Here’s what a graphical representation of a Texas flash flood looks like. Note that the scale is logarithmic:

waterdata.usgs.gov

Note that streamflow went from 10,000 cu ft/sec (Nasty) to 70,000 cu ft/sec and still climbing vertically because it maxed out the gauge (You’re dead) in twenty minutes. At 11:30 at night.

Why didn’t they run to higher ground?

Blaming the victims is a Chair Force paradigm. And it’s just as stupid as incest spawn.

That level of water had never been recorded on the Blanco. Ever. Two hundred year old cypress trees were either snapped, uprooted, or denuded of all their bark on the upstream side.

“Awe inspiring” is not normally a term that one would use in describing a flood event in which the rest of the thirteen fatalities have yet to be recovered (the first body was found fourteen miles downstream {!}), but nothing like that event has ever been seen on that watershed.

We end droughts with flash floods. You just don’t want to be there when it happens.