Alerts ignored: Texas floods echo tragedy of Hurricane Helene

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox Nine months ago Hurricane Helene barreled up from the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the rugged mountains of western North Carolina dumping a foot of rain onto an already saturated landscape More than people died preponderance by drowning in floodwaters or being crushed by water-fueled landslides We had no idea it was going to do what it did noted Jeff Howell the now-retired crisis manager in Yancey County North Carolina a rural expanse that suffered the majority of deaths per capita A week ago the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry slipped up from the coast of Mexico drawing moisture from the Gulf then collided with another system and inundated rivers and creeks in hilly south central Texas More than people are proven dead a multitude of of them children with more missing We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what s happened here none whatsoever reported County Judge Rob Kelly the top elected official in Kerr County Texas where majority of the deaths occurred The similarities between North Carolina and Texas extend beyond the words of these two authorities In both disasters there was a disconnect between accurate weather alerts and on-the-ground action that could have saved lives Executives in each of those places were warned The National Weather System sent urgent alerts about potentially life-threatening danger hours in advance of the flash floods leaving time to notify and try to evacuate people in harm s way In Texas chosen local executives did just that But others did not Similarly a ProPublica analysis unveiled that when Helene hit on Sept certain local executives in North Carolina issued evacuation orders At least five counties in Helene s path including Yancey did not Howell disclosed the enormity of the storm was far worse than anyone alive had ever seen and that he notified residents as best he could The National Weather Organization described Helene s approach for days It sent out increasingly dire alerts warning of dangerous flash flooding and landslides Its staff spoke directly with local emergency managers and held webinar updates A Facebook message the regional office posted around p m the day before Helene hit warned of essential to catastrophic life-threatening flooding in the mountains This will be one of the majority important weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era Similarly in Texas the weather system warned of prospective for flash flooding the day before Also that day the state urgency management agency s regional director had personally contacted county judges mayors and others in that area and notified them all of probable flooding Lt Gov Dan Patrick later explained at a press conference AccuWeather a commercial weather forecasting operation issued the first flash flood warnings for the area at a m on July roughly three hours before the catastrophic flooding A half-hour later at a m the National Weather Facility sent a similar warning to two specific areas including central Kerr County where the Guadalupe River s banks and hills are dotted with vacation homes summer camps and campgrounds multiple filled with July vacationers slumbering in cabins and RVs Flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly the weather system alert noted Impacts could include life threatening flash flooding of creeks and streams A severity descriptor on that alert sent it to weather radios and the nation s Wireless Urgency Alerts system which blasts weather warnings to cellphones to blare an alarm AccuWeather s chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter was dismayed to hear news later that all the children attending youth camps in Kerr County had not been ushered to higher ground despite those warnings At Camp Mystic a beloved century-old Christian summer camp for girls at least campers and counselors were killed Six still haven t been revealed Its director also died while trying to rescue children People at the camp noted they received little to no help from the personnel according to The New York Times I was very concerned to see that campers were awoken not by someone coming to tell them to evacuate based on timely warnings issued but rather by rapidly rising water that was going up to the second level of their bunkbeds Porter declared In the area known as Flash Flood Alley Porter called this a tragedy of the worst sort because it appeared camps and local leaders could have mobilized sooner in response to the alerts There was plenty of time to evacuate people to higher ground Porter commented The question is Why did that not happen But Dalton Rice city manager of Kerrville the county seat mentioned at a press conference the next day that there wasn t a lot of time to communicate the hazard to camps because the floodwaters rose so rapidly Rice explained that at a m more than two hours after the flash flood warnings began he went jogging near the Guadalupe River to check it out but didn t see anything concerning But miles upriver from the park where he was jogging the river began at a m to rise feet in just two hours At a m the weather arrangement upgraded the warning to an emergency its the bulk severe flash flood alert with a tag of catastrophic It singled out the Guadalupe River at Hunt in Kerr County This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW The local sheriff announced he wasn t made aware of the flooding until to a m He has declined to say whether the local emergency manager who is responsible for alerting the population to approaching storms was awake when the flash flood warnings went out starting at a m The Texas Tribune stated that Kerrville s mayor noted he wasn t aware of the flooding until around a m when the city manager called and woke him up Local leaders have refused to provide more details saying they are focused on finding the more than people still missing and notifying loved ones of deaths One challenge as disasters approach is that weather alerts often don t reach the people in harm s way In rural areas across Texas and North Carolina alike cellphone function can be spotty on the best of days and specific people turn off alert notifications In North Carolina s remote mountains multiple people live at least somewhat off the grid The cell institution isn t great everywhere and various aren t glued to phones or social media In Texas Kerr County residents posted on Facebook complaints that they didn t receive the weather provision s alerts while others revealed their phones blared all night with warnings Numerous counties also use apps to send their own alerts often tailored to their specific rivers and roads But residents must opt in to receive them Kerr County uses CodeRed but it isn t clear what alerts it sent out overnight Pete Jensen has spent a long career in crisis management including responding to the Sept terrorist attack He served as an official at the Federal Urgency Management Agency during Hurricane Katrina and often ponders why more people don t receive and heed weather alerts There s an awful lot of denial Jensen announced Disasters happen to someone else They don t happen to me That can include local functionaries who don t perpetually understand what their responsibilities are They very often react like most of humans do in denial There is one big difference between the disasters in Texas and North Carolina In Texas residents journalists and others have demanded accountability from local functionaries Gov Greg Abbott has called the Legislature into special session starting July to discuss flood warning systems flood urgency communications and natural catastrophe preparation But that hasn t happened in North Carolina The state legislature has yet to discuss viable changes such as expanding its Know Your Zone evacuation plan beyond the coast or boost funding for local urgency managers Instead lawmakers went home in late June without passing a full budget A large number of exigency managers including in Yancey County operate in rural areas with small tax bases and skeleton staffs There still has not been an outcry here for How do we do things differently explained state Sen Julie Mayfield a Democrat from Asheville It still feels like we re very much in recovery mode North Carolina s urgency management agency commissioned a review of its handling of the catastrophe The review uncovered the state agency severely understaffed but it didn t examine issues such as evacuations or local exigency managers actions before Helene hit Erika Andresen also lives in Asheville a mountain city in the heart of Helene s destruction where she helps businesses prepare for disasters A lawyer and former Army judge advocate she also teaches crisis management After Helene she was among the sparse voices in North Carolina criticizing the lack of evacuations and other inactions ahead of the storm I knew right away both from my instinct and from my experience that a lot of things went terribly wrong Andresen disclosed When she got pushback against criticizing local leadership in a time of emergency she countered We need accountability The post Alerts ignored Texas floods echo tragedy of Hurricane Helene appeared first on Salon com