It was after 3 a.m. Thursday when Joe Swann got word from someone at a bar perched on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Ingram, Texas, that rising floodwaters had triggered a new flood warning device. The alarm was flashing a bright light and blaring orders.
“Move away from the tower,” the device warned, alerting a nearby campground. By the time Mr. Swann arrived to see it for himself, campers were already leaving for higher ground.
Mr. Swann and his company, River Sentry, had installed 100 of the eight-foot-tall devices along the Guadalupe in the year since a deluge surged down the river and shocked the Hill Country region last July 4, killing dozens of people, many of them children at summer camp. Government money and philanthropic investment have also funded other flood siren systems that kicked in when Hill Country flooded again this week, devastating many of the same areas as last summer’s tragedy.
This time, the systems worked, though they could not prevent at least two deaths. In Kerrville, where floods wrecked areas still in the process of recovering from last summer’s deluge, Mayor Joe Herring Jr. said all residents were accounted for as of Thursday night.
“We had better warning,” he said in a phone interview.
“I’m thankful to the state of Texas and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority for working to install an automated, data-driven warning system,” he added. “And that helped save lives today.”
But the latest disaster also underscored a need to continue investing in improved forecasting and warning systems, said Phil Bedient, a professor at Rice University working on such a project.
“It’s wonderful to have that warning going off,” Dr. Bedient said of the new siren systems. “You’ve got to have more than that to have a bona fide early flood warning system.”
Texas made significant investments in flood warning systems after the tragedy last July. The state legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, approved $50 million for warning systems, rain and river gauges and other flood infrastructure.
Much of that was in place before this week’s storms, including sirens that blared across Kerr County, home to the worst of the flooding last summer.
Other work is still ongoing.
The Upper Guadalupe River Authority, a group responsible for guarding the health of the river, installed new sirens in May. It plans to install more river and rain gauges and develop software to help predict flooding, according to its website. An authority official could not be reached for comment.
Dr. Bedient and colleagues at the University of Texas, Arlington, are using $4 million from the state to develop a system to monitor rainfall on radar and use computer models to compare that data with a range of flooding scenarios. The goal is to increase the lead time for warning systems like flood sirens, he said.
“They will then know to turn sirens on even before the flood gets there,” Dr. Bedient said.
Researchers at Texas Tech University are using another $24 million in state funds to increase radar coverage and capability for meteorological analysis across Hill Country and other parts of rural Texas where flood risks are high but forecasting can be spotty.
River Sentry installed devices, including the ones that alerted campers in Ingram, using private fund-raising led by the owners of Camp Mystic, where 28 children and counselors died in last July’s floods. Each device cost $8,000, said Ian Cunningham, the company’s CEO.
The company, based in the Austin area, plans to add more capabilities, including connecting the network of devices wirelessly and adding small, portable sensors that people can keep with them to receive flood alerts and call for help when needed, Mr. Cunningham said.
Mr. Cunningham also works as an American Airlines pilot, but because he has two daughters who attend summer camp, he used his background in the U.S. Navy to lead River Sentry’s quick work to build the flood warning system.
“We can’t have what occurred last summer occur here again,” Mr. Cunningham said.
Pooja Salhotra contributed reporting.
The post The Latest Texas Floods Tested Warning Systems. This Time, They Passed. appeared first on New York Times.
