Houston

The Texas Hill Country is known for beautiful rolling hills, hundreds of wineries, scrumptious peaches, and tubing down the Guadalupe River.  

On the 4th of July, life along the river was forever changed. Rain began early that morning with a report that the river had risen 7 feet. Four hours later it was a raging unstoppable surge of over 37 feet, totally destroying everything in its path. Entire trailer parks, camp grounds, parks, trucks, houses, and children’s summer camps were all washed away.

By the morning of July 14, the death toll was over 130, with 170 people still missing.

A meteorologist explained why the search for the missing people in automobiles is so difficult. First, searchers have to remove the heavy genie lift they use in car rescues, then pull out the crumbled road and cement from the car.  After that they dig the car out and then must remove three feet of mud and gravel. This is just to see if someone might be in the car. 

Officials of Kerr County, where most of the devastation occurred, had discussed installing a flood warning system along the Guadalupe River eight years ago, but ultimately rejected the idea, saying it was too expensive. When catastrophic floodwaters surged over the weekend, there were no sirens or early flooding monitors. 

Text alerts came late for some residents and were dismissed or not seen by others. Most residents were sleeping as it was the middle of the night.

The July 8 Houston Chronicle reports that nearly a decade ago, several local officials were hard at work convincing their peers to buy into a new early flood warning system. 

But the new warning system never became reality. Local officials did agree to spend $50,000 on an engineering study, which made recommendations for a warning project in 2016, but the officials never found the $1 million to implement it –– despite asking for help from the state government on at least three separate occasions.  

In 2017, Kerr County and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority asked the state to give them federal disaster relief funds, but their application was denied. They tried a second time after 2017’s catastrophic Hurricane Harvey, as Gov. Greg Abbott encouraged local entities to submit applications. The state again rejected the applications. 

Warning system was possible

Since the flood, Kerr County officials have been visibly aggravated by so many others telling them they should have had a warning system. They reply that even national forecasters didn’t realize that so much rain could fall in such a short period of time. 

But Phil Bedient, who has spent decades designing flood protection and prediction systems as director of Rice University’s SSPEED (Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters) Center, disagreed. 

Bedient said, “We have radar, and we have cell phones, and we have sirens, and those three things together can be used to create a pretty good system. It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars, but what’s that versus 80 or 100 people dying in a flash flood? This storm has told us we just can’t wait anymore. ” (Houston Chronicle, July 8) 

Award-winning opinion writer Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about money, politics and life in Texas for the Houston Chronicle. In a blistering July 7 column after the floods, his headline screamed, “Guadalupe River flood deaths were entirely preventable — but Texas officials ignored the warnings.” 

Despite the July 4 horror, people’s responses were immediate. Probably thousands of people from all over Texas and the U.S. have pitched in to help, not only with the cleanup but collecting food, water, diapers, and clothing. Feeding centers have been set up. 

So many hundreds of people survived the flood with nothing but the clothes on their backs so needs are immense. Housing is being found. Churches and schools have opened up. The empathy and compassion are still present. 

Mexico sends firefighters

Mexico sent a contingent of trained firefighters and first responders to assist with search and rescue. They were members of the Civil Protection Water Rescue Team and the Cure Firefighters from Coahuila. Also, members of Fundación 911, a Mexican nonprofit, brought rescue canines from the Mexican state of Nuevo León. Los Topos (The Moles) arrived in Kerr County to help with recovery. Los Topos was formed after the 1985 earthquake in Mexico and has helped in countries all over the world.

Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, praised two young Mexican girls, Silvana Garza Valdez and Maria Pala Zarate, who survived the flood and saved at least 20 girls at the camp where they were working for the summer. 

There were also highly trained search and rescue teams from California helping. The Nation of Islam in Austin sent in a team to help. 

Media focus on elite Camp Mystic

There has been a lot of news coverage on the girls who were at Camp Mystic. It is important to know that there were dozens of children’s camps all along the Guadalupe River until July 4. 

Why is it that the media focuses on Camp Mystic?

Many prominent Texas families have sent their daughters to Camp Mystic, including the families of former First Lady Laura Bush, who was a camp counselor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, whose granddaughters attended, and three Texas governors. James Baker, who served in the cabinets of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush also sent his daughter and granddaughter to Camp Mystic. It is said that when a wealthy Texas family has a baby girl, mothers quickly put their new daughter on a waiting list for Mystic.

But not everyone thinks it is wonderful. Sade Perkins was reportedly fired by Houston Mayor John Whitmire from the city’s food insecurity board, because Perkins said this in a video before she realized the severity of the flooding and deaths: “It is a whites-only, girls’ Christian camp. It’s not to say that we don’t want the girls to be found … but you best believe, especially in today’s political climate, if there were a group of Hispanic girls there would not be all the attention.”  (yahoo.com, July 10)

Now, what is happening? Resources are needed from the White House and the Texas State House. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has been cut and Trump wants to eliminate it.

The billions of dollars that Trump has spent on genocide in Gaza could fund emergency systems for tornados, hurricanes and floods that could save lives throughout the entire country.

While Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” granted over $40 billion dollars for his terrorist army of thugs known as ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), Trump’s dismantling of programs and services will literally kill people. 

On a visit to the flood sites on July 11, Trump batted away suggestions that there was something lacking in how authorities handled the tragedy. After a reporter from CBS News Texas asked whether residents could have been warned sooner, Trump said that “only an evil person would ask a question like that.” (Houston Chronicle, July 11)

Trump said: “I think everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances. Nobody’s ever seen anything, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

His answer paralleled Abbott’s response in a news conference in Kerrville earlier that week, when he said only losers seek to find blame.

This time it was the Guadalupe River. Next time it could be the Brazos River. Or the Trinity River. Or Buffalo Bayou in Houston. Whether driven by climate change or upstream development or nature’s sheer unpredictability, these sorts of unprecedented floods are no longer once-in-a-generation events. They are a grim reality — and Texas is unprepared. 

Now 100-year floods or 500-year floods are happening every year!

Denying global warming in the face of scientific proof should no longer be tolerated. In this wealthy country, our resources should be spent on people’s needs and saving and enriching people’s lives.

Working and oppressed peoples must organize and fight to end the rule of President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott and the whole racist and corrupt system of capitalism!