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.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
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.
Thanks for having me, Jerry.
So these messages were revealed
in the story.
When did y'all first ask for these
messages?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
You're welcome.
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.
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.
Yeah, and also putting most
of the highway, or a good chunk of
the highway, going underground
with the highway.
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.
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
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.
The construction projects usually
run exactly as they're scheduled,
Nathan. To the second.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, you can set your...
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.
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.
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.
Matthew, they don't like telephones
at the Alamo Drafthouse, apparently.
No, no, no no no.
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...
I will work to destroy them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Thanks so much for having me.
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.
Yeah, so I am really excited.
So this was announced not that
long ago, but Ted Lasso,
season four.
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.
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.
Okay.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
That's on Amazon, correct?
That's the other one?
HBO Max.
Okay, it's the same. This is all the
same universe.
Like I said, I'm not a TV person.
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.
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
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.
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?
Yes, so I have also not
watched Heated Rivalry yet, which my
friends are giving me so much flack
for.
Lots of TV to be watched, people,
come on.
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.
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.
Thanks for having me.
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.