After the Flood

Dominic Anthony Walsh: This is After the Flood, a podcast from The Texas Newsroom and PBS’s Frontline. I’m Dominic Anthony Walsh. We had our fifth episode ready to go. We were going to look at how much more prepared the Texas Hill Country is for the next flood. But just as we were tying things up last week

Reporter: Catastrophic flooding in Texas, at least two dead.

Deadly flooding in Texas. More than two feet of rain, hundreds of water rescues reported, a bridge washed away.

Texas declaring a major disaster after more catastrophic floods. Nearly a trillion gallons of rainwater falling in just days.

Dominic Anthony Walsh: Another historic flood hit the Hill Country.

Reporter: A, quote, “large and deadly flood wave is barreling down the Guadalupe River,” according to forecasters.

That’s the very same river that took so many lives last summer at Camp Mystic.

Dominic Anthony Walsh: In some areas, the Guadalupe River rose even higher than it did in 2025. So far, we know that two people died and hundreds of homes, roads, and bridges in Kerr County were damaged or destroyed. Still, there were a lot fewer deaths than last year.

People this year told us they were more vigilant, and this was also a very different storm. And so this is not the episode we had originally planned for you. We had to shift gears and actually go back to Kerrville to report on this other flood. Were emergency officials ready? Did new flood sirens work?

Did residents get timely information? We’ll be releasing that episode soon. In the meantime, here’s a story from this most recent flood. My colleague, Lucio Vasquez, caught up with Bob Canales and Lorena Guillen last week. They’re the couple that owned the Blue Oak RV Park.

911 Operator: Kerr County Sheriff’s Office.

Lorena Guillén: I’m here at the Blue Oak RV Park.

Dominic Anthony Walsh: We heard from them back in episode one.

Lorena Guillén: I have a few campers staying right next to the ri- the Guadalupe. How bad is it, uh, the levels of the Guadalupe right now?

911 Operator: We, we don’t have,

we don’t have that

information.

Dominic Anthony Walsh: Lucio wanted to see how they were doing after going through yet another flood. Here’s Lucio.

Lucio Vasquez: The sound of honky-tonk music filled Howdy’s Bar and Chill in Kerrville Thursday night. Behind the bar, owners Lorena Guillen and Bob Canales greeted customers by name. Outside, the wooden patio glistened after days of near constant rain. Just beyond it, the Guadalupe River churned through Kerr County.

Lorena Guillén: Feels a little bit of deja vu being here again today and seeing the river the same way it was last year.

Lucio Vasquez: That same river destroyed the RV park they owned just over a year ago. More than 130 people died in flooding across Central Texas at that time. For Guillen and her husband, watching the Guadalupe rise again has reopened wounds that had barely begun to heal.

Last year, in the early morning hours of July 4th, floodwaters tore through the region. The couple waded through rushing water, pounding on RV doors to wake sleeping campers. Guillen was helping people uphill when they spotted John and Julia Burgess trapped on a small island in the river with their two young boys.

Last year, Bob Canales recounted the story to me. Across the raging river, he told me he shouted, “Throw me the baby.”

Bob Canales: And I understand why he didn’t do it, ’cause what if the baby didn’t make it? Or what if I didn’t get the ba- So instinctively I stepped off the s- sidewalk and uh, in an attempt to help him, but the water was too powerful

Lucio Vasquez: The Burgess family disappeared into the current.

Their bodies were found in the days that followed.

Bob Canales: I remember seeing him standing by that tree you’re looking at there with the lights on, and, uh, that was the last time I saw that fine y- young man with his family.

Lucio Vasquez: The couple helped save nearly two dozen other campers. For the next few hours, they would helplessly watch as cabins broke loose from their foundations, as RVs were ripped from their parking spots, as cries for help echoed over the roar of the river.

Months later, as they rebuilt their lives, Guillen was struggling.

Lorena Guillén: It took a while, uh, in my case, to realize that I needed some help. Um, I didn’t know that, uh, being, you know, in a bad mood is, uh, some sort of depression and trauma, and of course, I was diagnosed with all that, plus PTSD.

Lucio Vasquez: The flood also damaged their home.

They’ve since moved about 40 minutes away. Guillen says she’s grateful that things were different this year.

Lorena Guillén: The big difference between last year and this one is we had no one staying on our property, sleeping overnight, so we didn’t have to worry about people losing their lives like, like we did last year.

Lucio Vasquez: Now, instead of rebuilding the campground, the couple plans to create a riverfront space for day visitors. No more overnight guests. There’s also new flood sirens on the property donated by a private company.

Lorena Guillén: A lot of our neighbors did evacuated, and, you know, it saved some lives.

Lucio Vasquez: After last year’s flood, state lawmakers invested millions into new river gauges and flood sirens that now stretch across much of the Hill Country.

Here’s Governor Greg Abbott on Friday.

Governor Greg Abbott: Because of everything that was learned and experienced in the flood last year, everybody in Texas has been far more prepared to deal with what has happened this year. There again is one reason why lives have been saved.

Lucio Vasquez: For locals in the Hill Country like Guillen and Canales, they know the Guadalupe will rise again.

The difference, they hope, is that the community will be better prepared for the next flood.