No doubt you or someone you know
uttered the phrase, we needed this
rain over the last few days, but up
in Williamson County, the rain was
enough to cause some flash flooding
and warrant some evacuations.
We're gonna hear from some of the
residents impacted by the floods and
how it differed from last summer's
flooding. And a central Austin
building that was home for decades
to a Sears has new life as a
one-stop shop.
But instead of lawn mowers and
washing machines, folks can now have
many of their health needs met.
More about that transformation
coming up on today's show.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
Plus, an Austin author's new book is
all about a midlife reinvention.
Okay, okay, more like middle school
reinvention, but hey, those feelings
are still real.
Those stories and a whole lot more,
up next, here on Austin Signal.
Howdy out there, you are listening
to Austin Signal here on
community powered public radio.
This is KUT News, I'm your
host, Jerry Gechannel.
It is Wednesday, April 22nd,
and it seems like most of the rain
that's been sticking around the area
for the past few days is finally
moving past us.
Meteorologist Avery Tomasko says
more than 4 inches of rain have
fallen in Austin this month, making
it the rainiest April since 2019.
Up in Williamson County, residents
of three separate mobile home parks
are settling in after being
evacuated from their homes Tuesday
because of flash flooding.
These are the same RV parks that
were heavily damaged during last
July's deadly storms.
As KUT's Kaylee Hunt reports,
neighbors say they were better
prepared this time around.
Elizabeth Tamez and her husband have
lived at the Shady River RV Park
along the San Gabriel River in
Georgetown for five years.
She expected Tuesday to be like any
other rainy day.
But then the rain didn't stop for
hours and hours.
Tamezz had just returned home from a
doctor's appointment when a
sheriff's deputy from Williamson
County approached her and told her
she needed to prepare to leave the
RV park. The San Gabriel
was rising and fast.
Tamez says she immediately began to
prepare to evacuate.
We talked as she carefully stacked
planters of flowers on top of each
other underneath a pop-up canopy.
She hoped to use them as a sort of
protective barrier for other
belongings.
I love my plants.
I love them.
So unfortunately, I'm using them
just to protect my other
value items.
So we'll see.
Maybe it's not gonna be major
this time, but
you never know.
It's better to be safe.
Then sorry." Tamez
says she and her husband were out of
town when the RV park flooded during
last July's deadly storms.
They had lost many of their
belongings, including three
vehicles.
But like many residents, they
decided to return to the park after
it was cleaned up.
This is a beautiful place to live,
it's beautiful, it is
a gorgeous neighborhood.
We feel safe,
safe, love, I mean we are
a community, it isn't another place
you live.
We are family here.
Shauna Thayer and her teenage
daughter also returned to the Shady
River RV Park on Tuesday after
hearing about the evacuation.
The pair lives a couple miles down
the road, and they were here after
last year's summer storms to help
with cleanup and recovery.
Thayer says compared to last July,
Tuesday's evacuation was a bit more difficult.
Was quote so much more efficient.
I think this time everyone knew to
take it seriously.
Law enforcement and county services
showed up incredibly quickly and
have been really efficient.
Thayer says most residents
voluntarily chose to evacuate.
An incredible number of strangers
showed up to help people get to
safety.
It was so traumatic last year and
then so much went into recovery
and so many lives fell apart.
It was great to be able to get ahead
of it this time and to watch the
entire community take it seriously
and be so efficient in their
response.
Officials say in total, 20
families were evacuated from three
RV parks on Tuesday.
All of them were able to return to
their homes the same day.
I'm Kaylee Hunt in Williamson
County.
And Kaylee is joining us now here on
Austin Signal to tell us more about
the flooding that she saw yesterday.
Kaylee, thanks for your reporting
and thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me, Jerry.
So you were near the San Gabriel
River yesterday, near
one of those RV parks that was being
evacuated. Tell us a little bit
about what you saw out there.
Yeah, I mean, one of the first
things I did when I arrived at the
Shady River RV Park in Georgetown
was go and look at the river,
which is, it's about a few
hundred yards away from the actual
campers and homes.
And I can tell you that as someone
who grew up and lives currently
in the area, the water was
rushing a lot faster than normal
and it was a lot higher as well,
the water levels.
And it was even beginning to
slightly swell over the river bank
on the side where the RV park is
located.
And while I was out there, I
actually ran into one of the
residents, a gentleman, and he
told me that the last time he saw
the river that high was during last
July's deadly storms, the one that
heavily damaged their park.
And so he told him he
immediately gathered his stuff
and moved out, moved him to higher
ground after hearing about the flash
flood warning.
Yeah, and a flash flood warning is
going to get anybody amped up, I
would imagine.
Where were they at, generally,
and just their levels of rushing
or their levels of anxiety
yesterday, what could you sense from
the residents who were there?
Yeah, I think there was quite a
bit of anxiety,
a lot of urgency,
I would say. That's how I would
describe it. Everybody was
just moving with a very
big sense of urgency because, you
know, a lot these folks returned to
the RV park after having lost
their homes and belongings last
summer. And so,
they were very anxious and
very much ready
to get their stuff.
Out of the danger zone in time.
Yeah, and evacuations were ordered
at those three RV parks.
What does that actually look like
whenever evacuations
are being required of these RV
parks?
Yeah, well, the first thing you
notice is there's going to be like a
big law enforcement presence.
You know, I was thinking back to
last summer when I tried to drive
down there, the roads were actually
blocked off.
That's how fast the water was
moving.
This time around I was able to
actually get into the RV park.
There were sheriff's deputies and
folks from the constable's office
going around to each of the
residents, knocking on doors,
telling folks, you know, hey, you
don't have to leave, but...
Be prepared, the water's rising,
might wanna start moving your things
out.
And yeah, so just busy, you know,
that's how I would describe it.
Yeah, you were out there along with
KUT videographer Michael Manassi.
In the video they all shared that we
saw some water rescue teams.
Were those actually employed or was
that just a precautionary measure?
Yeah, that's right.
We were able to video those just as
they arrived.
Yeah, officials confirmed that those
teams were basically only stationed
there as a precaution.
So yeah, luckily no water rescues
were needed yesterday.
We heard from a few folks who were
affected by the evacuations in your
story, what else did you hear from
the residents while you were out
there?
Gosh.
Well, you know, one of the things
that struck me was just how
people just talked
about how lovely that place is
to live.
You know, they acknowledged that
some people would probably question
why they keep coming back to
that space, knowing that it's in
a flood zone and has this
history and, you, know,
the lady Elizabeth Tamez that, you
heard in the story.
You know, she, she they lost like
three vehicles last summer.
So, um, but yeah, she says it's her
home. It's a community.
Yeah, you could hear the passion in
her voice that she wanted to stay no
matter what.
Okay, we're gonna have a link to
Kaylee's reporting in today's show
notes. Before you get out of here,
though, Kaylee, you are the
Williamson County reporter for KUT.
I know you have been doing some
reporting on a data center that was
planned for Hutto residents asked
the city to rezone the land and
they pulled that request.
Can you give us an update on what's
happening there?
Yeah, so that project has
effectively ended as
of them withdrawing
their application.
The company called Zydeco
Development, they're based here in
Austin.
They wanted to rezone this
piece of land to allow for heavy
industrial development.
Right now, it's zoned with the
city as multi-family residential.
And so, yeah, several community
members opposed that request,
raising concerns about noise,
impacts on the local power grid.
And the possible long-term risks of
what they
think having a data center would
have on their homes.
And so, yeah, they were actually in
the process of filing a formal
protest against the company
when they withdrew their rezoning
request last week.
I have reached out to Zydeco
just to get a sense from their
side of things about why they
withdrued their application and have
not heard back yet.
Okay, we'll have links to both of
those stories at KUT.org,
and you can find more from us at
Kut.org.
Kaley, thanks for your reporting,
thank you for your time.
A long-time Austinites will remember
that for decades, a Sears department
store stood as the
centerpiece of the Hancock Center at
41st and Red River streets.
It stood vacant since 2019, but this
week the building is reopening its
doors, this time as a community
health care hub for low-income
residents.
Central Health, Travis County's
local public health district, will
begin offering its phase of
services at the center starting this
Friday.
KUT's health care reporter Olivia
Aldridge is here to tell us more.
Howdy Olivia.
So tell us a little bit about
this facility, what sort of services
is it providing, and to whom?
This will be the new flagship
location for Central Health, which
is the public hospital district in
Travis County.
That's an organization that's
responsible for providing healthcare
to low-income residents here.
It's by far Central Health's biggest
location, and it's going to kind of
become this major hub for them.
So the first floor of this building,
this 200,000 square foot building,
there's clinical space.
That's where folks will be able to
get primary care, certain kinds of
specialty care.
Even dentistry and pharmacy
services, and then later on the
second floor is also going to be the
main administrative building for
Central Health and two of its
partner organizations.
So this is going to be kind of a
one-stop shop for lots of different
things. This was, as I said,
a former Sears. Tell us a little bit
about the organizations that are
going to part of this facility
moving forward in the future.
Yeah, so Central Health, Community
Care, and then Sendero Health Plans,
which is Central Health's insurance
affiliate that offers health plans
on the Affordable Care Act
Marketplace.
At the opening celebration, um,
Travis County Commissioner, Brigid
Shea was like, you know, it's
fitting that this used to be a Sears
store because this is now sort of a
one-stop shop for, as you said,
for not shopping, but care.
Um And
Central Health CEO Pat Lee talked a
lot about the value of having these
three partners in the same space,
Community Care, by the way, being
kind of the clinical partner.
Because if you're using the services
from one, then you're likely to be
getting services from all three.
It's also significant in another
way, because over the past couple
of years, there's been a lot of
friction between Central Health and
Community Care about their
leadership structure and what their
relationship would be.
With this opening, they're kind of
presenting a unified front and
saying we're here as part of a
shared effort to serve the lower
income population that we're charged
with.
Yeah, that's some of the
things you've been reporting on for
a while, some of the things that we've
talked about here on Austin Signal.
And this project has been something
you've been reporting for a bit
now.
So you mentioned this first round or
this first phase of services is set
to begin Friday.
What is the timeline for expanded
services at this new facility?
Yep, so on Friday, we'll see the
new location for the David Powell
Clinic run by Community Care
opening.
That's a clinic that provides
treatment for HIV.
The pharmacy services and lab
services will also open everything
else from primary care to secondary
care to all that administrative
stuff.
Dentistry should be coming sometime
in 2027.
All right, we have been speaking
with Olivia Aldridge.
She is KUT's healthcare reporter and
we'll have a link to her reporting
in today's podcast, Show Notes.
Olivia, thank you.
This is Austin Signal.
Thank you for making us part of your
Wednesday.
We've got more for you coming up
after a break, but before we
let you go, just wanted to remind
you that we are a bit more than
a week away from the first ever
KUT Fest.
Plenty of the KUT voices that you've
heard here on Austin Signal, just
like Olivia Aldridge, are gonna be
out at the Fest hosting some panels.
And just hanging around with the
community. This is our first ever
fest. I don't know if I mentioned
that. So we're trying to do it up
big. We have Aaron Franklin, lots of
great folks from the community, KUT
for Kids.
So much to check out.
You can find out more at
kut.org.
Again, that's happening next Friday
and Saturday.
So include us in your plans and
we'll see you out there.
This is Austin Signal.
We'll be back after a moment.
Welcome back.
This is Austin Signal.
Before she moved from Austin to
Rhode Island, everybody knew Lacey
as one half of an inseparable
duo with her best friend Grace.
Lacey is ready to reinvent herself
at her new school, but middle school
never works out exactly as you
plan it. Ain't that the truth?
This is the plot of the new middle
school novel When You're Brave
Enough by Austin author Rebecca
Benheim.
The Texas Standards' Laura Rice
spoke with her about the new novel.
Middle school can be
the worst,
but I'm curious what drew you to
tell a middle grade story
specifically.
First of all, I really loved the
middle school age before I left to
write full-time.
I actually taught sixth grade
English for years and I really miss
it. But the reason that I decided
to write a queer middle grade novel
specifically is that I had my first
crushes on girls when I was
around early middle school.
And that's also the time that I
first learned what the word lesbian
meant because this girl in
my school spread this rumor
about these girls who were lesbians
and I asked what that meant.
And she said, they worship the devil
and I should steer clear from them
as a new student because they
might corrupt me.
And I didn't actually end up
coming out until I was 20.
So I realized that this was
actually a really normal experience.
Studies show that people,
queer kids and teens usually realize
they're queer or trans by the
start of early adolescence.
And they usually are also hearing
a lot of negative messaging about
being LGBTQ plus.
So I think about this time in my
life a lot, I think of my queer
students, and I really wanted to
write a story where a girl
has a crush on her best friend and
it's not this worst nightmare,
hide this forever situation, it
becomes this beautiful first
chance at love.
Well, you love middle
schoolers as a teacher.
Did you love that experience as
a young teen yourself though?
That sounds like that was probably
really hard.
Yeah, it definitely was hard.
It just, it was a lot of being in
my head and just being,
I guess, worried that people could
see through me.
Well, your character Lacey is in the
school musical, worried about her
first kiss.
Were you a theater kid growing up
or what drew you to that part of the
story?
Yes. I was obsessed with musical
theater growing up and I was
terrible at it.
So one thing I really wanted to
do is have a
character who gets the lead role
because I always wondered what that
would feel like.
But I also based
it off of the play or I
had the musical Bye Bye Birdie
in the book because I
was in Bye Bye birdie in fourth
grade and then I was Bye Bye Birdie
again in eighth grade.
And when I was in it in
eighth-grade, the
couple, Rosie and Albert,
kissed in the final performance.
And I was terrified
thinking, what if I, when I'm an
eighth grader, have to do that and I
don't like the person who's my
co-lead?
And so that fear stayed with me and
I gave it to Lacey.
You know, we always love to talk
about Texas connections in
books.
Lacey makes sort of the opposite
move that you did from Austin
to the East Coast.
You came from the East coast to
Austin.
I'm curious how Texas peeks through
in your narrative.
Yes, I really love the
Texas scenes in this book.
So Lacey, when she moves,
she's so excited to be in Rhode
Island, to start over, to
not be known as this super
eager, strange girl, Grace's friend.
But then her memories from
Texas come back to her with this
dreamlike quality.
There's a scene where they're at
the South Congress Bridge watching
the bats, and there's another scene
in Barton Springs where they are
playing a game and they're
pretending.
To drown and then save each other,
but then she starts actually getting
scared and Grace is the
only one who can tell it's for real
and helps her breathe through that.
So she's slowly realizing that
her feelings for Grace are more
complicated than she thought through
these memories of being in Texas.
What do you hope that readers of
all ages get out of your book if
they pick it up?
That's a great question.
I feel like I have different hopes
for different readers.
My biggest dream for this book is
that it gets into the hands of
queer kids and teens who need
to see someone like them
having a happy ending and not
just in 20 years
but right there in middle school.
But I also hope other people read
this book. I hope other kids
and teams read it and
kind of
peers might be dealing with,
thinking about what their futures
could look like, and,
you know, that them being
queer or trans is not this
inhibiting, negative, hard
thing. It can also be this beautiful
thing that opens them up to
a more authentic life, a more
creative way of living,
and a lot of happiness and love.
And then I also hope adults read
this book. Um,
there are a lot of misconceptions
about queer kids right now
and I just would
love adults to read this and
be reminded that these
are just kids, just like any other
kid who are trying to
figure out how to make their way in
the world.
And you know, sometimes making
mistakes, sometimes changing their
mind, but that they deserve
all the support and agency
and love and
patience that you would give any
kid.
Well, I think that that gets to a
question I was gonna struggle
to ask, which is about how
Texas has been not
always so receptive of
books like this about
queer kids or for queer kids,
right? I mean, there's the debate
over what is available in
school libraries.
What are your thoughts as this brand
new book of yours that you've poured
your heart into is might face
that sort of controversy?
This is, it's really hard for me to
think about, because I really,
like I said, my biggest dream is to
get into the hands of actual
queer kids and teens.
And it is already getting
some backlash.
I have been, you know, posting about
it online as a debut author does.
And I've gotten a lot
of really negative messages from
people hoping to ban it in the
future. I hope that doesn't happen.
I hope they forget about it.
But my thoughts
are that I just
wish that the people doing this
would read these books and not just
mine, other amazing queer middle
grades like the Queen B's of Tybee
County, which is about a
southern basketball star
seventh grade boy who ends
up moving to or
going to his grandma's for the
summer and then learning drag
and doing drag for the first time.
Like these, I just want them to
read these book and understand that
this isn't about something
that corrupt kids.
These are not books about sex.
These are books about kids being
kids and kids figuring out who they
are. And there is nothing negative
or inappropriate about
these books.
And I'm really trying to do all
I can to fight this.
I recently testified at the State
Board of Education meeting.
There's another meeting coming up
that I'm hoping to go to to
just hopefully
let our lawmakers know
that most Texans
want kids to be able to read any
age appropriate book that publishers
say are for their age range
and that there's nothing dangerous
about these books. It's actually
dangerous to censor them and
give kids the message that they
don't belong and that who they are
is not okay. That's what causes
mental health struggles in
these queer kids and teens.
That was the voice of Austin-based
author Rebecca Benheim speaking to
Texas Standard's Laura Rice
about Benheim's new novel,
When You're Brave Enough, which is
out now.
That is it for today's
show. Thank you for spending some
time with us. We're going to have
links to the stories that we shared
with you in the podcast show notes,
and you can find more over at
kut.org slash
signal.
And there's always lots more news to
be found. You can keep up with us on
the KUT app.
And online at KUT.org.
Rayna Sevilla is our technical
director, Alexa Hart is our
producer, and Kristen Cabrera is
our managing producer.
I'm your host, Jerry Kihono.
We'll be back at the same time
tomorrow. We'll talk to you then.
This is Austin Signal.
Have a wonderful day.