A year after Camp Mystic, Central Texas may face more record-breaking floods

(CN) — A year after devastating flooding killed 139 people, Texas Hill Country is once again under threat from floods as torrential rain hammers the region.

Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 59 counties Tuesday, and he warned at a press conference Wednesday that the state is facing “a flood that is likely going to break records in Texas history.”

“The Fourth of July floods last year had rainfall of 20.29 inches,” Abbott said. “The expected rainfall during this rainstorm is expected to be more than 30 inches.”

The National Weather Service issued a series of warnings early Thursday morning about “large and deadly flood waves” moving down major rivers in Hill Country. Officials have said there has been at least one fatality from the flooding, with news reports identifying the victim as a 65-year-old Kerrville man who died after flood waters swept away his mobile home early Thursday morning.

Around 7 a.m. Thursday, the Guadalupe River hit 35 feet in Comfort, Texas, after rising more than 25 feet in one hour. Around a year’s worth of rain has already fallen in south-central Texas, and Hill Country could experience another round of heavy rain Thursday night.

It remains unclear what the ultimate scope of the devastation will be and how it will compare to last year’s catastrophic floods.

Over the Fourth of July weekend last year, flooding in Central Texas led to numerous fatalities, including 25 young girls at Camp Mystic, a Christian girls camp in Kerr County, along with two teenage counselors and the camp’s co-executive director.

The event led to scrutiny of local and federal emergency responses, and families of girls who died at Camp Mystic have filed lawsuits against the camp.

Camp Mystic has since announced it is shutting down, claiming the camp failed to protect their daughters from the flooding and that it lacked sufficient emergency protocols despite being located in a flood-prone area.

The disaster prompted Texas lawmakers to overhaul the state’s flood preparedness laws, including instituting new rules for youth camps and requiring local governments to install outdoor warning sirens in flood-prone areas.

The current flooding serves as one of the first major tests of those reforms. Abbott told the press Wednesday that the state is “better prepared than we have ever been to deal with weather events in general, but rainfall events and flooding events in particular.”

“Our primary focus right now and throughout the remainder of this torrential rain is saving lives,” he said.