Disclaimer: I acknowledge that my views here speculative and anecdotal, but based on my experience living in flood zone and hurricane ravaged area, and taking part in mutual aid responses to natural disasters in other parts of the county. If you believe I am wrong, I am happy to review your source material and learn from it. If you just want to insult me an fight, don't waste your time, you are probably already on my plonk list.
1) The camp, and everyone within miles of the floodprone areas probably do have a NOAA radio, and cell phones with weather apps, etc. The problem is we don't listen to them, particularly when we are sleeping. Many of these devices have alerts that wake you, but we often turn those down or off. Because the way they are designed, the alerts go off pretty much constantly during thunderstorms. They don't do a good job filtering the difference between "patio furniture might blow over 100 miles away" from "Everyone on Oak Street, crawl into your bath tub right now". I know this because I am the paranoid one in my house that stays up for three days straight listening to all of them, looking at a paper map trying to figure out how close the tornados are because the internet is down.
2) The "Cry Wolf Factor" is huge. These folks are exposed to generations of being told "You are in serious peril with great risk of loss and life". This is WILDLY EXCARCEBATED by local and regional news media, as wells as the Weather Channel who feeds the frenzy with exaggerated alarmist rhetoric and even fake footage to keep people from changing the channel. Nearly all the time, the storm passes without incident, and at the celebratory BBQ the discussion is,"They always say that" "It never happens", "They always turn at the last minute" "The highest the water ever got was that tree down there". Does that ean the forecast was inaccurate? Absolutely not. The forecast SHOULD be worse than the actual outcome 90% of the time, because it is PRECAUTIONARY, and weather predictability has limits. But the stress of reacting to the constant "false alarms" wears on people and conditions complacency.
3) This camp, apparently in the same family ownership for 150 years, has generations of storytelling, they might have felt confident in the property history to have said, "We will be fine, the campsites have never flooded, or even "God is watching over us".
4) Circling back to #2, Local Media, both TV and Radio, is evaporating in favor of national syndication. I doubt that flash flood warnings in a sparsely populated area like Kerrville even attracted the attention of the weather channel. So even if the forecast is there, who is talking directly to the people about it? Hopefully local government officials are apprised, but how are they going to get word out to the people when local TV and radio stations are often not even staffed at night. Now many governments have emergency alert systems via texting apps, so to that, circle back to #1. People shut those of because they get tired of awakening for missing grandma and boiled water alerts.
That brings us back to the campground. Ultimately the people responsible for protecting those children is the adults in charge of the camp. With a location in a known flood area, and known flash flood watch in effect since lunchtime, at the very minimum, they needed an emergency evacuation plan and SOMEONE on wide awake all night listening to the NOAA radio for updates.
#41 I agree completely. I read Kerr County's emergency management plan and it was surprisingly comprehensive. All of the things I mentioned above were in their plan, Community education and outreach, improving delivery of alerts, enforcement of building codes, etc. Whether there was been follow through, and whether it will experience a decline in effectiveness, certainly budget cuts will impact that.
To me, the most troubling factor in all of this is the absolute recklessness of operating a camp which requires children to sleep in non-compliant structures built within a well studied floodway with a high likelihood of dangerous flooding, which would be entirely illegal under current laws, for very good reason. In addition to this they have likely violated numerous laws through their additional construction and "improvements" and the dams that alter the natural course of the creek. The camp should have been closed years ago, but at the very least they should have moved the children to higher ground at the mere HINT of flash flood danger. Their apparent disregard for these dangers is so reckless it borders on criminal negligent homicide.