Nine months ago, Hurricane Helen began with the Gulf of Mexico and crashed into the lasting mountains of the Western North Carolina, dropping the rain on the already rich landscape. More than 100 people were killed by the majority of flooding or crushing with water landslides.
“We did not imagine what it would do,” said Jeff Howel, who is in a pensioner in the Yans county, North Carolina, a rural space that suffered from most per capita deaths.
A week ago, the remnants of the tropical storm bored from the coast of Mexico, pulling moisture from the bay, and then collided with another system and littered with rivers and streams in the hillous southern Central Texas. More than 100 people are confirmed by the dead, many of them children, with no more.
“We didn’t have reason to believe it would be something like that Judge Rob Kelly CountyThe chief elected official in the Keur district, Texas, where most of the deaths took place.
The similarity between the North Carolina and Texas goes beyond the words of these two officials. In both disasters, there was a gap between the exact weather warnings and the land that could save their lives.
Officials were warned in each of these places. The National Weather Service has sent urgent alerts about potentially life -threatening life Hours before the Flood outbreakLeaving time to report and try to evacuate people to detriment.
In Texas, some local officials did this. But others did not.
Exactly the same Revealed the PROPUBLICA investigation When Helen struck on September 27, some local officials in the North Carolina made evacuation orders. At least five counties on the Helen’s way, including Yans, not. Howel said the scale of the thunderstorm was much worse than anyone alive, and that he reported the residents as best he could.
The National Weather Service described the Helen’s approach all day. He sent out more and more terrible notifications of the prevention of dangerous flash and landslides. His staff talked directly to local emergency managers and carried out updates the webinaries. Post on Facebook Regional office posted At about 1 pm the day before Helen struck, she warned of “significant to the catastrophic, life -threatening flood” in the mountains. “This will be one of the most significant events in the western part of the area in the modern era.”
Similarly in Texas, the weather warned about the potential for the flash the day before. In addition, on this day, the regional director of the State Emergency Agency “personally contacted” with district judges, mayors and others “in this area and told them all potential floods,” said Governor Dan Patrick later At the press conference.
Accuweather, commercial weather forecasting, issued the first warnings of Flash Flaod for this area at 12:44 4 July, about three hours before the catastrophic flood. Half an hour later, at 1:14 amThe National Weather Service has sent a similar warning in two specific areas, including the Central Kerr, where the banks and hills of the Guadalupe river are strewn with rest houses, summer camps and campsites – many filled vacationers on July 4, tremble in the cabins and RVS.
“Flash floods are ongoing or expected quickly,” said the weather warning. Effects can include “flooding of streams and streams”.
Descriptor of rigor in this readiness sent it to the weather radio and a system of wireless emergency announcements that explodes the weather on mobile phones to get rid of the alarm.
Chief meteorologist Accuweather Jonathan Porter was embarrassed to hear the news that all children attending the youth camps in Kerr’s county were not made on higher soil despite these warnings.
At least 27 vacationers and advisers were killed in Camp Mystic, a favorite centic Christian summer camp for girls. Six have not yet been found. Its director also died trying to save the children. (People in the camp said that, according to the authorities, they did not receive help The New York Times.)
“I was very concerned that the vacationers woke up not the one who came to tell them to evacuate on the basis of timely warnings, but rather rapidly lifting the water that rose to the second level of their bunk,” Porter said.
In an area known as Flash Flaod Alley, Porter called this “the worst tragedy” because it appeared camps and local officials could be mobilized earlier in response to the announcements.
“There was a lot of time to evacuate people to the highest land,” Porter said. “The question is why this did not happen?”
But Dalton Rice, the head of the city of Kervil, the next day, said at a press conference that “wasn’t much time“To report the risk to the camps because the floods rose so quickly.
Rice said that at 3:30 am – more than two o’clock after the flood warnings began – he ran by the Guadalupe River to check it but didn’t see anything.
But in 13 miles up from the park where he ran, the river began – at 3:10 am. – climb 25 feet in just two hours.
At 4:03 amThe weather service has raised a warning to an “emergency” – its most serious flood announcement – with a “catastrophic” mark. He highlighted the Guadalupe River in Hunt in Ker: “This is a particularly dangerous situation. Look for a higher soil!”
Local sheriff said he did not find out about the flood until 4am He refused to say Will a local emergency manager be responsible for the public warning to approach thunderstorms when the flood warnings came out from 1am Texas Tribune reports The mayor of Kerville said he did not know about the flood until about 5:30 in the morning when the city leader called and awakened it.
Local officials refused to provide more informationSaying that they are focused on searching for more than 100 people who are still missing and reported loved ones about death.
Credit:
First Image: Sean Rayford/Getti Image. Second Image: Jim Wondrusk/Getti Image
One of the problems, as an approach to disaster, is that weather notifications often do not reach people who harm.
In rural areas in Texas and North Carolina, mobile phone service can be spotted on the best days, and some people turn off the warning notifications. In the remote mountains of North Carolina, many people live at least a few from the net. The cell service is universally not great, and many are not glued to phones and social media. In Texas, the residents of Ker’s county posted in Facebook that they did not receive the weather notifications, and others said their phones had crashed all night.
Many counties also use applications to send their own alerts, often taking into account their specific rivers and roads. But residents must accept them to accept them. Ker -graphics uses the coder, but it is unclear that the announcements were held over the night.
Pete Jensen has held a long career in the field of emergency management, including responding to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. He worked officially at the Federal Emergency Agency during the hurricane Katrina and often reflected on why no more people get – and listened to the weather.
“There is a lot of denial,” Jensen said. “The disaster happens to someone else. They don’t happen to me.” This may include local officials who “do not always understand what their responsibilities are. They often respond like most people in refusal.”
There is one big difference between disaster in Texas and North Carolina. In Texas, residents, journalists and others demanded responsibility from local officials. Governor Greg Ebot has summoned the legislative body to a special session, starting on July 21 to discuss flood warning systems, emergency floods and preparation for natural disasters.
But this did not happen in North Carolina. The state legislative body will not yet discuss possible changes, such as expanding its knowledge plan of evacuation of the zone outside the coast or enhance funding for local emergency leaders. (Instead, legislators went home in late June without passing Full budget.) Many emergency leaders, including in the Yans county, work in rural areas with small tax base and skeletal headquarters.
“There was still no resonage here, how do we do everything else?” said state senator Julie Meiffild, Democrat from Ashville. “It still feels that we are very in recovery mode.”
North Carolina Emergency Agency ordered a review Its disaster treatment. The report stipulated that the state agency was not enough, but did not consider issues such as the evacuation or actions of local emergency managers before the Helen struck.
Eric Andresen also lives in Esheville, the mountainous city in the heart of the destruction of Helen, where she helps businesses prepare for disaster. The lawyer and the former lawyer of the army, she also teaches extraordinary situations. After Helen she was among the few voices in North Carolina criticizing lack of evacuations And other inaction before the thunderstorm.
“I immediately knew both from my instinct and my experience that a lot went wrong,” Andresen said. When she received a deviation from the criticism of the local authorities during the crisis, she opposed: “We need accountability.”
