Can't fight the tears.

Just Brutal.

😪

A-Jay

 

Prayers. Horrible 

Sent a donation to the Red Cross to help them help the victims. Wasn't a lot, considering my financial situation, but every little bit helps.

My wife showed me some videos this morning, what a terrible deal. Crazy how fast it can happen.

Mystic is only 8 miles downriver from the Guadalupe headwater springs.  

I've been watching the monsoon on doppler since it developed 2 days ago.  

It just sat there and dumped 3 in/hr.  

The flood drained off the Guadalupe-Llano divide - no way for any kind of warning at 4 am.  (my house is above the US-281 shield on the map)

I've also been following the flood crest down the river using USGS.  

The river is a tiny creek there - just the south fork of the headwaters.  

Close to home - a Mystic Xing bass.  

The monsoon didn't begin breaking up until today - we had a 5-inch one-hour rain from it this morning, but I'm right on top of the Cibolo-Guadalupe divide - high and dry - 4 mi from the Guadalupe, and 450' above Cibolo Ck.  

My house has been through a 27-inch overnight rain without problems.  

6 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

Sent a donation to the Red Cross to help them help the victims. Wasn't a lot, considering my financial situation, but every little bit helps.

Whatever the amount. It says a lot about your character.  Nicely done buddy!

Heartbreaking. Prayers for everyone down there. 

I have a close friend who guides/camps down there. Heartbreaking for the families who have their kids in camp there. Holding and praying for the best for them.

I was just in Marble Falls last week. Absolutely terrible. 5am wall of water is some apocalypse movie sort of stuff.

The footage is horrifying. I saw where one woman was swept twenty miles and managed to survive. 

I shared this with a friend on FFR about the size and speed of Texas monsoons.  

Texas monsoons form when Gulf moisture meets Arctic moisture and El Nino (warm Pacific moisture) all at the same time.  Movement gets pinned by high pressure to the NE.  
Memorial Day flood Austin, 1981, I was watching out my full-wall office window as noon became midnight - that's a 70,000' thunderhead.  It rained 7 inches in one hour.  

I've seen the same midnight at noon in San Antonio.  

Until Hurricane Harvey rained 36" in 24 hours on Houston, North American rainfall record was Goldthwaite, TX, 1935, rained 35" overnight - that town is about 100 mi north from my house.  

All that came down the Colorado River for Austin's record flood.  
Closer to Austin, it was compounded by D'Hanis rainfall of 20 inches in under 3 hours.

Famous Austin photo, house going over Miller Dam.  
Flood crest was 42'

Absolutely devastating! 

 

My flash flood experience.

We were at a scout camp like 15 years ago. A small creek runs through the property intersecting with a small river across the street. Canyon like topography. We got like 6 plus inches of rain Friday night and another 6 or 7 inches of rain Saturday night. That small creek that was inches deep in some points swelled to between 10 and 15 feet and did major damage to the camp. Thankfully those in charge made some good decisions Saturday morning. If not Sunday morning would have gone vastly different....

 

 

14 hours ago, bulldog1935 said:

20 inches in under 3 hours.

2-3” in a day is a pretty good clip up here. I can’t fathom 6-7” an hour!

Close to my house, Canyon Lake on the Guadalupe has a 140' earthen dam with a spillway designed to one side.  The 2002 flood was 12' over the spillway, and carved the gorge below in a few days.  It was a 34" rain.  Discharge was 120,000 cfs, exactly twice the discharge that came down the river this past weekend.  

(the 27" overnight rain I mentioned at my house discharged 98,000 cfs in Cibolo Creek)

In the Guadalupe river basin below the tailrace, there were cars 30' up in the cypress trees.  Of course everyone saw this coming, and everyone was evacuated.  People along River Road who know about this don't build drywall houses, but cinder block that they can hose out.  

 

 

Canyon Lake caught the flood discharge from last weekend, and lake level went up more than 10' - but note, it's still 15' below conservation water level, and 40' below full.  

I heard the death toll was over 100 and still climbing, 😔 

The power of water never ceases to amaze me. 
 

RIP to all the fallen and prayers to those involved with this tragic catastrophe.

Of course prayers for the families and the recovery responders.  

I can't imagine the trauma of recovering lost children from a 6' thick flood wash pile.  

 

A lot of the news coverage is nuts - most of that, if you haven't been here 40 years, it's beyond your imagination.  Every route out means crossing the river somewhere.  Most of the lost children at Mystic were in a school bus and van in the flight caravan (led by loaded army trucks) that washed away during the flight.  

Exactly the same thing that happened in the 1987 flood tragedy - in 1987, they were following the sheriff's orders, took the best route out, and it wasn't enough.  

my brother took a week of vacation and is volunteering to search for people/remains.

 

he is there now.