As of this writing, at least 110 people are dead with 161 missing as a result of the July 4 catastrophic flooding of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas. Next door in New Mexico, three people (including two children) were killed on July 8 after a 20-foot wall of water moved through their town of Ruidoso.
Appearing on Fox News Channel on July 7, Republican policy adviser Karl Rove blamed the large number of deaths on the lack of flood warning alarms on the Guadalupe River. On the same day, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick vowed to use state dollars to have an alarm system installed. The problem is that the Guadalupe’s waters rose 26 feet in 45 minutes between 4 AM and 6 AM on July 4. River sirens—in addition to useless warnings from the National Weather Service—don’t have a prayer of preventing hundreds to thousands of future deaths because the real root of the problem is not being addressed.
How did millions of Americans—despite almost a century of government anti-flood efforts—come to live, work, and even recklessly build Christian girls’ camps in potentially dangerous flood-prone areas?
Hellbound and Down 