Authorities say more than 20 girls are still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic in Kerr County, Texas, where the Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet in less than two hours during torrential rains that triggered flash flooding in parts of the state yesterday.
At least 27 people, including nine children, have died in the flooding, according to local officials. The families of three campers have confirmed their deaths to CNN.
What I notice in the comments of the county officials: some of them claimed “it could not have been prevented, even with radar”.
Here in Eastern Europe, a weather radar makes a full turn in 5 minutes and I think that faster ones exist in fancier places. An SMS takes at most 15 minutes to deliver, with some arriving in seconds and some trailing behind if the network is under load.
Also, I’m sure some US states get even tornados, and are damn quick at sending out alerts about those things… so the diagnosis is “as usual, people ignored a considerable risk”. They had not set up automation. People could have been alerted, tech for that exists already for a decade or more.