Natural disasters
And the next flood, we will begin anew. To search for dead bodies. To clear debris. To wring our hands. To bury our dead. And to rebuild. Likely in floodplains.
When I moved to California to get help for my mom’s dementia, we lucked into a townhouse in Camarillo that was both affordable and just the right size: University Glen, constructed by Cal State Channel Islands (CSUCI, pronounced Sushi) as “carrot” to attract professors to brand spanking new CSUCI.
California regulations apparently required them to rent to non-university people as well. They did not advertise much, because the rent was so reasonable. Did I mention the 1300 square foot townhome (3BR, 2-1/2 bath) included a two-car garage? And they handled all maintenance and repair, including the changing of light bulbs? $1800/month + $85/month electric. They paid all other utilities.
I was able to get my mother on Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid. Our Medi-Cal rep worked hard to keep her on that aid, even when her Social Security benefit crept a few dollars over the threshold. They wanted her to receive good healthcare. I had a non-zombie, almost-normal mom for three full years, thanks to the excellent geriatric neuro-psych physicians in California.
But as always happens, meds eventually no longer stabilized her. Wandering began again. We lived only two blocks from the Camarillo police department on campus — not campus security, bona fide police. I took my mother’s picture down to that station and explained about her wandering. You have no idea how many times sweet neighbors called the police, who’d in turn call me to come pick her up. A community of patience. I had that village we all need and desire.
Soon the wandering became destructive. She would knock on neighbors’ doors. She would become hopelessly confused. She would wander ever farther, panicking if she reached the edges of the complex.
No problem, I thought. I can just deadbolt the front and back doors when I go to sleep. Because surely it had a keyed deadbolt inside, right?
Wrong.
Camarillo is in the heart of California fire country. Well, most of California is fire country. But Camarillo is particularly susceptible, especially CSUCI, since it is boxed in on three sides by mountains. The strictest of strict fire safety measures affected University Glen. Which meant: No keyed deadbolts. Inhabitants of a home had to be able to get out without keys in case of fire.
Believe me, that regulation annoyed me greatly. I could not stay awake 24/7, although sometimes I wouldn’t sleep for 48 hours straight if Mama was stirring. Why couldn’t I do something simple to protect my mother?
I tried MacGyvering various solutions. Nothing worked. Couldn’t afford to install monitoring systems when either door opened. [Note to anyone reading this facing the same dilemma: After the fact, I learned that placing a large pitch-black rug in front of a door will often prevent a dementia patient from leaving a room. They perceive it as a bottomless hole.]
About a month after my mother died, a massive wildfire roared through CSUCI. A spark from a car chugging up Conejo Grade caught fire on dry tinder next to the 101. Unlike most wildfires that burn relatively slowly, the Springs Fire spread from the 101 to PCH in a little over an hour. We had ten minutes to get out of our homes.
In a flash, I understood that regulation that had annoyed me only six months prior. There must be no barriers to exiting one’s home to safety in case of fire. To quickly exiting one’s home.
“When I spied Mill Valley firefighters resting before their trip home, I complimented them on their good work. “What did you guys do? How did you save this 800-acre complex?”
“We would like to take credit, one of them said. But you’re lucky. The people who built your townhomes and the university buildings doubled down on fire safety codes.
“He got up and pointed to the eaves. See that? There is not even the tiniest space for a spark to enter. Pointing to the balconies. See that? It’s not wood, even though it looks like it. It’s the most fire repellent composite on the market. It cannot burn. Pointing to the ubiquitous red tiles. See that? It cost them extra, but they doubled down on the tiles above the eaves and turned them inward. No way for sparks to get under the tiles. Pointing to what I’d always thought were concentric running tracks around the campus. See that? Those are protected green belts. Yes, the fire can jump the tracks, but they’ve kept the green belts watered, so it slowed the fire down. The double green belts gave us twice the time.
“Wow. Adults designed and built that university and townhome complex. Adults who understood the value of spending a bit extra up front to save lives and property later. Simply wow.”
I sincerely appreciated the positive feedback to my three recent posts, beginning with Boerne, Texas: A river runs through it. Those same three posts, linked on Facebook, did not have as kind a reception from long-time friends in Texas. I fear many have since blocked me for writing the unvarnished truth about Texas flooding.
In case there is any misunderstanding, I want to make two, no three things clear.
1) The recent deaths in Kerr County, Texas are tragic.
2) The recent deaths in Kerr County, Texas were largely preventable. Those in positions of power who ignored reality should be held accountable.
3) Even with the best possible regulations and preventive measures, natural disasters will still claim lives. It’s up to us to learn from each one, to analyze data, to determine what we can do to mitigate loss of lives and property damage going forward.
The recent deaths in Kerr County, Texas are tragic.
A person would have to be heartless to claim otherwise. No one “deserved” to die, and anyone promoting that rhetoric? Lowest of the low. They should be shunned.
The recent deaths in Kerr County, Texas were largely preventable and those responsible should be held accountable.
Saying that the deaths were tragic does not diminish accountability. Every member of the board of Camp Mystic, the architect, camp owner and director, the Kerr County personnel who signed off on building permits in the floodplain, should be held accountable. As I wrote in Part 2 of the flood series, in 1932 Mrs. E.J. Stewart said they were rebuilding on high ground. In reality, they built the camp director’s cabin on high ground, but sleeping cabins on the low ground, right up against the “bottom of the towering hills.” In other words, in the floodplain.
Apparently more recent construction was technically outside the floodplain — by two feet. Who in their right mind would go with “technically” when responsible for the lives of young girls? Apparently, the Camp Mystic people pressured FEMA to remove them from the 100-year floodplain map, so they qualified for National Flood Insurance. What is flood insurance when young girls die?!
As I experienced in Camarillo, ethical, responsible, moral individuals go above and beyond; they do not find a loophole that permits building next to a river known to have flooded multiple times over the previous 175+ years. Nor do they pressure a federal agency to alter danger zones just so they qualify for insurance in case of property damage. Photographs over the decades show that the Guadalupe River often floods more than two miles on either side of its banks.
It’s not just rivers and flooding I’m talking about. Wildfires, avalanches, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, landslides — these are all natural disasters that impact our United States, indeed, the whole world. If you live in a zone where one or more of these occurs on a regular or semi-regular basis, you better be holding your public officials accountable for sound building regulations and safety plans.
We cannot prevent floods, or tsunamis, or hurricanes. We cannot even accurately predict earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, wildfires, or landslides, much less prevent them. Yet.
But we can have building codes in place that lessen the damage, that all but prevent loss of life. We can avoid construction in floodplains (plus a contingency zone). We can implement the same measures that CSUCI employed in the building of University Glen. We can add structural components to houses and office buildings that don’t allow pancaking during earthquakes, that withstand the devastating power of landslides (and stop building to the edge of cliffs).
I am not an engineer. But these are common sense measures that even I know about! Consider how much greater the knowledge of civil, mechanical, environmental, architectural, materials, and structural engineers (and bioengineering, to find new materials). Yes, we must first accept that science is real, that the funding of scientific research is important. Once those simple “givens” are behind us, then we should, we must, trust the science.
Where science cannot help us prevent property loss, science can surely find ways to prevent loss of life. I doubt that completely tornado-proof structures will be designed in my lifetime. But better tornado shelters? Why not? And county-municipal tornado shelters should be as ubiquitous as bomb shelters were in World War II and the early 1960s. In fact, many bomb shelters could be easily retrofitted as tornado shelters. Perhaps that’s even a thing.
As a side note: When I Googled “retrofit bomb shelters as tornado shelters,” I was amused by one particular hit. The firm of Schultz2 Architects LLC in Wichita, Kansas included an entire article about what not to convert to tornado shelters. My favorite, though sad, excerpt:
When I first started working with FEMA after the 1999 tornado outbreak that hit Oklahoma and Kansas, it was amazing the things that people were calling “tornado shelters”. My eyes were opened when a FEMA representative showed me a picture of a “shelter” that consisted of this huge, salvaged steam boiler that some genius gutted, cut a hole in the side, welded on a couple of hinges to create an access door and called it a shelter. Now mind you, the boiler was cylinder shaped as you would imagine. This “genius” did NOT anchor this shelter to the ground! In an event, this would not be a shelter, at that point, it is a BAD, BAD carnival ride! – Science matters! [If you live in Tornado Alley, their Web site is invaluable.]
As long as we do not hold people with money and power accountable, we will keep wringing our hands and wailing about senseless deaths. And — this is probably what angered my Facebook friends in Texas — we the people must vote FOR bonds and taxes to provide those services and structures.
We must also be willing to pay a tiny fraction more for our homes, or for that mother-in-law suite, or for a new barn, because making it fire- or flood-resistant, or ensuring it has a safe space for hurricane or tornado events, isn’t free. It costs money. But risk management, comparing the cost of better construction to property damage and loss of life? That should be a no-brainer.
Even with the best possible regulations and preventive measures, natural disasters will still claim lives.
When I was twentysomething, I worked and lived in southern Germany. I will never forget the day I met up with normally cheerful friends who were uncharacteristically ashen-faced. Beloved cousins had been killed in an avalanche in the Alps.
In the 1970s, avalanche science was in its infancy. Skiers would go on their merry way, whether in Switzerland, France, or Utah, blissfully unaware of avalanche danger. My friends’ cousins had no warning of imminent danger. Had they known, they could have stayed at the lodge until the avalanche team triggered the snowslide.
The Web site for the Colorado Avalanche Information Center has a good history of the science of avalanches, if that’s a topic that interests you. These days, mountain keepers know how, when, and why to keep skiers and snowboarders off the mountain. Ski Utah explains avalanche mitigation on its site. These days, experienced skiers know to take avalanche gear with them — at minimum a snow probe, avalanche transceiver, and snow shovel.
This is but one example of the changes wrought by scientific research. What was once an unforeseeable, unpreventable tragedy, something that resulted in countless deaths, is now routine, with avalanche mitigation a mundane part of life in mountainous regions. Together with standard gear for those trapped by unforecasted slides, “death by avalanche” — in the Western world, as Asia still lags behind in implementation of lifesaving measures — has decreased considerably.
79 dead in Austria’s 1954 Blons avalanches, 61 total 1955-2009, with none from 2010 to present.
62 dead in Canada’s 1910 Rogers Pass avalanche, 46 dead from 1911-2008, 3 in 2019.
37 dead in France’s 1934 Hautes-Pyrénées avalanche, 39 in 1970, 21 from 1971-2016, none since 2016.
2,000-10,000 in Italy’s “White Friday” avalanche in 1916, 29 in 2017, 11 in 2022, none since.
96 in USA’s 1910 Wellington, WA avalanche, 7 in 1982 Northern California, 18 from 1983-2025.
The same science, the same data analysis, the same engineering that worked to dramatically lessen loss of life during avalanches should be applied to floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and the rest. And where we already HAVE the science, there should be hard and fast consequences for those who ignore the science.
We should no longer have teenagers and children dying because some camp director thought it was all right to build on low ground, KNOWING the history of flooding in that low ground. We should no longer have people dying in Kansas, or North Texas, or Oklahoma, when tornadoes rip through the countryside. We KNOW how to build effective shelters. We should no longer have people dying during hurricanes due to flood waters directly on the coast. There should be no death by tsunami along our Western coastline. There should be no — or at bare minimum there should be fewer — deaths in earthquake and fire zones.
And where deaths do occur, our data scientists and engineers and scientists of every stripe should receive adequate funding to figure out what was different this time. What changed that caused those deaths, excluding human stupidity (tubing during a flash flood, skiing during an avalanche warning, Instagramming a tornado)?
I am drawn back to that remarkable 1937 study, funded by the US Department of the Interior in cooperation with the New Deal’s Public Works Administration. When Tate Dalrymple and his staff had their aha! moment, when they understood they had not considered nearly enough data points with former floods, science changed our understanding of flooding in Texas.
Because of Dalrymple’s study and continued PWA funding, loss of life and property in Texas was drastically reduced following construction of New Deal dams like Buchanan, Roy Inks, and Marshall Ford (Mansfield). Houston and Victoria no longer fear walls of water racing down the Guadalupe, thanks to Canyon Dam, another New Deal structure.
The absurd distrust of science and hatred of the “stinkin’ federal guvmint” so prevalent in MAGA country will only increase loss of life and property damage. When researching Texas floods, I came across one proposal for building levees and terraces in towns along the Guadalupe. This would have entailed demolition of all those riverfront cabins at Camp Mystic and River Inn Resort next door to the camp.
But those levees and terraces would have saved precious topsoil and even more precious lives. It also would have required funding by Texans, not the US federal government. Do you think that proposal made it past committee? Pffft. If those same Kerr County people wouldn’t use Biden’s federal funds for a warning system, do you think they would use their own money for levees and terraces, much less demolition of existing structures?
So yes — I fully understand the sorrow, I grieve with the families of those who died in this recent flood. And in floods past. In ALL those floods past. In those floods that just keep coming, year after year after year.
But where the people of University Glen chose to embrace science, Texas does not. Where Utahns (!) were at the forefront of avalanche mitigation, Texas asks, Who us? While state after state enacts laws and regulations regarding building along riverbanks and on top of cliffs (California needs to catch up on that last one), Texas dons its ten-gallon hat and spurs and Justin boots and says, Ain’t nobody gonna tell ME what to do!
And so, people keep dying, property keeps disappearing. Red Cross, FEMA (you know, those damn guvmint people), National Guard, Army Corps of Engineers (more of those damn guvmint people), Cajun Navy… and truckloads of relief aid from Pennsylvania, from dozens of other states, from Mexico!, all these people and nonprofits and NGOs and state governments and individuals — they all keep returning to search for dead bodies, to help rebuild, to clear debris.
Because of sleeping quarters built in (or 2’ away from) FEMA’s 100-year floodplain. Because science is derided in a state that once held it sacred (I was a STEM student in the 1970s, in Texas). Because Texans wouldn’t pay for levees, terraces, or a decent warning system. Because emergency evacuation plans are hand-waved (who approved the one in 1987 that entailed heading towards the Guadalupe?). Because riverfront views are so, so pretty, you cannot tell me not to build there.
Once again, after the wringing of hands is behind us, we will bury our dead. We will rebuild, likely on floodplains with crappy materials. We will not have learned a thing.
And the next flood, we will begin anew. To search for dead bodies. To clear debris. To wring our hands. To bury our dead. And to rebuild. Likely in floodplains.
What will it take to end the cycle? When will there be accountability?
Postscript #1: In February 2020, County Commissioners of Kerr County, Texas put together a 22-page document entitled, Flood Damage Prevention Order #37967. On page 1, under “Findings of Fact,” they wrote:
(1) The flood hazard areas of Kerr County, Texas are subject to periodic inundation, which results in the loss of life and property, health and safety hazards, disruption of commerce and governmental services, and extraordinary public expenditures for flood protection and relief, all of which adversely affect the public health, safety and general welfare.
(2) These flood losses are created by the cumulative effect of obstructions in floodplains which cause an increase in flood heights and velocities, and by the occupancy of flood hazard areas by uses vulnerable to floods and hazardous to other lands because they are inadequately elevated, floodproofed or otherwise protected from flood damage.
Then follows twenty-one pages of empty promises and threats. They reserve the right to revoke building permits. They establish penalties for noncompliance. From their almost-ten pages of DEFINITIONS, it is clear that they recognized that existing structures were built in areas that would likely cause loss of life come the next big flood. This document is twenty-pages of toothless bureaucracy.
The purpose of the document is made evident on page 22.
It is hereby found and declared by KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONER’S COURT
That severe flooding has occurred in the past within its jurisdiction and will certainly occur within the future; that flooding is likely to result in infliction of serious personal injury or death and is likely to result in substantial injury or destruction of property within its jurisdiction; in order to effectively comply with minimum standards for coverage under the National Flood Insurance Program; and in order to effectively remedy the situation described herein, it is necessary that this order become effective immediately.
Therefore, an emergency is declared to exist, and this order, being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety, shall be in full force and effect from and after its passage and approval.
Emphasis mine.
Signed by “Robt Kelly, County Judge, Community Official.”
Even Fox News reported on Camp Mystic’s pressure on FEMA to remove its low-lying buildings from the 100-year floodplain map (2013-2020). That Fox News reports quoted Sarah Pralle, associate professor of political science at Syracuse University. “It was puzzling to me that they would be spending their efforts doing that when many of their structures were in high-risk areas, and it seems to me like time and resources would have been better spent physically moving those structures away from the most risky areas.”
And yet when Kerr County officials wanted to obtain National Flood Insurance and supposedly beefed up flood control regulations, they ignored Camp Mystic and River Inn Resort. Why? Therein lies the real story.
Postscript #2: A great many Texans point to the fact that this flood was — gasp! —likely caused by remnants of Tropical Storm Barry, a tropical cyclone that flooded parts of Mexico before heading up the Gulf Coast to Texas and the Guadalupe River. It’s part of the “there is really, absolutely positively, no way we could have seen this coming” narrative.
I call BS. The correlation between tropical storms that don’t do much “hurricane” or even tornado damage, but that stall out and put Texas (and Louisiana, and Mississippi, and Alabama, and Florida) under a bajillion feet of water is a story as old as time itself. Tropical storms that hit Mexico and appear to fizzle out once they hit Mexico’s mountains, only to bring floodwaters to Texas, those too have been around since before records were kept.
As I wrote the flood series, over and over I saw, aha, tropical storm, Guadalupe, flash floods, death. My first encounter while writing it came with that Flood of 1921. In 1921, journalists did not make the connection between two tropical storms and that flood that killed 215-250 and covered one-fourth of the State of Texas.
In 1956, the US Department of Commerce, US Department of the Army, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the [National] Weather Bureau, co-sponsored a boring scientific treatise spearheaded by R.W. Schoner and S. Molansky, entitled Rainfall Associated with Hurricanes. I saved it as a PDF because it is on the NOAA Web site. Who knows how long the current administration will permit it to remain up? After all, it’s science.
As Tate Dalrymple had done in 1937, R.W. Schoner and S. Molansky and their intrepid scientists laid out the causation and correlation between hurricanes and tropical storms, and flooding. Not just in Texas, but wherever they could find good data.
So please. Stop with the excuses. Seeing Tropical Storm Barry make landfall in Mexico and move northeastward towards Texas? Wasn’t the first time. Won’t be the last.
If you missed the three-part flood series, here you go:
Part 1: Boerne, Texas: A river runs through it
Part 2: “There is no way we could have seen this coming”
Part 3: “There is really, absolutely positively, no way we could have seen this coming”
© 2025 Denise Elaine Heap. Please message me for permission to quote.
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The local authority analysis is damning. Looks like negligent homicide to me.