'The state is broken': Kerrville residents testify at state hearing over flood response
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Mr. Thomas said more alerts from the county would have been duplicative since the National Weather Service had already triggered several alerts as the water rose, and that those seemed sufficient. nyt
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KUT, cont.:
[Democrtic Sen. Ann (Houston) Johnson asked Thomas how the county warned Camp Mystic of the rising Guadalupe River. Twenty seven campers and staffers of the all-girls camp died in the flooding.
"It is my understanding that there were little girls with water around their feet at 2 a.m. that were told, 'Stay in your cabin.' And those little girls did what they were told. What was the protocol to warn people when that scenario comes up?” she asked Thomas after his testimony.
Dub: Thomas told Johnson the camp should have notified the sheriff's office of flooding. But Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said he did not receive any such notification from Camp Mystic.
abc, cont.:
"This extreme weather event was not forecast by the National Weather Service in a timely manner." --Judge Rob Kelly.
That is BULLSHIT.
NYT:
Mr. Kelly testified Thursday that he had been at a second home in Lake Travis when the flooding hit, but that he returned to Kerr County when the scale of the floods became apparent on July 4.
But the Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who was sitting in on the committee hearing, assailed Mr. Kelly for what he said was his absence that day from the emergency operations center where other key officials, such as the Kerrville mayor and the county sheriff, had gathered.
“Judge Kelly, I never saw you on day one,” Mr. Patrick said, addressing Mr. Kelly. “I came here from Austin, in this room, I talked to the sheriff multiple times, I talked to the mayor multiple times, we had a meeting when we got here.”
“You should have been here, you should have been here directing that response,” Mr. Patrick said.
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KUT, cont.:
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick laid into Judge Kelly for not being at the press conference Abbott held immediately after the flood on July 4.
“Everyone was here that day working their ass off and you were nowhere to be found,” Patrick said.
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NYT, cont:
Earlier in the hearing, Representative Ann Johnson, a Houston Democrat, observed that “the three guys in Kerr County who were responsible for sounding the alarm were effectively unavailable” at the height of the emergency, before dawn on July 4.
The judge was away, she said, the sheriff didn’t wake up until 4:20 a.m., and the emergency management coordinator was sick.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the hearing, Mr. Patrick and Representative Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican and the speaker of the Texas House, expressed dismay at that so many top officials were absent at critical moments of the crisis.
“Somebody has to have the football,” Mr. Burrows said.
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abcnews, cont:
Kelly claimed during his testimony that there were no imminent extreme weather events forecast by the National Weather Service (NWS) prior to the catastrophic flooding.
Some 18 of lawmakers on the panel pushed back, saying that the NWS had issued multiple flood watches and flood warnings prior to the major flood, some issued on July 3. The NWS said it sent out a forecast on July 3 for a level 2 of 4 risk of excessive rainfall hitting the area.
Committee members questioned Kelly about why no Code Red alert about the evacuation was issued.
Kelly explained that the Code Red system is an opt-in system that many residents have not signed up for.
"It was too late," he said of why the Code Red was not issued.
Kelly Not in Kerr
Kelly also said that he was not in Kerr County when the flooding hit. He said he was at his lake house near Austin, preparing for a family gathering.
Kerr County officials recommended that the lawmakers help by funding a better system to alert residents of flooding, including installing sirens along the river and improving broadband and internet systems in the rural areas.
Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr. told the lawmakers that he wants to see a flood-warning system in place along the river by next summer.
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Abbott Not in State
"That day will haunt me for the rest of my life," said Patrick, who was serving as governor at the time of the flood, while Gov. Greg Abbott was out of the state.--Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick
"No one was in charge"
Alicia Baker, shaking with emotion and holding back tears, described the horrors of losing her daughter and parents.
Baker described the harrowing hours of not knowing the fate of her daughter and parents.
"I waited there for over 12 hours for news, and literally no one could tell you anything at all," Baker said. "Literally, no one was in charge."