The forecast began to look ominous in Texas Hill Country on Thursday afternoon.
A flood watch was issued by the National Weather Service at 1:18 p.m. that predicted up to 7 inches of isolated rainfall early Friday morning in South Central Texas, including Kerr County.
By the time the sun rose on the Fourth of July, less than 24 hours later, as much as 12 inches of rain had fallen in parts of the region while its residents were asleep, according to NWS radar estimates. The Guadalupe River gauge at the unincorporated community of Hunt, where the river forks, recorded a 22-foot rise in just two hours, said Bob Fogarty, meteorologist with the NWS Austin/San Antonio office. The gauge recorded a level of 29 ½ feet before becoming completely submerged and failing, Fogarty added.
At least 32 people were killed by the flooding. Dozens more remained missing as of Saturday morning, including 27 young girls from a Christian summer camp, according to the Kerr County sheriff’s office.
The scale of the disaster — and the fact that major flooding is common in this part of Texas — has raised questions over whether more could have been done to warn people in the path of the flood waters.
Local and state officials were quick to point to weather forecasts that did not accurately predict the intensity of the rainfall. Meanwhile, some forecasters suggested that local officials and camp leadership should have activated more given the threats that were apparent.
“The heartbreaking catastrophe that occurred in Central Texas is a tragedy of the worst sort because it appears evacuations and other proactive measures could have been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities had the organizers of impacted camps and local officials heeded the warnings of the government and private weather sources, including AccuWeather,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter wrote in a statement Saturday morning.
