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Text messages from officials in Kerr County reveal confusion amid the July 4 Hill Country floods last year. Information and misinformation spread amid the flooding that killed more than 130 people. We’ll talk about those messages.
More changes are coming to I-35 as work continues on overhauling the highway at the center of Austin. We’ll dive into what to expect on the roads and how it could impact your travels.
Plus, the Alamo Drafthouse is doing away with pen-and-paper ordering and folks have feelings about it.
And a chat about the TV shows you and everyone else will be talking about all year long.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:08] Messages from officials in Kerr County reveal confusion last July 4th, as information and misinformation spread amid the flooding that killed more than 130 people, including counselors and campers at Camp Mystic. We’re going to talk about those messages. And plenty more changes are coming to I-35 as work continues on overhauling the highway at the center of the city of Austin. What to expect on the roads and how it could impact your travels. That’s on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:36] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:41] Plus, Alamo Drafthouse is doing away with pen and paper ordering, and folks have feelings about it. We’re going to hear from them, and a chat about the TV shows you and everyone else will be talking about all year long. That is coming up next on today’s Austin Signal. Howdy out there, thank you for tuning in. This is Austin Signal here on listener-powered public radio KUT News. It is Wednesday, January 14th. I’m your host, Jerry Keconnell. Thank you for making us part of your day. A Travis County judge will decide next month whether to clear the names of four men falsely accused of Austin’s yogurt shop murders. Maurice Pierce, Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen, and Forrest Wellborn were wrongly implicated in the murders of four teenage girls in the 90s. The Austin Police Department last year said it found the man responsible for the deaths of Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, and Sarah and Jennifer Harbison. Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza last month moved to exonerate the four men who were wrongly accused. Garza said Tuesday that Travis County Judge Dana Blasey will hear that case on February 19th. And of course, we’re going to have more on that at kut.org and here on Austin Signal. Six months after a devastating flood swept through central Texas in the Hill Country, messages detailing when and how first responders reacted as the emergency was unfolding at Camp Mystic have come to light, and they highlight the confusion that unfolded over the course of that July 4th. The messages were revealed in a story co-reported by the Texas Newsroom and the Texas Tribune. For more, we are speaking with Lauren Magahee, investigative reporter and editor at the Texas newsroom. Lauren, thanks for coming on the show.
Lauren McGaughy [00:02:27] Thanks for having me, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:29] So these messages were revealed in the story. When did y’all first ask for these messages?
Lauren McGaughy [00:02:34] A long time ago, we asked for them, I think that first week after the July 4th floods, and we had to fight for them for several months. The county repeatedly delayed their release and then eventually charged us several hundred dollars to get them. And finally we did and were able to, you know, see hundreds of back and forth messages between the county’s top leaders just right there in as they were responding the floods on July 4th.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:02] And, of course, we’re here in a big city, Austin, in Travis County. I think it’s worth reminding listeners who might not be familiar, Kerr County, pretty tiny county in comparison to other counties across the state, yes?
Lauren McGaughy [00:03:12] Yeah, that’s right. And you know, the floods didn’t just affect Kerr County. Obviously, we saw effects of the floods here in Travis County. You know, this this storm was historic. It was it was deadly. But we wanted to focus on seeing if we could learn more specifically about what county leaders knew right in that 24 hours as the flood was happening and how they responded.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:33] Yeah, you mentioned this storm was historic. It was obviously a very chaotic situation that morning and that day in the Hill Country. So from the messages that you all got, were officials in Kerr County on the same page that morning?
Lauren McGaughy [00:03:46] You know, we didn’t want to make a lot of value judgments about what we saw in the text messages. Our number one goal with publishing these hundreds of text messages was to get them out into the public domain. There are lawsuits that parents have filed against Camp Mystic. There’s discussions about how this could have been done better. And so we want people to have access to those. What we did see in the messages is there was a lot confusion about how to respond, when to respond. And in particular with Camp Mystics, county leaders really struggled to find out anything that was going on there for you know more than twelve hours they they were struggling to understand if anyone had died uh… Let alone how many people were missing and that hampered their ability to get that information to the public and to parents
Jerry Quijano [00:04:32] Yeah, you mentioned a little bit there of why the Texas Tribune and the Texas Newsroom wanted to get these messages out. Can you just speak a little more about that?
Lauren McGaughy [00:04:41] Yeah, you know, we reached out to the parents that have sued the camps over this, and we reached to the camp’s lawyers about what we saw in these messages, kind of asking them, like, what does this tell you about what happened in those first 24 hours? The camp responded and said, hey, look, maybe they weren’t getting this, maybe it doesn’t appear that they were getting information from us. We were focused on what was going on on the ground. We were, you now, focused on what was happening right in front of our eyes, trying to find people, rescue people. And I hope that these text messages provide a little bit more context to elected officials about what might have been able to be done better in terms of communication. There’s a lot of back and forth in the thread about who’s doing what, where, and when, where they’re going to get information, what information is going to be official that should be released to the public, and hopefully they will shed some light to policymakers on. How to tighten things up in the event that we have another, you know, historic weather event, which we unfortunately probably will at some point.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:42] Yeah, it’s very likely. Again, you can read these messages over at KUT.org and we’re going to have the story in our show notes. Yesterday we heard a story from the Texas newsroom’s Lucy Ovasquez checking in six months on from the flooding. I just wanted to ask you, what else is the Texas Newsroom working on in regards to following up on these floods from last July?
Lauren McGaughy [00:06:03] Yeah, we, you know, we and other news outlets are still combing through 911 calls. There’s been some reporting from some other outlets on what they’ve heard in those calls. We want to go a little bit deeper and see what we can find out about water rescues from those. There does appear to be a lot of confusion in those call about whether first responders were able to get directly to people who were calling in to the county sheriff and to 911. You know, again, these are hundreds of audio recordings and As you can imagine, they’re terrible. And so we’re hoping to see if we can glean anything from the public about how those responses could be improved in future.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:43] Okay, well, as that reporting continues to unfold, we will bring it here on Austin Signal to you. We have been speaking with Lauren McGahee, an investigative reporter and editor with the Texas Newsroom. Thank you for your reporting. Thanks for coming on the show.
Lauren McGaughy [00:06:56] You’re welcome.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:04] If you’re driving around right now and listening to us, first off, thanks, either live on the podcast, you probably, or you might be on I-35 right now, or at least thinking about ways to avoid it or being grateful that you’re not anywhere near I- 35. All that to say I-35 is on everyone’s mind here, especially in central Texas where major construction to the interstate is coming our way this year. So what can we expect and when? Well, we’ve got KUT’s transportation reporter Nathan Bernier. Here to talk us through it all. Nathan, thanks for coming on the show. Hey, Jerry. So what’s going on? What are we building here? Remind us about the overhaul that’s happening at 35.
Nathan Bernier [00:07:41] Yeah, it’s big. So throughout Travis County, they’re expanding I-35 from Williamson to Hayes, and it’s split into three sections. So you have North, Central, and South. South, two elevated express lanes in both directions, HOV lanes in both directions and untold. That’s what those columns going up in the middle of I- 35 in South Austin are all about. And a bunch of other stuff too. North, it is like one HOV lane in each direction, of course, they’re also rebuilding bridges and adding sidewalks and things like that as well, widening the highway. The biggest piece of this, of, course, is central, and that’s from Ben White Boulevard to U.S. 290 East, two HOV lanes in each section. They’re lowering the main lanes of the highway from Holley to Airport, building new bridges. Do sidewalks and a whole bunch of other stuff, but the main purpose of this is to add capacity to the highway in the form of those HOV lanes.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:38] Yeah, and also putting most of the highway, or a good chunk of the highway, going underground with the highway.
Nathan Bernier [00:08:43] Not under, well, low, I always struggle with how to word this. Like they’re sinking the main lanes, but not necessarily covering them. That’s up to the city of Austin. Right now, the city council is debating how much of this do we want to cover? And they could build parks on top of the highway, but that will be up to the city taxpayer to foot that bill. Okay.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:02] Okay, so there’s a lot going on as you can tell. Can you talk us through some of the timeline, what we might be looking like or looking at in 2026? And this is
Nathan Bernier [00:09:10] going to be a big year for this highway project. And so I got some rough estimates. I mean, the text dot can’t provide specific dates, uh, until they get closer to these projects, but some of the.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:20] The construction projects usually run exactly as they’re scheduled, Nathan. To the second. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you can set your…
Nathan Bernier [00:09:24] I mean, you can set your stopwatch, your watch to it. But yeah, no, so in the early part of the year, some of the stuff we’re gonna see here is work on that bridge over Lady Bird Lake, that crossing. One of the interesting things, because they’re gonna be rebuilding that bridge from east to west, somewhere sometime before March, TxDOT plans to limit passage under the bridge to a 75 foot wide passage. So if you, you know, ride a boat on the lake. It’s gonna be a 75 foot wide passage. The first thing they’re gonna start doing is they’re going to close the eastern most sidewalk over the bridge. And that’s in preparation, partly in preparation to build a new standalone pedestrian bridge over Lady Bird Lake East. That’s the first thing that’s gonna, they’re they’re, gonna start working on that in the summer at some point. Also, one of the big things they’re going to start doing is actually boring a massive tunnel beneath I-35, and eventually that’s going to go down Cesar Chavez Street. That’s going to be 22 feet in diameter, and that’s gonna be a big drainage tunnel, because to lower those main lanes when it rains, we live in Flash Flood Alley, that water’s got to go somewhere, that’s the purpose of that tunnel. So you may have seen the big drop shafts they’ve already started working on. The tunnel boring machine is going to get here in the spring, And then there gets from Germany. Going to assemble it, they’re going to start boring. And then a lot of work on the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge. They expect that bridge actually to be done sometime between July and September. Oh, okay. And a bunch of other little things as well. You know, people always ask when are they going to tear down the upper decks, because that’s part of this project as well? They’re probably not this year, maybe in 2027. It’s not till like late October or December that they’re to bring. Contractor on board for that segment of I-35, but that’s something else. And they’ll do that one side, they’ll tear down one side and then shift traffic over, you know, and then they’ll tear down the other side. Like they always do, but always three lanes open in each direction, three main lanes open each direction except for maybe a few nighttime closures here and there.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:40] Okie dokie, well yeah, lots to look forward to in 2026, and you know that we’ll be bringing Nathan back on the show to talk you through everything. He is QUT’s transportation reporter, and we appreciate your time, Nathan. Thanks, Jerry. If you’ve been to an Alamo Drafthouse cinema recently, you might have heard Dolly Parton tell the crowd to turn them phones off before the lights go down and the movie starts. But as KUT’s Katy McAfee tells us, changes coming to the Dine-In theaters will now require phone usage to order food, drinks, or request service.
Katy McAfee [00:12:17] Pulling your phone out during a movie has always been a big no-no at Alamo Drafthouse. In fact, you can’t get to the start of the movie without hearing a PSA from a celebrity.
Alamo Drafthouse PSA [00:12:26] Matthew, they don’t like telephones at the Alamo Drafthouse, apparently. No, no, no no no.
Katy McAfee [00:12:34] And those announcements haven’t always been so cheery. In 2013, then-Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell said if he hears about people leaving their phones on during a movie…
Jerry Quijano [00:12:43] I will work to destroy them.
Katy McAfee [00:12:47] But a new mobile ordering policy might loosen the reigns on phones in the theater. Starting in mid-February, instead of ordering food and drinks on pen and paper, guests will place orders through the company’s app before and during the movie. In a press release, Alamo Drafthouse said, the new system will be more efficient and cause less disruptions. A company spokesperson said, the app has dark screen technology, which is designed to work at a low brightness level. And talking, texting, or scrolling on social media will still be strictly enforced. But movie buffs aren’t convinced. A Change.org petition asking Alamo Drafthouse leadership to reinstate analog ordering has reached over 1,000 signatures in just a couple of days. A post about the new ordering system on Austin’s subreddit received over 1 ,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments calling the changes, quote, devastating and genuinely terrible. Julian Singleton, an Austin-based film critic and frequent Alamo Drafthouse patron, says the change is bound to cause distractions.
Julian Singleton [00:13:47] You have to turn on your phone, which is not automatically on the app. Like if I turn on my phone, it doesn’t pull up a dark screen. It’ll pull up that giant bright picture of two of my dogs.
Katy McAfee [00:13:57] Not everyone is convinced the move is good for staff, either. According to the company, no employees will be laid off due to the changes, and a spokesperson says all base wages for current staff will stay the same. But former Alamo Drafthouse server, Tad Kistner, wonders about the impact on morale.
Tad Kistner [00:14:13] I have a feeling they’re going to have a lot of people quit. You know, I don’t think they’ll be laying off anyone because I think people will be not wanting to do this anymore.
Katy McAfee [00:14:22] Kissner, who worked at the cinema for about four years, said he left after he saw Alamo Drafthouse becoming, quote, very corporate. That was before the company was bought by Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2024. His main gripe about the new ordering policy, he says it’ll make going to the movies feel more transactional.
Tad Kistner [00:14:40] As the server, I enjoyed meeting the people before the movie and talking about the movie or even as a movie goer, talking to some of the employees about what’s coming up, you know, it was a good way to spread the word.
Katy McAfee [00:14:53] Whether the mobile ordering policy will minimize or add distractions is yet to be seen. Alamo Drafthouse will begin rolling out the new system in mid-February at theaters nationwide. I’m Katy McAfee in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:15:14] Thank you for making Austin Signal part of your Wednesday afternoon. You’re listening to us here on KUT News 90.5, on the KUT app, and online at KUT.org. And if you have an appointment at 1 o’clock, maybe you’re doing some online ordering at Alamo at a movie at 1 O’clock. Don’t worry. You can still get Austin Signal wherever you listen to your shows, and you can Find all of our episodes at KUT. Talking movies before this, talking TV after this break. This is Austin Signal. Thank you for tuning in today. Well, we are a couple of weeks into the new year and perhaps you’re getting back into your routine and you’re looking for something to watch to add to your evening viewings. But we gotta talk about the most anticipated shows of the year and who better to do that with than the folks at ATX TV Fest. Now joining us today is Kaelyn Montoya, social media manager of ATXTV. Kaelyn, thanks for joining us on Austin Signal!
Kaelyn Montoya [00:16:26] Thanks so much for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:27] So I’m sure there are tons of shows that you know about that are gonna be launching this year or coming back this year. So first off, let’s just talk about the one that is your most anticipated show of 2026.
Kaelyn Montoya [00:16:38] Yeah, so I am really excited. So this was announced not that long ago, but Ted Lasso, season four.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:45] Oh really? Which is huge. Ted Lass is coming back. Ted Lasser is a big hit around this newsroom. I thought he was done for.
Kaelyn Montoya [00:16:51] I think that’s what we all thought. We thought that I think they said they weren’t going to do a season four and then mid 2025 they confirmed that they were in the works with season four.
Jerry Quijano [00:17:01] Okay.
Kaelyn Montoya [00:17:02] Coming back with Ted himself and the AFC Richmond like universe. But it sounds like he’ll be teaching or coaching a women’s division team. So it very exciting new team and I don’t know what to expect from it. All I know is I love Ted Lasso, believe is probably like top of four of my mind all the time. And I think everyone’s super excited. We don’t have a lot of details about it yet, but. Uh, we’re anticipating it’ll be out this year or early next year, but I’m really thinking it’ll be late this year and I’m excited for it.
Jerry Quijano [00:17:36] Okay, we’ll see if Ted Lasso can handle this new challenge thrown his way. Tell us about another one that you’re excited about.
Kaelyn Montoya [00:17:42] So The Pit, it was actually named ATX TV’s top show of the year for 2025. Our members, our own like programming and staff voted and the fans, I mean, it just won a global, a Golden Globe, sorry. That’s right, that was its best Sunday, right? Yeah, best TV drama. It’s actually back, it already came back last week, I believe. And I mean if you want like drama, like sharp drama, you want real time stress and You just love the world of like ER and medical and just the topics that they’re hitting. It’s such a great show. It’s captivated, I think, all of its audience. And it also didn’t take a long time to come back, which I think is huge when a show with that momentum and love comes back within, I believe it was like 10 months. I mean, I was ready. For sure. It’s going to be, I think it’s going to be a phenomenal season. And I could see it on everyone’s top list again this year.
Jerry Quijano [00:18:39] Okay, well completely unrelated to shows taking forever to come back, let’s talk about Game of Thrones. I’m a really bad TV watcher, right now I’m re-watching The Wire on HBO Max, so before I start every episode I’m seeing a preview for this Game of Thrones spinoff. I gotta admit, the first time I saw it I wasn’t paying attention, so I thought it was kind of satirical, it looked kind of funny, the people looked really pale. What’s the deal? Is this a serious spinof?
Kaelyn Montoya [00:19:04] Yeah, so this is a prequel to the original Game of Thrones that we know. So this happens a hundred years before, so a century before, and I think it focuses more on like the common people of the show. So we’re not going to be looking at the noble families in the way that we do Game of Thrones and even House of Dragons, which is also set to come back this year.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:28] That’s on Amazon, correct? That’s the other one?
Kaelyn Montoya [00:19:30] HBO Max.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:31] HBO Max. Okay, it’s the same. This is all the same universe. Like I said, I’m not a TV person.
Kaelyn Montoya [00:19:35] No, all good. House of Dragons takes place, I think it’s 200 years plus before. And then you’ll have this prequel to Game of Thrones, but that actually takes place after House of Dragon. So a lot to keep up with there. But this will focus more on like the day to day of the folks living in Westeros and not necessarily all of the noble fighting that happens and that we’re used to in Game of Throne. So this will be a little bit more story driven and character driven. Uh, versus the more fantasy war-driven dragons, the fun, exciting. So I am curious how they’re going to balance that, uh, with story driving versus magical, you know, fantasy creatures and how it’ll do. But we are very excited for that one too.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:22] Okay, well, this is a town that enjoys its TV, but TV is also produced around here made right here in Austin There’s a show that’s coming back. The first season was filmed here in Austin, correct? Yes. So tell us more about the series of the show
Kaelyn Montoya [00:20:36] Yeah, so the last thing he told me was actually a book by Laura Dave, and it filmed its first season here in Austin. The book takes place here. And it actually had some scenes at UT and down Congress and all of our famous, like well-spotted areas in town. Season one was very good. It’s about the disappearance of her husband, and she’s now left with his daughter and trying to understand the mystery of what happened to him. Really his past before she knew him. And we see a lot of Austin in that and it’s really cool. They’re, they just announced season two. I don’t think it’ll take place in town. It’s called the first time I saw him, which is the sequel of the book as well. And I think if you want to watch season two, you’ll have to watch, season one.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:25] That makes sense, yeah. You’d want to catch up and especially to catch all of the Austin locations that you might be able to catch in that show. Okay, last question before you get out of here. There’s been a sort of a big surprise TV hit, everyone. Certainly in this newsroom is talking about it. It’s called Heated Rivalry. In fact, there’s a pair of hockey sticks in the KUT newsroom now. I don’t even know what the… I’m sure that’s related to that. I admit I haven’t seen it yet, so if anyone out there is listening, please don’t email me with is an adaptation of a book and I know that you have a couple of other adaptations on your list as well, right?
Kaelyn Montoya [00:22:01] Yes, so I have also not watched Heated Rivalry yet, which my friends are giving me so much flack for.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:08] Lots of TV to be watched, people, come on.
Kaelyn Montoya [00:22:10] I have a cue and I’ve been trying, you know, it’s a lot to go through and I want to really dedicate some time, but we have Imperfect Women is coming out early spring, which is actually with Kerry Washington, Elizabeth Moth and Kate Mara, which also based on a book and it’s going to be a thriller. And we also have Margo’s Got Money Problems, which should be really fun and comes with a stacked cast. We have Elle Fanning in it. We have Michelle Pfeiffer, Nicole Kidman and Nick Offerman in it And that is also a TV to book adaptation or book to TV adaptation. We’re seeing a lot of those right now. We just had the people we meet on vacation came out last week, which is a movie. And with the summer I turned pretty, there’s a lot of really good books being turned into TV, which I love because I’m an avid reader. I run a book club. So this is fun for me. Our conversations are lively and heated as everyone’s comparing the two. So it’s making for a really good conversation, which I think heated rivalry has also done.
Jerry Quijano [00:23:07] Excellent. Well, we’ll have more about these shows in our show notes here at Austin Signal. We’ve been speaking with Kaelyn Montoya. She is the social media manager for ATX TV. This year’s festival is happening May 28th through 31st. Again, we’re going to have a link at kut.org slash signal and in our podcast show notes. Kaelyn, thanks for coming on the show.
Kaelyn Montoya [00:23:29] Thanks for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:23:30] And that’s it for today’s episode of Austin Signal. Thank you to Nathan Bernier, Lauren McGaughy, Katy McAfee, and Kaelyn Montoya for making it happen. Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer, and Rayna Sevilla is our technical director. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano, and we’ll talk to you tomorrow.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
