in and out, across two low water crossings and the creek crossing and there are no roads over the hills. The long list of people to call in an emergency? Volunteer Fire Dept, Constable, Sheriff, DPS, Game Warden, Life Flight Helicopter to SA. A "flotilla of locals with pickup trucks -- god knows they have plenty of those -- and of course some busses." I'm lucky I have 4 neighbors I can call in an Emergency, after that I'm calling the guys who drilled the water well, or put up the fence, or the A/C guy. During a flood emergency, if I have issues, so do they. If I can't get out, they can't either. And no one is driving in. You have to be prepared in advance, and self contained, for some minimal period of time. It sucks. Especially when kids are put at risk. Prayers for all that are impacted. The storms that came through Austin last month blew threw town at 50 miles an hour. This one parked in 1 place for a day. Harvey stayed in SE Texas for a week. They all came with flood warnings. I know I get pissed when I see and hear those alerts on the TV. I know I am high and dry, so quit interrupting my game, dammit! The circumstances of each storm are different, and damn near impossible to predict. To compound things, this was a Federal holiday on a Friday of a 3 day weekend, which means minimal staffing at all levels of government. Guys were drilling my water well during the Uvalde Elementary shooting. I told them to leave if they needed to. They shrugged, "... too far away, and nothing they could do." Damn near every town in the Hill Country has had a major flood in the past 50 years, because they are all along rivers. It is hard to say one place is worst than the next, probably one place that has been hit twice since then. The bolded part of your post is absolute. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, there is no escape. When I go to other ranches, I look up into the trees, to see how high the water has been in the past. I've learned over the years, if I want my avatar to look like my ranch, we need a tropical storm to do it. I hate that for me to have what I want, others have to suffer. I grew up with it and have always known it can be dangerous when it rains. There is an old car along Onion Creek, by an old (probably gone) low water crossing in Del Valle, that is wrapped around a tree and folded in half like a playing card on a bicycle wheel. I probably saw it in the lates 60's, and I think about that every time it starts raining. We went to Buffalo Trails Scout Ranch in the Davis Mountains in ~ 2006. We did the back country hiking and camping program when the remnants of a tropical storm made it over us and parked for a while. The camp had a little creek running through it. When we came to camp mid week to resupply, the creek had cut the camp in half, and they couldn't let us go back out. Never thought that would have happened in the Mountains in West Texas, We've had a similar floods at my ranch, smaller watershed and creek, went from dry to ~ 60-80,000 gal/sec (2 swimming pools) in about 2 hours. There was minor flooding downstream, no fatalities, so it probably never happened, officially. Thunder Creek is the appropriate name for my ranch, and the valley. This. You can't make anything fool proof, because fools are so ingenious. Human behavior. I tell every visitor, "Every thing at the ranch, plant or animal, is tougher than you are. It has survived by biting, or stinging, or scratching, or poking, or itching, or doing whatever it has to so you will go away. If I say don't run, that means don't run. If I say stay away, that means stay away. And the life flight helicopter comes from San Antonio; the GPS coordinates are on the wall." I marvel at how much better the kids behave when they leave, compared to when they got there. Y'all be safe.
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
PTINS replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Many here know this better than I, but I don't think there is a HS recruit now that will start for Texas as a true freshman, certainly not Day 1. Not being able to offer starter time is an undeniable fact that will hinder Texas in signing top recruits at every position. Nothing makes you question the "Texas only admits the top 7%" mantra, like reading this board. Surly Horns is outstanding in some respects (I don't post or read CR), but some of the takes here are f*cking embarrassing. I'll say it here, Ojo doesn't sign with TTech on signing day. His rating will fall, he coasts his senior year and gets whipped on the field, and he just isn't worth $5 MM. Whatever he signed is predicated on him signing with TTech, no signature, money. Thank you. good post. The first time he "Ole's" and his QB gets sacked or the RB gets blown up in the backfield, Banks came into a wide open OL room. He was a stud and played at a high level right out of the gate, but I'm not sure he would be a day 1 starter today. Maybe, but he was going to start the day he signed. -
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Tragic. Prayers for all. Our ranch is 20 miles south of Mystic. Please don't rush to judgement of officials at the various agencies. The most rain fell west of here, and water levels rose 20-30 feet in minutes. Cell phone service is spotty at best all over the Hill Country, much worse during heavy thunderstorms. Driving on the curvy, hilly, tertiary roads is hard in broad daylight, the faster you go the more nauseous you get. At night, in the rain, with every low water crossing full of running water, it is extremely dangerous, and a tin star on your chest doesn't change that. We drove the backroads from Kerrville to Utopia in 2004, the one and only time, and I've probably driven between those towns 50 times in 20 years. 18" of rain in 24 hours, in the Hill Country is catastrophic.
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This was the only thing worth looking at tonight.
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Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
PTINS replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Emmitt Smith, from Escambia HS in Pensacola,Florida, was highlighted in Parade Magazine. I still remember reading his mini-profile in the Faces in the Crowd section for his HS career. We lived at Eglin AFB when I was younger. Pensacola was the nearest big town. Not sure if they even had ratings back then, but he wouldn't have been a 3*. -
Sorry I provoked you to have to post that. Apologies.
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