That which sets rural search-and-rescue apart from the urban counterpart

The New York Times reports today from Kerrville, Texas, more than a week after last week's tragic flood.  This story pays attention to how the search and rescue along the Guadalupe River in the "hill country" is different from these processes when they occur in urban areas.  Christopher Maag and Edgar Sandoval write: 

The search for human remains is focused on an area of Texas that is unlike many of the places where recovery professionals are accustomed to looking, several experts said. Most major search operations in recent years have happened in large urban areas hit by hurricanes, said Mr. Koester and Scott Hammond, a professor in the Department of Management at Utah State University who studies search-and-rescue teams.

In the flood plain of Central Texas, by comparison, searchers are dealing with a relatively high number of people who are missing and presumed dead, spread across an expanse of mostly narrow, rural territory, spanning more than a hundred miles of shallow valleys along the river.

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The destructive power arrived with little notice, in a relatively constrained river valley where there are few homes or other buildings to serve as likely search targets. The recovery efforts are therefore focused on the massive piles of debris.

That will continue to make the search especially slow, dangerous, painstaking and long.

Also reflecting this theme, NPR's report this morning observed that the "search area has an enormous footprint." 

Here is a quote in the NYT story from 38-year-old Kerrville resident, Amy Vanlandingham, who has been helping with the search.  Her comment suggests the nature of rural community and lack of anonymity, which fosters a certain solidarity:

It’s overwhelming to see so many people come and help in the search. This is our town. I do it so I can sleep.

Other posts about the Guadalupe River floods are here and here.