Watchman: The Term “flash Flood” Is Instantly Recognizable To Anyone Who Has Spent Any Amount Of Time In The Texas Hill Country. It Describes A Rapid Flooding Of A Creek Or River That Leaves Those In The Flood Plain With No Way To Escape

BY SRH

I often wonder why people in leadership positions seem to lack the skills they need. There is hardly a month that goes by without news of a calamity that could have been avoided if the people in authority had been able to rapidly analyze a strange or dangerous situation—or even an obvious and present danger—and take decisive action to stop it from happening.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a huge lack of competence in the medical field. Most doctors didn’t seem to be very curious, imaginative, or even open-minded when asked, “Is there anything I can do to help keep my patients from going to the hospital and possibly dying from this new illness?” Instead, most doctors turned to Anthony Fauci’s NIAID, which was wrong about everything at best and probably corrupt and nihilistic.

A wildfire completely destroyed the ancient town of Lahaina on the island of Maui in August 2023. Every single leader at the county, state, and federal levels showed incredible incompetence throughout the disaster. I thought it was a national memorial for this ridiculous parade of idiocy when President Joe Biden came to Maui and spoke at the local community center. He said the ground was hot and that he had almost lost his beloved ’67 ‘Vette Stingray in a house fire.

In July 2024, someone almost killed presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shocking lack of even the most basic security procedures showed once again how incompetent they were. A security officer with a lawn chair, a box of donuts, and a gun might have kept the roof safe. The gunman crawled up there with his rifle, which was 150 yards from the stage.

Now we hear from Texas that Dick Eastland, the executive director of Camp Mystic, got a text from the National Weather Service at 1:14 a.m. on July 4 concerning “life-threatening flash flooding.”

According to Jeff Carr, a spokesperson for the Eastland family, he “began evaluating whether to evacuate the young campers who were sleeping in their cabins without access to electronics” at that moment. He had to leave 45 minutes later, when the flood was already there.

This picture seems to me to be incomprehensibly weird and a sign of mind-boggling stupidity.

Anyone who has been to the Texas Hill Country knows what “flash flood” means: a creek or river that floods in a flash, making it impossible for people and animals in the floodplain to get out.

Dick Eastland had been at Camp Mystic since 1974, so he knew that the camp and other homes along the Guadalupe River had been hit by flash floods in the past that had killed people and washed them away.

A flash flood killed ten kids at a church camp in Comfort, Texas, in July 1987. The camp is roughly thirty-nine miles downstream from Mystic.
In July 1987, a flash flood washed a bus into the Guadalupe River.

Dick Eastland was in charge of keeping hundreds of teenage girls safe. They were sleeping in cabins on the bank of the Guadalupe River, in the floodplain. The National Weather Service warned him at 1:14 a.m. that there was a “life-threatening flash flood” coming. By then, he must have known that the girls at Camp Mystic were in immediate and serious danger. The only thing that made sense was to leave right away for higher ground, above the flood plain.

The great leaders of the Bible, men like Joseph, Moses, David, and Daniel, were men who had an impact because they were men of God, men of great skill and ability, and men who God raised up. They were not men who manipulated people or their circumstances in order to further their own power.

Leadership failure can lead to spiritual decline among the people. The priests and prophets in the time of Jeremiah failed to lead the people in righteousness, resulting in widespread idolatry and moral decay. Jeremiah 23:1-2 warns, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture! declares the LORD. Therefore, this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says about the shepherds who tend My people: ‘You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and you have not attended to them.’”

In the New Testament, Jesus criticized the Pharisees and teachers of the law for their hypocrisy and failure to lead the people spiritually. In Matthew 23:13, He declares, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces; you yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter.”