A small Texas community where everyone survived flooding has sirens that warned them
The Guadalupe river swollen from a water wall downwardSirens entered the small river comfort community and the last trench warning for firefighters who tell people to get out of the street from the street to people from the street.
Comfort Vice President Daniel Morales, Vice President of Fire Department, believes that long, straight tone saved life on the fourth July morning.
Sirens are proof of the determination of a living community living in the past, which warns the inhabitants of the destructive flood waters hours ago killed at least 118 people In the communities, including the same river 27 campers and advisors Neighbor Kerr district. That district There was no warning system like comfortable.
Morales, Kendall County, a community of 2,200 people who are not a company, Kendall County’deki 2,200 people without a company, everyone who has been evacuated over time, said that many people were released.
Comfort residents were directed by history
Morales has been in the department for decades. In 1978, while flooding, he relieved 15 people, including his grandfather. Therefore, when an opportunity to expand the emergency warning system of the community last year, O and other residents collapsed to find financing.
The fire department needed an upgrade. While the firefighters bought a new siren, Morales found a Missouri company that willing to renew the old one at a low cost, so that he moved to a central place in Comfort Park, where he was connected to a US geological survey sensor in Cypress Creek. When the water level reaches a certain point, the sensor triggers the siren, but can be heard manually.
Morales, “We are doing for ourselves and the community,” he said. “If we had not made a drought in the past months and (Cypress) Creek had not fallen, we could have another (19) 78. The last few days, I will tell you, I will bring it back.”
To overcome the cost obstacle for sirens
Morales, the district commission, the department’s own budget and a siren pole donating a grant of money from the local electric service, he said. They also helped to establish the flood sensor indicator on the skin.
Morales said the price tag with all donated materials and the department is in front of $ 50,000 to $ 60,000 or a “maybe a little more” place.
In Kerr County, the price tag of a flood warning system recommended for a larger area of the Guadalupe River 1 million dollarsThis caused a few districts and city officials to Balk when grant and other financing opportunities fell. Ultimately, dozens of young campers did not establish a warning systems near the camps where they died. Last flood.
In Texas, Comal County, about 90 miles east of Kerr County, the Guadalupe River turns into Lake Canyon before taking his journey to the Gulf of San Antonio on the Gulf Coast. The district agreed to finance the expanded flood sirens along the Guadalupe River formed by the Guadalupe district, the New Braunfels City Government and the Water-oriented Recreation Zone- the state-based entity. . Project Completed in 2015, and Comal County is now managing the system, including information from the river indicators and notifications of river height. A message looking for details about the cost of the system for Comal County officials has not been returned on Thursday.
Educating inhabitants was the key to success
After the updated comfort sirens were installed, volunteer firefighters were accustomed to the siren tests that voiced the community daily a day, and showed that if they heard one siren at another hour of the day, they should check the local TV stations, the facebook page of the department and the emergency notifications in other places.
Sirens make a long, flat tone for a certain sound and floods for hurricanes.
In the fourth July, if comfortable people had not seen the air warnings sent to the phones or had not been announced on the radio, they had heard long tones and had to leave their homes if the firefighters had not heard that they had shouted from the street. A Facebook post on the page of the episode, the Guadalupe River, all inhabitants must be evacuated.
However, comfort was miles away from the flash flood that overcome the camps and did not experience the top of the river flood. Many comfort residents were already awake, and when the sirens stolen, they were aware of the rising water. Guadalupe’s Crest was among the highest comfort rising from hip-absolute. Threefold Only more than two hours.
Morales doesn’t know if the sirens will change things in Kerr County. But comfortable residents know what they give An extra warning level. Recently, Morales said that some funding providers have been contacted to talk about adding a third siren in the town.
“Everything we can do to add to security, we will try to sit and try to work,” he said. “The way things are happening, it may be time to improve the system further.” ___
This story was updated to Kerr County to correct the name of a district instead of Kerry district in the 10th paragraph.
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Lauer reported from Philadelphia.
