Fema removed dozens of woolen buildings in the camp from the 100 -year -old flood map before expansion, and records appear

The Federal Emergency Management Agency included the summer camp for prestigious girls in a “special area of risk of floods” in the national flood insurance map of Kiir Province in 2011, which means that it was required for flood insurance and facing a more strict organization in any future construction projects.

This appointment means that the area is likely to be immersed during a 100-year-old flood-which is severe enough to have a chance of only 1 % in any specific year.

It is located in a low area along the Guadalopy River in an area known as Flash Vlood, Camp Mystic Losts At least 27 camp and advisers The owner has long been Dick Estland when historical flood water was tore its property before dawn on July 4.

Experts said that the flood was much more severe than the hundred -year -old event It lacks a warning system.

But the participating professor at the University of Serakiws Sarah Bral, who has been widely studied for the design of the flood map in Fema, is “particularly disturbing” that a camp responsible for the safety of many young people will receive exemptions from the basic flood organization.

She said: “It is a mystery for me why they did not take proactive steps to transfer the structures out of the dangers, not to mention challenging what appears to be a very reasonable map showing that these structures were in the 100 -year flooding area.”

Camp Mystic did not respond to emails that seek to get comments and back them without answer. The camp described the flood as “an unimaginable tragedy” and added in a statement on Thursday that it restored the force for the purpose of communicating with its supporters.

Fema is exempt from buildings in old and new sites

In response to the appeal, Fema amended the flood map in the province to remove 15 camp buildings from the danger area. The records indicate that these buildings were part of the 99 -year -old Mystic Guadalupe camp, which was destroyed by a flood last week.

After more calls, Fema removed 15 woolen structures in the camp in 2019 and 2020 from the appointment. These buildings were located in the nearby Camp Mystic Cypress, a brotherly location that opened for the camp in 2020 as part of a large expansion and suffered less damage to the flood.

Campors said that the cabins in the Cypress lake carried great damage, but those who called it “apartments” in the Guadalopy River camp were flooded.

Experts say that Camp Mystic requests to adjust a FMA map may be an attempt to avoid flood insurance requirements, reduce the camp insurance installments or pave the way to renew or add new structures under lower cost regulations.

Bral said that the appeals were not surprising because societies and real estate owners had successfully used them to protect specific characteristics of the organization.

The analysis shows the risk of flooding in both the camp sites

Regardless of the Fema decisions, the danger was clear.

At least 12 structures in the entire Mystic Guadalupe camp in the Fema Plain in FEMA for 100 years, a few of them were partial in that area, according to the AP analysis of the data provided by the First Street, a company for data science specialized in climate risk modeling.

Jeremy Porter, head of the climate archeology on First Street, said the Fema flood insurance map reduces the risk of floods. This is because it failed to observe the effects of heavy rain on smaller waterways such as tables and tables. The First Street model puts all mystic Guadalupe almost dangerously during a 100 -year flood.

The most recent Cypress Lake buildings are further than the southern fork of the exhibition river, but next to Cypress Creek. Easy to flood the Fema The small waterway is not considered a threat.

However, the First Street, which takes into account the heavy rains and the surface flow that reaches the creek, shows that the majority of the Cypress Lake is located in an exhibition area within a 100 -year flood.

In a statement, FEMA reduced the importance of a function of the flood map.

The agency wrote: “Flood maps are time shots to show the minimum standards for the management of the floods and the highest risk areas for flood insurance,” the agency wrote. “They are not a prediction of its flow, and they do not show the place that I overwhelmed before.”

The “hard” appeal process can help the owners of real estate

Real estate owners who challenge the Fema map nams rent engineers to conduct detailed studies to show where they believe that an easy -to -flood for 100 years should be drawn. This is a “very arduous process” that can lead to more accurate maps while facilitating construction in the future.

Bral, who reviewed the AP modifications, pointed out that some of the exempt characteristics were two feet (0.6 meters) from the Fema Plastic in Fema through the revised camp accounts, which she said had left almost any margin of error. She said that her research shows that the FEMA agrees with about 90 % of the map modification requests, and the wealthy process may prefer well.

A study published in 2021 with researcher Divin Lea analyzing more than 20,000 removed buildings from FEMA maps. And I found that the adjustments often occurred in places where the property values were higher, and lived more eggs and that the buildings were newer.

The camp expanded after “tremendous success”

Fema warned in its amendments that other parts of the Camp Mystic have been on the flood map, and that “any future building or great improvement” will be subject to regular management regulations.

District officials not only allowed the camp to continue the work, but to expand greatly.

The owners of the camp and Tweety Eastland considered the “tremendous success” of their original camp in explaining the need for a second location soon.

The expansion included a new cabin and a dining hall, a chapel, a shooting group and more. The camp had 557 of the camp and more than 100 employees between its location when a government license agency conducted a inspection on July 2, two days before the tragedy, the records appear.

Fema has referred questions about the expansion of local officials, who did not respond to the messages seeking to comment.

Stubbing, a municipal engineer for a long time in Texas, said that the rain and floods that struck the province of Kiir within hours were so more intense than anything in its history that it is difficult to name the flood management.

Local officials may think that they are following the current regulations when they allowed the camp to continue to grow, but “the mother nature that has set a new standard.”

He said: “You could build things at a distance of 2 feet (0.6 meters) higher, 3 feet (0.9 meters) higher, and may still have decreased.”