Yik Yak icon
Join communities on Yik Yak Download
My take on the Camp Mystic flooding incident as a Texas resident:
70 upvotes, 66 comments. Yik Yak image post by Anonymous in US Politics. "My take on the Camp Mystic flooding incident as a Texas resident:"
upvote 70 downvote

default user profile icon
Anonymous 10w

Also, I strongly disagree with the people claiming "Texas residents deserve this because they're in the south." Or "these girls were daughters of wealthy white families, they deserved it." I mourned for the lives lost in Katrina just as much as I am mourning for the lives lost at Camp Mystic this week. No one deserves to be a victim of a natural disaster regardless of what state they're from, period. (Except for maybe the corrupt men in power right now causing this mess)

upvote 50 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous 10w

people arent putting enough blame on the state government, they have been warned time and again that extreme weather events are happening and will happen more frequently and that our infrastructure is not equipped to deal with it and they choose to do nothing

upvote 38 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous 10w

Reasonable and objective take. I agree

upvote 22 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous 10w

The objective take is that the national weather service sent out multiple warnings, and even the severest warnings in a timely fashion. Anyone can look this up. Do I disagree with the budget cuts, yes. Did it lead to a degradation of warning for this disaster, no

upvote 5 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #2 10w

^^YUP. Exactly!!!

upvote 19 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> OP 10w

No fucking way people are bringing wealth and race into this 💀 these kids didn’t choose to be born into those families wtf?

upvote 16 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #3 10w

^^^^ say it louder for literally every news network in the world rn

upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

They seem to leave out the teensy tiny detail that flash flooding is incredibly difficult to predict, it occurred at 5 AM, during one of the busiest camping days of the year… but other than that

upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #2 10w

If anything, this specific area got a *very* clear warning

post
upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #3 10w

Honestly the biggest issue is how much people underestimate flooding, so they don’t heed the warnings or prepare for it. Despite being the deadliest type of natural disaster, it’s not really that flashy compared to others. You never see flooding in movies or tv shows, only tsunamis which is different. Nobody really pays any mind to flooding, but it’s by far the most dangerous disaster since you can’t get out of the path of it, know for certain that it’s going to happen, and there’s no shelter

upvote 0 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

Even with tornado warnings, a lot of people are like “eh, it’s probably just a false alarm again” instead of taking shelter every time. I think the same thing goes for flash flooding. Anyone who lives in the same county as even one river or creek gets a lot of flash flood warnings, so they don’t really think that the next one they get will be any different no matter how well the NWS issues them in advance

upvote 0 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

The only times people even give any attention to flooding are when something like what just happened in Texas occurs. In a week from now, people won’t be focusing on the flooding aspect at all. They’ll only use it for political pull and go back to being ignorant about weather, and the cycle will inevitably repeat itself if a hurricane hits the US again in a few months

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

That’s usually the case for *watches* and seems to be the case in this area especially. At least for my area, tornado *warnings* means someone saw one. The issue here was likely a combination of “boy who cried wolf” (with the watches), no siren, a very rare event, the warning being issued in the middle of the night, and (possibly) no cell service

upvote 2 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

The biggest issue isn’t political issues, lack of funding, lack of warnings, or anything like that. It’s willful ignorance by the public without them even realizing because as long as they haven’t been directly affected by a disaster, they’ll never treat warnings seriously

upvote 0 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> OP 10w

Heavy on this part because why the fuck are people just openly wishing death on an entire region now??

upvote 18 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #4 10w

That’s not true at all about watches or warnings. There’s very specific requirements for the issuance of watches vs the issuance of warnings, and this doesn’t differ by area. A tornado warning can be issued if there’s high enough confidence based on radar data without anyone having to see one. Nobody really pays attention to it, but most warning notifications on your phone actually tell you this information. It’ll say “radar indicated”, “radar confirmed”, etc.

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

The majority of warnings are issued without someone seeing anything as a precautionary measure, which is why the “boy who cried wolf” effect has gotten so bad. However, it’s not really possible to change that since if you wait until you see something to issue a warning, often times a warning will never be issued at all when it matters most (ie. Rain wrapped tornadoes, nighttime tornadoes, etc)

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #6 10w

They have been ever since Trump won. Nothing new

upvote 8 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #6 10w

Same shit happened with Helene before he even got elected just because of the way those regions tend to vote

upvote 8 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

It didn’t get as much publicity, but when a tornado hit London, Kentucky and nearby areas at night and caused a lot of casualties and damage, people were saying the same things. “Lmao good luck getting that fema money. You voted for this so now you deserve to suffer” “serves them right” etc etc

upvote 9 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

That’s shitty and I was always wondering why those tornados (did they have floods too?) didn’t get much coverage

upvote 8 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

It’s not isolated to that instance either. Literally EVERY time a disaster has hit anywhere south of the Great Lakes, people have made the same comments (unless it happened in California because they don’t vote red). I’m kinda a weather nerd, so I keep up with events and it’s gotten really annoying because every time in the past 5 years when I’ve looked at the comments for more information on the event from local sources, it’s been flooded with death wishes and celebrating the disaster instead

upvote 8 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

And don’t I know it girl, I had family trapped in that shit. It’s also massively misinformed bc these bitches have never heard of voter suppression or gerrymandering apparently. Half of Texas voted for Harris. NC has had all Democratic governors except one since like the 80s. GA would have been a swing state ages ago if they let people vote. Sick of people going by stereotypes about places they’ve never been instead of looking at the facts on the ground.

upvote 8 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

The biggest issue was political and lack of funding, there’s no question. The state government chose to cut taxes instead and the local government didn’t want to pay $50k for a study because they didn’t think taxpayers would like it

post
upvote 7 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #6 10w

People are just too chronically online. They refuse to go talk to anyone outside and find out that the majority of the country actually agrees on almost every issue, or at least agree enough to be able to make compromises. The 1% from each side (maybe even less than 1%) get all the publicity and make it seem like everyone is divided. If people would literally go outside and talk to one random person every day, they’d see that’s not the case. People just need to get off their phones lmao

upvote 7 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

And ik this sounds like a boomer take but I’m literally 20

upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

No you’re right lmao people are getting out of hand. We might need to implement a tweet tax 💀

upvote 3 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #4 10w

I agree the cuts were bad, but they didn’t affect this specific disaster at all. The offices were *overstaffed* leading up to the event because they had been tracking the remnants of a tropical storm that traveled north and east after it dissipated over Mexico, and they developed enough confidence in catastrophic rainfall that they were able to issue the warnings with as much lead time as they reasonably could. Lack of funding didn’t affect this event. It’s important to focus on things that did

upvote 0 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

And realistically the absolute worst factor in the whole thing is that it happened in the dead of night. Nobody is getting out of bed for a “flash flood warning!” notif on their phone even if they had warnings on or woke up to see it

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #4 10w

Social media screen time limit and straight up delete twitter, blue sky, 4chan political threads, truth social, etc. because people need a mental reset 💀

upvote 5 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

8 hour average daily screen time and these people really think they can talk about how much they know about the world lmao

upvote 3 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

And I’m willing to bet not a single second of that screen time was spent looking into the actual weather or meteorological aspects of any natural disaster they choose to comment on because it’s convenient for their ideologies

upvote 2 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

When I say “lack of funding”, I’m talking specifically at the state and local level in this case. They were well aware that this area was a problem. They thought it was too costly

post
upvote 9 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

I mean the internet doesn’t help but real talk this isn’t new. As a very leftie southerner who’s lived outside they South most of my adult life I’ve been hearing this kind of misinformed and hostile shit for ages, it’s just more ghoulish and open now because people have an excuse. My theory is that the South is basically an excuse for the rest of the nation not to acknowledge our collective blame.

upvote 7 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #4 10w
post
upvote 9 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #4 10w

If you’d like an example where lack of funding genuinely affected a disaster, look into the London, KY tornado from earlier this year. That office was staffed with at most 2 people (more likely one) at the time, so the process for issuing high end warnings wasn’t able to occur quickly even though a regular warning was issued in advance. However, it likely still wouldn’t have made much of a difference because there’s not enough public awareness about differences in warning levels

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #4 10w

Totally fair take, this post: using what happened to try and make the claim that the funding cuts to NOAA/FEMA lead to what happened is just not true

upvote 5 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #6 10w

Like if we pretend it’s just those “dumb hicks” who did this we don’t have to talk about how half of “true blue” NY voted for Trump and Cali gives huge tax breaks to big oil and every state in this nation has a massive inhumane radicalized carceral system etc.

upvote 6 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

Which is another thing that I think should be a bipartisan effort. The public is severely uninformed about warning levels and weather events as a whole, and now we’re letting conspiracies and hearsay take the headlines instead of anything that’s actually informative. A government push to issue more weather related PSAs should be something both parties can agree on

upvote 6 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #6 10w

That’s very true. I’m also from the south, and it’s really weird how some people who aren’t act like we’re still the same region as the one that started and lost the civil war. Like no, it’s not all just flagrant racists who hate immigrants and that’s the only thing they care about voting for. The south is just as much of a melting pot as the rest of the country, if not more so in some ways because of how different the culture is down here

upvote 5 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

Not to say that those people don’t exist, like you said everywhere has issues and bad people. I just wish people would stop refusing to extend that mindset to the south and pretending like the south is the root of all problems in the US and the world

upvote 5 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

Fr because central PA might as well be the south 💀 but Appalachia gets stereotyped as well tbf

upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

Literally!! I also object to the fact that it’s framed in a way that implies that our immigrants, our women, our POC, our queer people, etc are somehow NOT southern. It’s problematic in and of itself and it really bothers me

upvote 7 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #4 10w

Even the Appalachia thing is about the South tho lowkey. Appalachia is super southern-coded in the national imagination. A lot of people don’t even know it goes to Canada.

upvote 6 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #6 10w

Yeah it’s kinda weird how the same people that champion diversity act like the population south is only white men when in some areas, it’s literally 30%+ POC (granted, largely due to slavery, but you get my point)

upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

They say that the south is full of cultural repression when in reality one side of the hill from another could go from one culture to another 💀 plus every race, region, gender, etc has specific southern exclusive traditions and they just pretend like that doesn’t exist

upvote 7 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

Yes exactly! And like it’ll be coming from a bitch who grew up in a sundown town on Long Island or smth 😭

upvote 6 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #4 10w

Ohhh I get what you mean now. Thanks for clarifying. I was referring to the NWS stuff that’s been getting headlines. I wish those headlines would focus on what you’re bringing up instead since it’s much more relevant

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #6 10w

😭 lmao

upvote 6 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

NYT covered it but I don’t think the usual political commentators are focusing on it very much

upvote 3 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #6 10w

I kinda (not really since this is exactly what they try to pin on us) hate to say the thing about how it’s easy to spot California and northern “transplants” in the south, but the reason it’s easy is because they’re so rude and MORE discriminatory than anyone else around 💀

upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

Like I stg people who call the south racist act the most racist out of anybody when they come to the south without even realizing it 😭

upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

Like fr it feels like the south is actually more integrated together than anywhere else and people aren’t adapted to it when they come or just don’t know how to live without viewing everyone as “other” instead of just another dude you can invite to the bbq

upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

No ur right I think a lot of them assume that it’s ok for them to be like that there bc if they stereotypes they’ve absorbed. My equivalent was back when my accent was thicker and I’d just moved up north people assumed I was a safe space to say the most vile shit imaginable about nonwhite ppl 💀

upvote 3 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #4 10w

Yeah plus 90% of people don’t read past headlines (and out of the 10 that do, only 1 of those 10 moves on past the intro hook. yes our attention spans are ruined, yes our brains are rotted and media literacy is in hell rn skull), so unless it mentions the specificity of the funding being cut, most people will unfortunately assume it’s the NWS without reading further

upvote 3 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

and unfortunately those stats aren’t pulled out of my ass, they come from multiple studies 💀

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

and then add that 50%+ of traffic online and political posts are bots, and now think about how small the chances of any post or comment you see being posted by a real, at least somewhat informed human are

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

and that’s why I don’t use Twitter

upvote 1 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

All I’m saying is i was asked many times if I was “ok” or safe with my Muslim boyfriend many times up to and including him getting pulled over by cops who basically asked if I’d been kidnapped when he was driving me home and none of that happened in the South. I’m not saying we don’t have problems but people really need to check their glass houses

upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #6 10w

And then there’s the other ones who are like “omg you’re one of the good ones, I bet your family sucks though I’m sorry you had to grow up there”

upvote 7 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

😭😭😭😭

upvote 5 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #6 10w

I think their issue is that they see races and cultural differences as solid lines instead of dashed ones. The reason I say dashed is because I think it’s still important for everyone to have their own identity, but the dashed lines allow people to cross between and experience new ones. A lot of those same people like to pretend like one race isn’t allowed to experience the culture of another when that’s just not true

upvote 5 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

One of the most fun parts about living in the south is that even though everyone is aware of cultural differences, we all enjoy thriving in those differences by experiencing and helping others experience new things and really just focus on having a good time lol

upvote 4 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

Idk why the idea of someone experiencing someone else’s culture has been demonized. Like isn’t that the whole point of having diversity? People will be like “actually you can’t go to that event, it’s meant for x race only” or “omg you’re acting too white rn” like god forbid someone have fun in life and do what they want without caring about race

upvote 5 downvote
default user profile icon
Anonymous replying to -> #5 10w

Ngl I’ve lost the ability to explain well so now I’m just yapping while trying not to fall asleep. Gn y’all hopefully it made sense

upvote 5 downvote
🍉
Anonymous replying to -> OP 10w

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: climate change doesn’t care who you voted for. The problem is Trump, not the little girls who wanted to have fun with their friends at a summer camp or the parents who may have had Camp Mystic as a tradition in their families.

upvote 2 downvote