The village looked with horror while the torrential rain soaked the Texas at the beginning of this month, sweeping At least 135 people at their death. Kerr’s county has lost 107, including over two dozen children in Camp Mystic.
From afar, it would be easy, even tempting, to think that floods like these can never happen to you. That the disaster is remote.
It is not.
Since the details of the tragedy were focused, the list of factors that contributes has grown. Sudden entrustments, driven by climate change. The lack of a complete warning system to notify people that the Guadalupe river was increasing quickly. The rampant building in areas known for floods, combined with incomplete information on which places could be at risk.
These are the same elements that could trigger a type of catastrophe of Kerr county in every state of the country. It is a reality that has played numerous times already in recent years, with floods Vermont, Kentucky, North Carolina And elsewhere, leaving the pain and billions of dollars in destruction in his wake.
“Kerr county is an extreme example of what is happening everywhere,” said Robert Freudenberg, vice -president of energy and environmental programs at the Regional Plan Association. “People are at risk for this, and there is more than we have to do.”
The most obvious problem is that we continue to build in areas subject to floods. The federal emergency management agency, or Fema, produces promptly available maps that show high -risk rooms. However, according to the latest data of the non -profit climatic research company First Street Foundation7.9 million houses and other structures are found in an area of risk of the Fema special flood, which designates a position with 1 % or greater than being flooded in a given year.
Fema Flood Zone Top 10
Source: First Street Foundation
In Louisiana, a 23 percent of the leader’s leading properties is located in a flood area of the Fema. In Florida, it is about 17 percent. Arkansas, New Mexico and Nebraska are perhaps less members of the top 10, as they are New Jersey, who, with New York City, saw the torrential rain And floods that killed two people at the beginning of this month.
Texas is in seventh place in the country, with about 800,000 properties, or about 6.5 percent of the total state, sitting in a flood area. Kerr county officials have a limited authority To prevent people from building in these areas, but also when governments have the ability to prevent risky construction projects, historically they did not do it. Even if a study found That some areas are finally starting to curb the development of the alluvial plainPeople continue to build in dangerous places.
“There is an innate draw in the water we have, but we must know where the limits are,” said Freudenberg. “In places that are really dangerous, we have to work to remove people.”
Kerr’s county is located in a region known as a flash of flood and At least four cabins At Camp Mystic sat in an extremely dangerous “row”. Numerous others were on the path of a 100 -year flood. When the Christian summer camp for girls suffered an expansion in 2019, the The owners have built even more cabins on the water path.
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