[NA]7/4/25 Central TX flooding

Flying Keys said:
This wasn’t a volcano or earthquake where no seismic activity previously existed. This wasn’t a meteor impact. This was a flash flood in a well-known, flood prone area that followed hours of escalating advisories. There is absolutely more that could have been done.
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Such as?
(I'll wait for the deflection answer)
When was the last time a flash flood happened with this severity in the area? Your post makes it seems like this happens every summer. And you said it, hours of escalating advisories. What else is there to do? People get warned, and they make their choices. Unless you're suggesting that government babysits us and doesn't let us make any decisions.
 
EdFred said:
Such as?
(I'll wait for the deflection answer)
When was the last time a flash flood happened with this severity in the area? Your post makes it seems like this happens every summer. And you said it, hours of escalating advisories. What else is there to do? People get warned, and they make their choices. Unless you're suggesting that government babysits us and doesn't let us make any decisions.
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lol, an unserious response as if you didn’t read any of the things I said prior. I’m well aware this was a very rare instance. However, this has happened so often and this area is so vulnerable that the county discussed putting up warning sirens. Either way, did people get the warnings, was there an action plan? Did the kids who died have a choice in the matter or was it a systemic failure of choices made both long ago and in the moment by people above them? People whose charge it is to mitigate risk?

Your last straw statement belies your true intentions, anyway. I’ve answered the questions, haven’t deflected at all, but it seems your staunch solipsism won’t allow for any consideration other than “government bad,” (a weird, defensive deflection) even though that’s only one piece of the bigger picture I’ve brought to light.
 
Flying Keys said:
lol, an unserious response as if you didn’t read any of the things I said prior. I’m well aware this was a very rare instance. However, this has happened so often and this area is so vulnerable that the county discussed putting up warning sirens. Either way, did people get the warnings, was there an action plan? Did the kids who died have a choice in the matter or was it a systemic failure of choices made both long ago and in the moment by people above them? People whose charge it is to mitigate risk?

Your last straw statement belies your true intentions, anyway. I’ve answered the questions, haven’t deflected at all, but it seems your staunch solipsism won’t allow for any consideration than “government bad,” (a deflection) even though that’s only one piece of the bigger picture I’ve brought to light.
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Which is it? It can't be rare AND happen so often. It's one or the other. As far as deflection you literally did it with you "I need more data" BS response that I previously quoted. (though I only quoted the last part)

"unserious" doesn't mean what you think it means. You've thrown it out every time you don't have an answer. I was also asking if that's what you were suggesting, no THAT you were suggesting it. You have deflected almost this entire thread with "we need to do more" and someone asks "what more" and you respond with "unserious" multiple times. If you don't want to actually answer, and would rather practice like you are on a political campaign trail with out giving anything definite, fine, just say so. But don't throw it back on people not being serious because you don't like the questions being asked.
 
Flying Keys said:
This was a flash flood in a well-known, flood prone area that followed hours of escalating advisories. There is absolutely more that could have been done.
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Except there were a number people of who received all the warnings, all the advanced notice to evacuate, but didn’t. So please explain how your mitigative steps above would "absolutely" force those people to comply?
 
Government neither good nor bad, like people. More government . . . throwing regulations and / or money at problems . . . is simplistic. Simplistic is often, if not usually, wrong.

Anyone with at least a Private Certificate should have learned (Aviation) Decision Making.

Children, by definition too young to make informed consent as to life and death risks, dying is a real tragedy, shame, and something that society . . . society . . . needs to address.

Politicians play politics . . . morality and ethics are unknown in that arena . . . the deaths of thousands aren't merely statistics as "Uncle Joe" said, they are the basis of political actions.

Can we . . . meaning everybody . . . not just those we blame for not doing something do better. Well, if we can't, why go on? Look at what we have . . . monitoring weather radio as it rains is a total "no-brainer" . . . but too many had no brains. Planning an escape route from a cabin by a river in a gorge seems to this young pilot a lot like having a plan on what to do if you lose one or both of your O-320s at or shortly after takeoff.

Not to be mean or insensitive, but evolution favors the prepared and thoughtful.

And effective (not least-cost or efficient) is the gold standard.

(Just my $0.02 . . . offered for free . . . with a double-your-money-back guarantee [send $5 for shipping and handling]).
 
EdFred said:
Which is it? It can't be rare AND happen so often. It's one or the other. As far as deflection you literally did it with you "I need more data" BS response that I previously quoted. (though I only quoted the last part)

"unserious" doesn't mean what you think it means. You've thrown it out every time you don't have an answer. I was also asking if that's what you were suggesting, no THAT you were suggesting it. You have deflected almost this entire thread with "we need to do more" and someone asks "what more" and you respond with "unserious" multiple times. If you don't want to actually answer, and would rather practice like you are on a political campaign trail with out giving anything definite, fine, just say so. But don't throw it back on people not being serious because you don't like the questions being asked.
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I answered. It’s impossible to take your approach seriously, as it is with the others who use sarcasm and ridiculous analogies.

We do need more data to draw conclusions, but the questions I ask are the ones I’d ask if I had direct access to do so.

Rare doesn't mean never. That’s an easy one. We practice stuff all the time as pilots that very few of us have or ever will encounter.
 
Flying Keys said:
I answered. It’s impossible to take your approach seriously, as it is with the others who use sarcasm and ridiculous analogies.

We do need more data to draw conclusions, but the questions I ask are the ones I’d ask if I had direct access to do so.

Rare doesn't mean never. That’s an easy one. We practice stuff all the time as pilots that very few of us have or ever will encounter.
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You non-answered answered. You gave an answer, yes. We can agree on that. But your answers are more analogous to asking what kind of cake should I bring to a party, when only a type of cake is the answer, and you answering with cherry pie. Yes it's an answer, but not to the question actually being asked. There was no sarcasm in any of my questions or responses to you. There ARE people who think the government should do EVERYTHING for us (my friend's wife is one, and wow she's unbearable to deal with), so short of that being the answer, what IS the answer? Warnings given, warnings waved off. So what's your solution? I know, more data. Again, an answer, but not to the question being asked.

I never said it means never. Now who's strawmanning?

But it can't simultaneously be VERY RARE and HAPPENS SO OFTEN.
 
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EdFred said:
You non-answered answered. You gave an answer, yes. We can agree on that. But your answers are more analogous to asking what kind of cake should I being to a party, when only a type of cake is the answer, and you answering with cherry pie. Yes it's an answer, but not to the question actually being asked. There was no sarcasm in any of my questions or responses to you. There ARE people who think the government should do EVERYTHING for us (my friend's wife is one, and wow she's unbearable to deal with), so short of that being the answer, what IS the answer? Warnings given, warnings waved off. So what's your solution? I know, more data. Again, an answer, but not to the question being asked.
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Yeah, more data is needed - regardless of your friend’s wife (another ridiculous, unserious straw argument), reports are that the warnings didn’t get disseminated. I first would like to verify that chain of events - where did the ball get dropped, why, and what was the plan at the camp. However, I am coming at it as if those reports have veracity, which raises the questions I asked. You want me to come up with a specific answer, and that’s a weird request given the circumstances. Once experts have asked the questions and received information following a formal review process, I’ll give my expertise.

However, my general premise, if the generalities of the reports are true, is we could have done more. What we can do specifically depends on, well, the specifics, which will take time to glean. But considering the reports we do have, and the same lack of specifics, it is absolutely crazy to claim the opposite, that there’s nothing that could have been done for those kids. We owe it to society to find out if that’s true.

Since you edited your last response, I’ll do the same: rare *enough* that people get complacent to the risk, but common enough that it has been addressed by several entities in the past. I didn’t think I’d have to explain that kind of nuance, but here we are.
 
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Flying Keys said:
Yeah, more data is needed - regardless of your friend’s wife (another ridiculous, unserious straw argument), reports are that the warnings didn’t get disseminated. I first would like to verify that chain of events. However, I am coming at it as if those reports have veracity, which raises the questions I asked. You want me to come up with a specific answer, and that’s a weird request given the circumstances. Once experts have asked the questions and received information following a formal review process, I’ll give my expertise.

However, my general premise, if the generalities of the reports are true, is we could have done more. What we can do specifically depends on, well, the specifics, which will take time to glean. But considering the reports we do have, and the same lack of specifics, it is absolutely crazy to claim there’s nothing that could have been done for those kids. We owe it to society to find out if that’s true.
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[InigoMontoyaImageHere]

I never said nothing could be done. I'm done, it's like you aren't even reading what's being posted.
 
kyleb said:
So, question for those in the area... Are there NWS warnings by phone for flash floods?
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A NOAA weather radio is the only reliable warning. A direct link to NWS transmitters and it will wake you up. Middlemen and layers of technology only add failure points.
 
billsgs126 said:
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." - Yogi Berra
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There are levels of rarity. As I said above after they edited their post, this was a rare enough of an occurrence that people got complacent, but common enough that it was addressed at many levels and had required additional mitigation over the years. I guess it requires a nuanced perspective - to different people it’s going to carry different weight. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to carry enough weight to the people that mattered.
 
Flying Keys said:
There are levels of rarity. As I said above after they edited their post, this was a rare enough of an occurrence that people got complacent, but common enough that it was addressed at many levels and had required additional mitigation over the years. I guess it requires a nuanced perspective - to different people it’s going to carry different weight. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to carry enough weight to the people that mattered.
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I am not really disagreeing with you on this point. Perhaps I am merely pointing out that we are conversing in English, not German. This particular quote by Mr. Berra, like so many of his, makes perfect sense if you step out of a college classroom and into the real world. People choose not to go somewhere because of the crowds. People choose not to heed warnings because they are warned every day and those dire predictions rarely come true. (And when they do, people are too dead to react.)
 
EdFred said:
But it can't simultaneously be VERY RARE and HAPPENS SO OFTEN.
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If a particular volcano erupted every 15 years, would you say that was a rare or frequent event?

It's pretty rare from a "Is it safe to visit the park next to the volcano today?" perspective. It's pretty frequent from a "Should I underwrite insurance for the park next to the volcano?" perspective. So yeah, I think something can simultaneously be rare and frequent, depending on the perspective.

I haven't read the last three pages of discussion, so I dunno the context, but on the face of it this sounded like a strange point to hang an argument on.
 
Thought I’d share some overhead before/after imagery. This not the Camp Mystic area, but downriver a short bit. Highway 39 is 25 ft above and 200 feet laterally from the South Fork.

1721c5c19a29f8928ad2255e2ac8f990.jpg


We saw numerous places this past weekend where new bank(s) were cut, with a couple of places actually changing the river’s path.
 
Bell206 said:
Except there were a number people of who received all the warnings, all the advanced notice to evacuate, but didn’t. So please explain how your mitigative steps above would "absolutely" force those people to comply?
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along the line of receiving warnings, anyone remember this little thing from "West Wing"?

 
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