The catastrophic flooding in central Texas was described as the perfect storm by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hydrologist Greg Waller of the West Gulf River Forecast Center in Fort Worth, Texas.
Remnants of Tropical Storm Barry came up from Mexico with a low-pressure system that hovered over a geologic formation called a Balcones escarpment, which causes air masses to rapidly rise hundreds of feet and trigger intense storms.
“The terrain up there, there is not a lot of soil,” Rob Fogarty, National Weather Service Meteorologist at the Austin/San Antonio office, told The Epoch Times.
That developing storm hovered over those areas of rocky soil, dropping 10 inches of rain on the basin in three to four hours. Some areas even received up to 15 or 16 inches of rain, most of which became runoff.
Slow-Moving Storm
The rain began to fall around midnight on July 4 from the unexpectedly slow-moving storm.
“It was a bit more than we thought,” Fogarty said, regarding the amount of rainfall. “The forecast models didn’t account for the slower movement of the storm.”
The first flash flood warning was issued to Bandera County at 11:40 p.m. (CT) on July 3. But the first warning to Kerr County to trigger cell phones went out at 1:14 a.m. on July 4.
Fogarty said that the storm was dumping rain into both the north and south forks of the eastward-flowing Guadalupe River, which converge around the town of Hunt.
The area, part of Texas Hill Country, attracts a large vacationing population, particularly for the July 4 holiday.
Flood Height
The flood stage—the height the river must reach for the water to start becoming hazardous to life and property—for Hunt is 10 feet.
At 3:50 a.m., the service updated its warning, announcing that the river height near Hunt reached 19.4 feet and was expected to reach beyond 23 feet.
“At 25 feet, major flooding severely floods resort camps along the South Fork below the River Inn Resort to Hunt,” it warned.
At 4:46 a.m., a warning was issued for Kerrville, stating that waters there had reached seven feet and were forecast to reach 25 feet that morning. The flood stage for Kerrville is nine feet.
At 6:05 a.m., the town of Comfort was warned that the river was forecast to rise to 30.6 feet. Its flood stage is 21 feet.
The West Gulf River Forecast Center utilizes the United States Geological Survey’s flood gauges along the Guadalupe River.
The gauge around Kerrville recorded a rise of 22 feet in under two hours.
The gauge near Hunt recorded a floodwater height of 29.45 feet at 4:45 a.m. on July 4 before it went offline.
Waller compared this flood to the 2015 floods of the Blanco River near Wimberley, Texas, and the Guadalupe River flood of 1987, which saw the river at Kerrville reach 37.7 feet.
Deadly Tragedy
But to Waller, the real tragedy this time came from the loss of human life in what he called the combination of Mother Nature with “a socially vulnerable population.”
“A lot of the tragedy is also the timing of an overnight event right on a holiday weekend with a population that wasn’t familiar,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Lone Star State does not appear to be out of the woods just yet.
“They’re still in the flood watch, and we need to be diligent because now it’s also the lives of the first responders along with recovery,” Waller said.
Fogarty agreed. Having worked as a meteorologist for 19 years, he said he’d seen a couple of floods as bad as this one, but this was worse due to the extensive loss of life.
—T.J. Muscaro; Stacy Robinson
BOOKMARKS
President Donald Trump announced that new tariffs will kick in on Aug. 1 for several countries that have not yet made trade deals with the United States. The levies, ranging from 25 to 40 percent, will affect Japan, South Korea, South Africa, Laos, Burma, Kazakhstan, and Malaysia.
Trump is threatening an extra 10 percent tariff for BRICS nations—a bloc of countries attempting to assert trade dominance by the Global South—including Brazil, India, China, Russia, and South Africa. The president believes the coalition “is seeking to undermine the interests of the United States,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing on Monday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hopes to overcome a no-confidence vote in Parliament this week, after allegations of election interference and misuse of funds. European Parliament member Gheorghe Piperea of Romania is spearheading the effort to remove Von der Leyen, who he says has led Europe with an “iron fist in a velvet glove” since 2019.
Average home sale prices in the United States spiked to record highs last month—just over $400,000— according to real estate brokerage firm Redfin. On the bright side for home buyers, average mortgage payments dipped to a four-month low of $2,742.
Trump signed his “One Big Beautiful Bill” into law last Friday, but what does it all mean for your pocketbook? The Epoch Times’ Tom Ozimek breaks it down for you in his latest report.
—Stacy Robinson
