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Rebekah Porter, Staff Reporter & Shannon West, Managing Editor
Devastating flash floods took the lives of many people in the Hill Country this Fourth of July weekend. Cities such as Kerrville, Hunt, Liberty Hill, Georgetown and Seguin saw mass flooding events due to heavy rainfall.
Emily Heller, National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio, said the areas under the NWS Austin/San Antonio purview that were hit the hardest were Kerr, Kendall, Burnet, Williamson and Travis counties. Heller said the highest reported 72-hour total as of 8:40 a.m. on Sunday, July 6 was 20.92 inches in Burnet County.
The 24 hour precipitation reports for Thursday, July 3 into July 4 showed that in Hays County, Dripping Springs got the most rainfall, receiving 2.9 inches across July 4 and 5.
“We had deep tropical moisture from the remnants of [hurricane] Barry on top of our already moist atmosphere that we had the previous week, so it's basically just a stalled out upper level disturbance that has kept this pattern in place the past couple of days,” Heller said. “These storms have basically tapped into the deep moisture and the high rain rates, and the slow moving nature of storms has really contributed to the flooding.”
According to the article “What to know about the flash floods in Texas that killed more than 80 people” published July 6 in the Associated Press, the floods were due to a storm which deposited rainfall in an area that has dry dirt-packed soil that lets rain skid along the surface instead of being soaked into the ground. The massive rainfall sent rushing water flowing into the Guadalupe River causing the river to rise 26 feet in just 45 minutes. These storms also caused other rivers such as the San Gabriel River to flood at dangerous levels.
The flooding happened in the early hours of morning on July 4 when many were asleep. The damage was so intense that it took out whole RV parks, took homes off of foundations and took cars and heavy debris downstream.
Tragedy struck in Kerr County as floods affected multiple youth camps along the Guadalupe River such as Camp Mystic and Camp La Junta. At a press conference on Monday morning, July 7, Kerr County officials said that 75 people have been confirmed deceased, including 48 adults and 27 children. At that time, 10 campers from Camp Mystic and one camp counselor were still among the missing.
