One year after deadly Texas floods, Hill Country proves grief can't wash away grit

A year ago this summer, on July 4, floodwaters rose in the dark in the Texas Hill Country and did not stop. By morning, 139 people across the Hill Country were gone: 119 of them in Kerr County. Many were neighbors and friends; others had come to experience its beauty.

Like so many families across our community, my life was changed forever by the flood, and the anniversary we mark this month is deeply personal.

A year later, there are empty seats at dinner tables. There are families marking anniversaries they never wanted to face. There are roads, camps, homes and riverbanks that carry memories none of us can forget.

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For so many of us, it has been a season of grief as well as a season of recovery. We have spent the year since learning that a disaster happens in an instant, and recovery is much longer; it takes everything you have, for as long as you have it to give.

In the first days, Texas did what Texas does. Neighbors pulled neighbors out of the water. Ordinary people became heroes. Continuing the legacy of disaster relief, organizations like Fox Corporation helped amplify the needs of the Texas Hill Country across its entire portfolio by engaging viewers across the country. In just one week, those viewers contributed more than $7 million to the Community Foundation. Those gifts, alongside the generosity of thousands of other donors, have helped families return home, supported businesses, expanded access to mental health services and strengthened communities across Kerr County. That generosity became the foundation for the yearlong rebuilding and recovery effort that followed.

Recovery is a family carrying boxes back into a house that smelled like river mud six months ago. It is a woman unlocking the shop her father opened and standing there for a moment before the first customer walks in. It is a child who can finally sleep through a thunderstorm because a trained clinician worked with him, week after week.

Across the Hill Country, families, volunteers, nonprofits, churches, businesses, government agencies, mental health counselors and ordinary residents have spent the last year doing the slow work of recovery.

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Today, most flood-affected families are back in permanent housing, and more return home every month. Businesses have reopened and are optimistic. Some community gathering places have been restored and more will be completed in the months ahead. Little League games are being played again. New trees are being planted where the river stripped away decades of growth.

Recovery is also showing up in places beyond what is being rebuilt. Local sales tax collections have risen in each of the past nine months — a reminder that when families are able to stay, rebuild and return home, local businesses and the broader economy benefit as well.

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The flood wrecked what you could see. It also did damage you cannot see. Thousands of Hill Country residents, as well as people across Texas, have accessed counseling, grief support, trauma-informed care and mental health resources since the flood. 

Grief does not recede like floodwaters. One year later, families are still doing the difficult, private work of healing that does not fit neatly into an application or government assistance program. We have treated that work with the same urgency we bring to rebuilding a home. A community that fixes its buildings and forgets its people has not fully come home.

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It is also true that not everyone is home. Not every question has been answered. Not everyone feels recovery has treated them fairly. A disaster of this scale leaves hard feelings alongside hard losses. Our community's recovery is not measured by whether everyone agrees, but by whether we keep showing up for one another anyway.

One year out, progress is visible. People are home. People are healing. The community is strengthening. The work is not finished, and it will not be finished soon. But the Hill Country is moving forward because people have remained committed. Some came from next door, from across Texas and from across the country. Together, they reminded us that even in our darkest moments, we were not alone.

What has amazed me most is the strength of local people — not the ones who arrived for a week, but the ones who are still here now. The ones who rebuilt homes, coached Little League, or simply showed up to work when showing up was its own act of courage.

This community held together because so many people refused to let it fall apart. That is not a small thing; it is everything.