The first event of record occurred soon after I arrived Saturday, July 11th in Kerrville, Texas. Shortly after 3PM, local police escorted a funeral procession. Traffic had merged to stop on the way to the I-10 freeway onramps from downtown Kerrville following a white hearse with the word GRIMES in the window. It seemed like all life was in a simple state of arrested development, a held breath, waiting for the observed deceased to move through.
Only days prior the lives of campers, residents and area survivors changed overnight as a massive Texas flood gored its way into homes lining the Guadalupe river banks. A short time after July 4th, the world turned to notice the increasing number of dead and missing-as-presumed-dead over the next several days. The clock turned in slow motion for Texans. Central Texans were still underneath days of rainfall to follow July 3rd. Most turned to prayer to find anyone living still out there.
Kerr County, Texas, Hunt and Burnet all emitted casualty reports as Central Texas became a disaster magnet by July 5th, 2025. Texas State leaders descended, alongside local & State emergency managers and national media. Simultaneously, TEXSAR, Texas search and rescue emerged with well practiced Coast Guard, FEMA and DHS attenuating the crisis.
You could feel active emotions of locals tense with a certain frustrated anger for trying to contain damages driven up from instant events that had long pushed through July 3rd, overnight. Theories of aberrant cloud seeding and faulted emergency notification systems warning became portal for blame and explanation for unavoidable peril in an uncontrollable Texas flood alley event. Hearts and hands were pulsing hoping to find survivors amid dreary wet debris collection.
In days to follow, the public were carefully reminded over 850 people and animals were successfully rescued from the treachery of this rainstorm flood. The spectre left haunting the minds of the public and locals were the lost girls and boys from nearby campsites.
The rain subsided. The banks of the Guadalupe and their creek tributaries returned to their original tracks. As the waters receded, more cadavers were found. The a local landscape was now misshapen with heaps of drying mud, broken trees, flotsam of moved cars, boats and homes. Somewhere, the missing and lost persons outstanding were being searched among heaping hills of flood detritus. This effort started to absorb help from all across the nation and from Mexico, as cadaver dogs were sent to identify anywhere missing deceased could be found.
By the weekend of July 10th the rising outcry was from those who mourned. The losses were howling. Homes were washed away. Shocked surviving families were underneath sudden funeral developments.
Around this time, locals began formalizing memorials and holding worship services. After national reporters had cleared out, following President Trump and the First Lady’s visit, the whole Central Texas area became an observance memorial for the missing and the dead as unfinished business over course of a week.
There is still much to be done. Volunteers continue moved debris in to piles, extracting homes from trees and hilltops in Ingram, near to the campsites around Highway 39 managed to escape national press corps. Scuba search and rescue from as far as Ohio showed up to find anyone who could be found down from Burnet, Hunt, Ingram, Centerpoint and onward towards the Gulf.
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