July 4 Texas Flash Flood Followup - Updated October 1

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October 1 Update

KHOU TV in Houston obtained the flood procedures from Camp Mystic plus those of a nearby camp for comparison. You will find their story and the documents here. 

KHOU puts emphasis on the length of the documents. Without judging the documents themselves (I have never been to the camp sites, so I am not able to judge) more is not necessarily better. Asking teenage counselors and 8-yr old campers to memorize 30 pages of emergency instructions might be a stretch. Do the camps do drills, especially for counselors? Drills are an extremely important aspect of emergency preparedness. 

Finally, for anyone in the rural camp industry who may be reading this: there were many news reports of inconsistent cell phone reception in Texas' Guadalupe River area. If true, I'm a huge fan on satellite phones. They are inexpensive and worth their weight in gold in an emergency. 


September 25 Update

Comprehensive story from CNN. This blog post covers the situation involving Camp Mystic. Of course, the flash floods in their entirety killed 141 people.

--- original story --- 
As expected, litigation has been filed in the wake of the catastrophic Texas flash flood that occurred in the pre-dawn hours of July 4. 
A man grieves on the side of the road two days after the Camp Mystic flood that
killed 27 from the camp. Associated Press photo. The Guadalupe River reached a stage of approximately 20' 
during the flash flood. 

There is a web site that describes the litigation and its basis. As I am not involved in the litigation, I do not know the evidence that may or may not support the positions taken by the plaintiff and defendant (Camp Mystic). 

The camp announced this week that it is going to partially reopen a year after the disaster. They are going to close the side of the camp on the river and enlarge the camp on the lake side which is perceived to be safer. They are also going to create a memorial on the river side. 

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