By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer
The leader of Camp Mystic had been tracking the weather before the deadly Texas floods, but it is now unclear whether he saw an urgent warning from the National Weather Service that had triggered an emergency alert to phones in the area, a spokesman for camp’s operators said Wednesday.
Richard “Dick” Eastland, the owner of Camp Mystic, began taking action after more than 2 inches of rain had fallen in the area along the Guadalupe River, said Jeff Carr, a spokesman for the family and the camp. He said Eastland had a “home weather station” and was monitoring the rain on July 4.
But after initially portraying to the media this week that Eastland got the weather alerts about a flash flood, Carr told The Associated Press that critical moment in the timeline of the tragedy isn’t as clear as the family and staff first thought. No one in the family or camp staff, Carr said, could now say whether Eastland got the alert at 1:14 a.m.
“It was assumed that just because he had a cellphone on and shortly after that alert, he was calling his family on the walkie-talkies saying, ‘Hey, we got two inches in the last hour. We need to get the canoes up. We got things to do,’ ” Carr said.
The new account by the family comes as Camp Mystic staff has come under scrutiny of their actions, what preventive measures were taken and the camp’s emergency plan leading up to a during the catastrophic flood that has killed at least 132 people.
The flash-flood warning that the National Weather Service issued at 1:14 a.m. on July 4 for Kerr County triggered an emergency alerts to broadcast outlets, weather radios and mobile phones. It warned of “a dangerous and life-threatening situation.” The weather service extended the warning at 3:35 a.m. and escalated it to flash-flood emergency at 4:03 a.m.
Eastland died while trying to rescue girls and was found in his Tahoe that was swept away by the floodwaters, Carr said.
Even without a storm, the cellphone coverage at Camp Mystic is spotty at best, so campers and staff turn on their Wi-Fi, Carr said. He called ridiculous criticism that Eastland waited too long before beginning to evacuate the campers, which he said appears to have begun sometime between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m.
“Communication was a huge deficiency,” Carr said. “This community was hamstrung, nobody could communicate. The first responder, the first rescue personnel that showed up was a game warden.”
According to Carr, Eastland and others started evacuating girls from cabins nearest the overflowing river and moved them to the camp’s two-story recreation hall. Of the 10 cabins closest to the river, the recreation hall is the furthest at 865 feet (264 meters) with the closest cabin about 315 feet (96 meters), according to an Associated Press analysis of aerial imagery.
To reach Senior Hill, which was on higher ground , they would have had to cross an overflowing creek, Carr said. At times the young campers were climbing hills in bare feet, he said.
Some of the camp’s buildings — which flooded — were in what the Federal Emergency Management Agency considered a 100-year flood plain. But in response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county’s flood map to remove 15 of the camp’s buildings from the hazard area. Carr said there were “legitimate” reasons for filing appeals and suggested that the maps may not always be accurate.
Just before daybreak on the Fourth of July, destructive, fast-moving waters rose 26 feet (8 meters) on the Guadalupe River, washing away homes and vehicles. Crews in helicopters, boats and drones have been searching for victims.
Officials say 97 people in the Kerrville area may still be missing.
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Associated Press writer Christopher Keller contributed to this report from Albuquerque, New Mexico.