Central Texas is drowning again. The Guadalupe River, that same stretch of water responsible for the tragedy last July, has burst its banks. It is relentless.
One confirmed death. That’s the number so far. Governor Greg Abbott made the announcement Thursday afternoon, grim but brief on social media. He wasn’t sugar-coating it.
“We will be doing everything possible to save.”
Save what remains, anyway. About 80 people have already been pulled from the muck. The dead man was not a camper, a detail Abbott specified, perhaps hoping it softens the blow of the history repeating itself. It doesn’t. The ghost of Camp Mystic still lingers over Kerrville. Last summer, the river claimed 133 lives here. 25 kids. Two counselors. All-girls summer camp turned grave site in hours.
Now? It’s raining again. Days of torrential downpour. The National Weather Service in San Antonio calls it “large and deadly.” They are begging people to evacuate early Thursday. By afternoon, the warning upgraded.
“CATASTROPHIC flooding. Move to higher ground now!”
The river didn’t just rise. It skyrocketed. 32 feet in four hours. The Texas Tribune put that in black and white. It’s hard to believe without seeing it. But you don’t need to imagine it. Look at the videos. Cars drifting through streets like bathtub toys. Brown water lapping at the windows.
Abrupt violence, really. One moment you are driving, the next you are floating. Or floating with a deer.
Did you see that footage? A herd of them. Caught in the current, legs paddling frantically, heads held high like buoys in a storm. They looked more human than some of us did in those reports.
Rescuers are wading through the “brown soup” Abbott didn’t mention but everyone else saw. They are carrying small children. Lifted from rising waters. Held against chests while the current tries to rip them away. It’s brutal work.
Uvalde. Kerr. Kendall. Three counties reeling.
The rain didn’t stop for the news cycle. It keeps falling on parked cars in residential streets, those half-submerged vehicles gathering silt on their roofs. We are back to square one, sort of. The river rises. The water darkens.
The NWS posts constant updates. “Urgent threat.” “Rapidly rising.” You read them while checking your own locks, or your phone battery. Abbott says the surge will last all day. Probably longer.
We wait.
