In the years before floodwaters killed more than two dozen people at Camp Mystic in Texas, regulators approved a series of appeals that removed many of the camp’s buildings from official federal flood zones, records show.
Flood maps developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2011 had placed much of the camp within a 100-year flood zone, an area considered to be at high risk of flooding. Camp Mystic successfully challenged those designations, which would limit renovation projects and require flood insurance, citing elevation calculations of a series of buildings that allowed them to be exempted from the federal restrictions.
Sarah Pralle, an associate professor at Syracuse University who has researched federal flood mapping, said she found the exemptions granted to Camp Mystic, a girls’ camp on the Guadalupe River near Hunt, to be “perplexing.” Some of the buildings were still very close to expected flood elevations, she said.
“I think it’s extremely troubling that it’s a camp for children,” Ms. Pralle said. “You’d think you want to be extra cautious — that you’d go beyond the minimum of what’s required for flood protection.”
It was unclear from the federal records precisely which buildings were removed from the flood maps, and the camp’s more detailed application for removal, which was first reported by The Associated Press, was not available. FEMA’s official flood maps show that some of the camp’s cabins were within a “floodway,” a particularly hazardous area where dangerous floodwaters would be expected to flow. Other cabins were within a broader zone that would also be expected to flood once every 100 years. Those maps have not been modified to incorporate Camp Mystic’s written appeals.
Some of the buildings included in Camp Mystic’s appeals were listed as having an elevation more than 10 feet higher than the 100-year flood level, a measure of the probability of a major flood occurring. But others were much closer: In a 2013 document about removing buildings from the flood zone, six of the 15 buildings identified were described as being within three feet of the 100-year elevation.
Around the world, as climate change has led to more frequent and powerful weather events, floods are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity.
A model produced by First Street, a research firm that studies climate threats to housing, found that the original FEMA maps at Camp Mystic did not fully capture the risk. The federal flood maps did not account for events of heavy precipitation or the changing nature of storms as a result of climate change, said Jeremy Porter, who leads the company’s climate implications research.
Mr. Porter said the First Street model, which relies in part on high-resolution elevation data, found that more Camp Mystic buildings were in the 100-year flood zone than what was even in the original FEMA model. He said that preparing for the likelihood of flood risk was a better strategy than changing flood maps. “The more prudent thing to do is to adapt,” he said.
Last week, after rains during the early morning hours of July 4, the Guadalupe River swelled by some 30 feet in just a few hours, and several Camp Mystic buildings were inundated. Campers were roused from their beds, and some had to wade through floodwaters to reach safer buildings. At least 27 people there were caught in the waters and died, adding to a statewide death toll that currently stands at 129.
Camp Mystic has not responded to questions about its flood assessments. In a statement, FEMA said that the flood maps “are not predictions of where it will flood” and cautioned people not to assume that properties located outside a FEMA flood zone would be safe from flooding.
“Flood maps are snapshots in time designed to show minimum standards for floodplain management and the highest risk areas for flood insurance,” the agency wrote. “Floods don’t follow lines on a map.”
The river and the camp have a long history of floods. In its century-long history, Camp Mystic has gone through multiple evacuations and lost cabins in previous flooding.
The process to have maps revised can be difficult, with property owners required to demonstrate how the flood maps might be erroneous. Ms. Pralle said that FEMA approves a vast majority of such applications.
Ms. Pralle said she believed the camp’s effort was a broader problem across the country of underestimating flood risks. Federal maps, she said, can often underestimate the actual risks of potential flooding.
“I don’t feel like this is the time to fight flood maps or make them smaller,” she said. “We should see a broad expansion of flood maps.”
Designation of property in an official flood zone can limit the construction of new buildings or the major alterations to existing ones. In 2019, Camp Mystic pursued an expansion project that added many new cabins and buildings.
Some of those buildings were within the area that had originally been designated a flood zone.
Christopher Flavelle contributed reporting.
Mike Baker is a national reporter for The Times, based in Seattle.
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