More than 130 people perished and many others are missing as a result of the flood. Twenty-seven of the people that died were at Camp Mystic, located along the Guadalupe River or "Guada-Loop" as some locals call it.
The area has a history of flooding due to its topography and geology, and many believe the amount of rain, the river's fast rise, and the time of night it happened all worked together to create the tragedy. And it has been reported that Camp Mystic does not allow campers to have phones.
Liberals blame DOGE cuts for the tragedy, while the head of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, blames the Biden administration.
Many in the weather community believe the National Weather Service did its job in giving a heads up of potential flash flooding and adequately warned during the flooding.
A big question remains: Are weather warnings received by end users or not?
Recently, the WeatherBrains podcast crew offered possible solutions to prevent something like this from happening. One example is outdoor sirens that consider water level upstream and will sound alarms downstream when water is rising.
Behavioral Scientist and Meteorologist, Kim Klockow McClain says weather warnings are a social process.
"If you get a whole bunch of flash flood warnings, they're all quite the same, regardless of circumstance, and they're all delivered the same way. Nothing stands out about it. Then you have experienced that so many times, and so the signal has lost its value for these events,” McClain says.
She continues by stating that decisions in flash floods, in order of magnitude, are worse.
“They're more physical dimensions to worry about, and we don't necessarily give people all the information that they need to make the make an informed decision. Like knowing where the water is across the landscape. For tornadoes, we give you that radar imagery. You can see where the storm is going,” explains McClain.
Meteorologist and University of Texas at Austin Lecturer, Troy Kimmel, proposed this idea.
"Emergency action plans must be available in the county judge's office, which in the state of Texas is largely responsible for Emergency Management, or in the Emergency Management office, for not only the city and the county but if you have a camp where you have large amounts of people coming in,” Kimmel says.
He thinks that those should be required by law.
“I don't care if you're a religious institution, if you have two or three hundred kids there during the summer, I believe those emergency action plans should be on file,” Kimmel continues.
The WeatherBrains crew agreed it will take a variety of experts coming together to solve the problem.
