Kerr County’s emergency management coordinator, William B. Thomas IV, spoke publicly for the first time at the hearing, noting that he was sick on July 3, the day before the floods, and had informed supervisors that he wouldn’t be able to participate in coordination meetings. He slept through most of the day and learned of the devastating floods the morning of July 4 when his wife woke him up at 5:30 am. Thomas then went on to reflect on what he could have done differently. 

“The honest answer is that based on the data we had at the time, there was no clear indicator that a catastrophic flood was imminent,” he said, noting that forecasts from the National Weather Service the day before had not been materially different from previous forecasts that had not resulted in flooding.

More significantly, perhaps, the day’s torrential rain had fallen in locations where limited data could be gathered from the half dozen flood gauges along the Guadalupe River. Those gauges provide critical data for monitoring river flows and, during floods, can provide advance warning that can save lives. But the U.S. has a shortage of such gauges, particularly in rural, tribal, and low-income communities. While the U.S. Geological Survey maintains a nationwide network of more than 12,000 gauges in partnership with local agencies, persistent funding shortfalls have limited their maintenance and operation. As of October 2024, more than 4,750 locations met the criteria for inclusion in the network — but only about 3,400 gauges are active due to budget constraints.  

“We need real-time monitoring of rainfall and river gauges, especially in upstream headwaters and watershed zones,” Thomas told lawmakers. “We cannot rely solely on radar or traditional forecasting from the National Weather Service. We need systems that detect what’s happening on the ground minute by minute.”

More gauges may have helped save lives on July 4. Between 2 am and 5 am, the heaviest rain fell on the south fork of the river before it converged with the north fork by the town of Hunt. 

“If there had been more gauges up closer to where the rain started and where the flood started, where those two forks were coming together, that would have been helpful,” said James Goss-Dollin, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University. “We want to have as many [gauges] as possible so you can see where the water is and how fast it is coming towards you. There’s a huge need to better monitor rivers.”

At the Thursday hearing, residents shared their accounts braving the floods, as well as their experiences of the recovery process so far. An army of volunteers descended on Kerr County and neighboring areas in the first few weeks after the floods, but as national interest fades, residents are beginning to grapple with the reality of rebuilding. Many have turned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, for help. The agency offers financial aid to help survivors recover in the wake of disasters. Those funds can cover rent for temporary housing, trailers for those whose homes are uninhabitable, and assistance to cover the cost of funerals.

A new analysis by Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit that advocates for fair housing and post-disaster recovery, shows that FEMA has conducted more than 3,100 inspections of Central Texas homes affected by flooding since July 4 — and rejected more than 1,100 of those applications. Among those approved, funding levels have been modest. The agency has provided an average of roughly $8,600 in assistance to repair homes and $34,000 to those who have to rebuild homes entirely, as of July 26. Despite the modest totals, the aid appears to be in line with that provided during previous disasters.

“Low acceptance rates are not uncommon after any given storm,” said Meg Duffy, a senior policy analyst at Texas Appleseed and one of the researchers who conducted the analysis. “Part of that reflects the difficulty involved in applying for FEMA assistance.”

FEMA assistance was never meant to make disaster survivors financially whole again. Instead, FEMA aid is intended to supplement insurance, loans, state and local assistance, and personal savings. The agency’s grants are capped for the current fiscal year at a maximum of $87,200 per grantee for home repairs and other essential needs.

But most residents in rural Central Texas don’t have flood insurance. (Flood damages are not covered by standard homeowner’s insurance.) In Kerr County, a little more than 2 percent of residents have flood coverage. In fact, Duffy’s research found that about three-fourths of local FEMA applicants didn’t have any home insurance at all. It also found that about two-thirds of those applicants made less than $60,000 a year. 

A number of bureaucratic and logistical hurdles can slow down how quickly aid is distributed. If an applicant has insurance, FEMA requires that they first secure documentation from the insurance company stating how much it is willing to cover. That process can sometimes take weeks, if not months. The agency also tries to meet with individual homeowners to inspect their homes and verify ownership before granting aid. If a resident does not have transportation to meet with FEMA personnel or is unable to secure documentation to prove ownership — because, say, the paperwork has washed away in a flood — the agency will deny applications. In those cases, residents can appeal and provide the missing information, but that can take weeks or months to process. Speeding up that timeline is a key improvement that FEMA should make, according to Duffy.

Grist has a comprehensive guide to help you stay ready and informed before, during, and after a disaster.

Explore the full Disaster 101 resource guide for more on your rights and options when disaster hits.

Are you affected by the flooding in Texas and North Carolina? Learn how to navigate disaster relief and response.

Get prepared. Learn how to be ready for a disaster before you’re affected.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Texas lawmakers grill Kerr County officials as flood recovery plods on on Aug 1, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Naveena Sadasivam.

This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.

Sixteen months had passed since Hurricane Harvey tore through the Texas coast in August 2017, killing more than 80 people and flattening entire neighborhoods. And when Texas lawmakers gathered in Austin for their biennial session, the scale of the storm’s destruction was hard to ignore.

Legislators responded by greenlighting a yearslong statewide initiative to evaluate flood risks and improve preparedness for increasingly frequent and deadly storms. “If we get our planning right on the front end and prevent more damage on the front end, then we have less on the back end,” Charles Perry, a Republican senator from Lubbock who chairs a committee overseeing environmental issues, said at the time.

In the years that followed, hundreds of local officials and volunteers canvassed communities across Texas, mapping out vulnerabilities. The result of their work came in 2024 with the release of Texas’ first-ever state flood plan.

Their findings identified nearly $55 billion in proposed projects and outlined 15 key recommendations, including nine suggestions for legislation. Several were aimed at aiding rural communities like Kerr County, where flash flooding over the Fourth of July weekend killed more than 100 people. Three are still missing.

But this year, lawmakers largely ignored those recommendations.

Instead, the legislative session that ended June 2 was dominated by high-profile battles over school vouchers and lawmakers’ decision to spend $51 billion to maintain and provide new property tax cuts, an amount nearly equal to the funding identified by the Texas Water Development Board, a state agency that has historically overseen water supply and conservation efforts.

Although it had been only seven years since Hurricane Harvey, legislators now prioritized the state’s water and drought crisis over flooding needs.

Legislators allocated more than $1.6 billion in new revenue for water infrastructure projects, only some of which would go toward flood mitigation. They also passed a bill that will ask voters in November to decide whether to approve $1 billion annually over the next two decades that would prioritize water and wastewater over flood mitigation projects. At that pace, water experts said that it could take decades before existing mitigation needs are addressed — even without further floods.

Even if they had been approved by lawmakers this year, many of the plan’s recommendations would not have been implemented before the July 4 disaster. But a ProPublica and Texas Tribune analysis of legislative proposals, along with interviews with lawmakers and flood experts, found that the Legislature has repeatedly failed to enact key measures that would help communities prepare for frequent flooding.

Such inaction often hits rural and economically disadvantaged communities hardest because they lack the tax base to fund major flood prevention projects and often cannot afford to produce the data they need to qualify for state and federal grants, environmental experts and lawmakers said.

Over the years, legislators have declined to pass at least three bills that would create siren or alert systems, tools experts say can be especially helpful in rural communities that lack reliable internet and cell service. A 2019 state-commissioned report estimated flood prevention needs at over $30 billion. Since then, lawmakers have allocated just $1.4 billion. And they ignored the key recommendations from the state’s 2024 flood plan that are meant to help rural areas like Kerr County, which is dubbed “Flash Flood Alley” due to its geography.

Spokespeople for Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, did not answer questions about why the plan’s recommendations were overlooked but defended the Legislature’s investment in flood mitigation as significant. They pointed to millions more spent on other prevention efforts, including flood control dam construction and maintenance, regional flood projects, and increased floodplain disclosures and drainage requirements for border counties. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick did not respond to questions.

This week, the Legislature will convene for a special session that Abbott called to address a range of priorities, including flood warning systems, natural disaster preparation and relief funding. Patrick promised that the state would purchase warning sirens for counties in flash flood zones. Similar efforts, however, have previously been rejected by the Legislature. Alongside Burrows, Patrick also announced the formation of committees on disaster preparedness and flooding and called the move “just the beginning of the Legislature looking at every aspect of this tragic event.” Burrows said the House is “ready to better fortify our state against future disasters.”

But Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos, a Democrat from Richardson, near Dallas, said state lawmakers have brushed off dire flood prevention needs for decades.

“The manual was there, and we ignored it, and we've continued to ignore these recommendations,” said Rodríguez Ramos, who has served on the House Natural Resources Committee overseeing water issues for three sessions. “It’s performative to say we’re trying to do something knowing well we’re not doing enough.”

One recommendation from the 2024 flood plan would have cost the state nothing to enact. It called for granting counties the authority to levy drainage fees, including in unincorporated areas, that could fund local flood projects. Only about 150 of 1,450 Texas cities and counties have dedicated drainage fees, according to a study cited in the state assessment.

Kerr, a conservative county of 53,000 people, has struggled to gain support for projects that would raise taxes. About a week after the flooding, some residents protested when county commissioners discussed a property tax increase to help cover the costs of recovery efforts.

The inability to raise such fees is one of the biggest impediments for local governments seeking to fund flood mitigation projects, said Robert R. Puente, a Democrat and former state representative who once chaired the state committee responsible for water issues. Lawmakers’ resistance to such efforts is rooted in fiscal conservatism, said Puente, who now heads the San Antonio Water System.

“It’s mostly because of a philosophy that the leadership in Austin has right now, that under no circumstances are we going to raise taxes, and under most circumstances we’re not even going to allow local governments to have control over how they raise taxes or implement fees,” he said.

Another one of the flood plan’s recommendations called for lawmakers to allocate money for a technical assistance program to help underresourced and rural governments better manage flood prone areas, which requires implementing a slew of standards to ensure safe development in those hazardous zones. Doing this work requires local officials to collect accurate mapping that shows the risk of flooding. Passing this measure could have helped counties like Kerr with that kind of data collection, which the plan recognized is especially challenging for rural and economically disadvantaged communities.

Insufficient information impacts Texas’s ability to fully understand flood risks statewide. The water board’s plan, for example, includes roughly 600 infrastructure projects across Texas in need of completion. But its report acknowledged that antiquated or missing data meant another 3,100 assessments would be required to know whether additional projects are needed.

In the Guadalupe River region, which includes Kerr County, 65% of areas lacked adequate flood mapping. Kerrville, the county seat, was listed among the areas identified as having the “greatest known flood risks and mitigation needs.” Yet of the 19 flood needs specific to the city and county, only three were included in the state plan’s list of 600. They included requests to install backup generators in critical facilities and repair low-water crossings, which are shallow points in streets where rainwater can pool to dangerous levels.

At least 16 other priorities, including the county’s desire for an early warning flood system and potential dam or drainage system repairs, required a follow-up evaluation, according to the state plan. County officials tried to obtain grants for the early warning systems for years, to no avail.

Gonzales County, an agriculture-rich area of 20,000 people along the Guadalupe River, is among the rural communities struggling to obtain funding, said emergency management director Jimmy Harless, who is also the county’s fire marshal. The county is in desperate need of a siren system and additional gauges to measure the river’s potentially dangerous flood levels, Harless said, but doesn’t have the resources, personnel or expertise to apply for the “burdensome” state grant process.

“It is extremely frustrating for me to know that there’s money there and there’s people that care, but our state agency has become so bureaucratic that it’s just not feasible for us,” Harless said. “Our folks’ lives are more important than what some bureaucrat wants us to do.”

For years, Texas leaders have focused more on cleaning up after disasters than on preparing for them, said Jim Blackburn, a professor at Rice University specializing in environmental law and flooding issues.

“It’s no secret that the Guadalupe is prone to flash flooding. That’s been known for decades,” Blackburn said. “The state has been very negligent about kind of preparing us for, frankly, the worst storms of the future that we are seeing today because of climate change, and what’s changing is that the risks are just greater today and will be even greater tomorrow, because our storms are getting worse and worse.”

At a news conference this month, Abbott said state committees would investigate “ways to address this,” though he declined to offer specifics. When pressed by a reporter about where the blame for the lack of preparedness should fall, Abbott responded that it was “the word choice of losers.”

It shouldn’t have taken the Hill Country flooding for a special session addressing emergency systems and funding needs, said Usman Mahmood, a policy analyst at Bayou City Waterkeeper, a Houston nonprofit that advocates for flood protection measures.

“The worst part pretty much already happened, which is the flooding and the loss of life,” he said. “Now it’s a reaction to that.”

Misty Harris contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Lexi Churchill and Lomi Kriel, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

From afar, it would be easy, even tempting, to think that the floods like these could never happen to you. That the disaster is remote. 

It’s not. 

As details of the tragedy have come into focus, the list of contributing factors has grown. Sudden downpours, driven by climate change. The lack of a comprehensive warning system to notify people that the Guadalupe river was rising rapidly. Rampant building in areas known to flood, coupled with  incomplete information about what places might be at risk. ’ 

 These are the same elements that could trigger a Kerr County-type of catastrophe in every state in the country. It’s a reality that has played out numerous times already in recent years, with flooding in Vermont, Kentucky, North Carolina and elsewhere, leaving grief and billions of dollars in destruction in its wake. 

“Kerr County is an extreme example of what’s happening everywhere,” said Robert Freudenberg, vice president of energy and environmental programs at the Regional Planning Association. “People are at risk because of it and there’s more that we need to be doing.”

The most obvious problem is we keep building in areas prone to flooding. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, produces readily available maps showing high-risk locales. Yet, according to the latest data from the nonprofit climate research firm First Street Foundation, 7.9 million homes and other structures stand in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area, which designates a location with 1 percent or greater chance of being inundated in any given year.

FEMA Flood Zone Top Ten

In Louisiana, a nation-leading 23 percent of properties are located in a FEMA flood zone. In Florida, it’s about 17 percent. Arkansas, New Mexico and Nebraska are perhaps less expected members of the top ten, as is New Jersey, which, with New York City, saw torrential rain and flooding that killed two people earlier this month.

Texas ranks seventh in the country, with about 800,000 properties, or roughly 6.5 percent of the state’s total, sitting in a flood zone. Kerr County officials have limited authority to keep people from building in these areas, but even when governments have the ability to prevent risky building projects, they historically haven’t. Although one study found that some areas are finally beginning to curb floodplain development, people keep building in perilous places.

“There’s an innate draw to the water that we have, but we need to know where the limits are,” said Freudenberg. “In places that are really dangerous, we need to work towards getting people out of harm’s way.”

Kerr County sits in a region known as Flash Flood Alley and at least four cabins at Camp Mystic sat in an extremely hazardous “floodway” and numerous others stood in the path of a 100-year flood. When the Christian summer camp for girls underwent an expansion in 2019, the owners built even more cabins in the water’s path. 

“It’s an unwillingness to think about what future — and the present — have in store for us,” said Rob Moore, the director of the Water & Climate Team at the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, about Americans’ tradition of floodplain development. ”It’s a reluctance to own up to the reality we live in.” 

Many people don’t even know they are in harm’s way. According to NRDC, 14 states have no flood disclosure laws and, in eight, they deem the  laws ‘inadequate.’ FEMA maps are also flawed. For one, they can be politically influenced, with homeowners and communities often lobbying to be excluded in order to avoid insurance mandates and potential building costs. And experts say the science underpinning the maps is lagging too.

“[FEMA] only maps main river channels and coastal storm surge areas,” explained Jeremy Porter, the head of climate implications research at First Street Foundation. The agency, he added, specifically doesn’t model heavy rainfall, isn’t great about indicating the risk of urban flooding, and is behind on accounting for climate change. 

First Street Flood Zone Top Ten

First Street built a flood model that tries to fill in those gaps. It found that 17.7 million people are at risk of a 100-year flood, a number that’s more than double what FEMA’s hazard area covers.The state rankings also change, with mountainous areas susceptible to inland flash-flooding jumping up the list. West Virginia moves into first, with a staggering 30 percent of properties built in flood prone areas. Kentucky climbs from 19th to sixth.

Texas remains at seventh, but the portion of properties at risk goes to 15 percent. In Kerr County, FEMA’s maps showed 2,560 properties (6.5 percent) in a flood zone. First Street’s model nearly doubled that.

“There’s a ton of unknown risk across the country,” said Porter, who says better maps are among the most important goals that policy makers can and should work toward. First Street has partnered with the real estate website Redfin to include climate risk metrics in its listings. 

Rob Moore says political will is essential to making that type of systemic change when it comes to not only flooding, but other climate risks, such as wildfires or coastal erosion. Strengthening  building codes and restricting development in high-risk areas will require similar fortitude.

“Governments and states don’t want to tell developers to not put things in a wetland, not put things in a floodplain,” he said. “We should be telling people don’t put them in a flatland, don’t build in a way that your home is going to be more susceptible to wildfire.” 

Until then, hundreds of communities across the country could — and likely will — be the next Kerr County. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Kerr County’s tragic flood wasn’t an outlier. It was a preview. on Jul 21, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Tik Root.

RNZ Nine To Noon

Auckland film maker Paula Whetu Jones has spent nearly two decades working pro bono on a feature film about the Auckland cardiac surgeon Alan Kerr, which is finally now in cinemas.

She is best known for co-writing and directing Whina, the feature film about Dame Whina Cooper.

She filmed Dr Kerr and his wife Hazel in 2007, when he led a Kiwi team to Gaza and the West Bank to operate on children with heart disease.

• LISTEN: Go to RNZ podcast player
• READ MORE: Reports of Israeli casualties in Rafah blast and media blackout, as strikes kill 16 in Gaza

What started as a two-week visit became a 20 year commitment, involving 40 medical missions to Gaza and the West Bank and hundreds of operations.

Paula Whetu Jones self-funded six trips to document the work and the result is the feature film The Doctor’s Wife, now being screened free in communities around the country.

20 years of inspirational work in Palestine

Pacific Media Watch reports that Paula Whetu Jones writes on her film’s website:

I met Alan and Hazel Kerr in 2006 and became inspired by their selflessness and dedication. I wanted to learn more about them and shine a light on their achievements.

I’ve been trying to highlight social issues through documentary film making for 25 years. I have always struggled to obtain funding and this project was no different. We provided most of the funding but it wouldn’t have been possible to complete it without the generosity of a small number of donors.

Others gave of their time and expertise.

Our initial intention was to follow Dr Alan in his work in the West Bank and Gaza but we also developed a very special relationship with Hazel.

While Dr Alan was operating, Hazel took herself all over the West Bank and Gaza, volunteering to help in refugee camps, schools and community centres. We tagged along and realised that Dr Alan and his work was the heart of the film but Hazel was the soul. Hence, the title became The Doctor’s Wife.

I was due to return to Palestine in 2010 when on the eve of my departure I was struck down by a rare auto immune condition which left me paralysed. It wasn’t until 2012 that I was able to return to Palestine.

Wheelchair made things hard
However, being in a wheelchair made everything near on impossible, not to mention my mental state which was not conducive to being creative. In 2013, tragedy struck again when my 22-year-old son died, and I shut down for a year.

Again, the project seemed so far away, destined for the shelf. Which is where it sat for the next few years while I tried to figure out how to live in a wheelchair and support myself and my daughter.

The project was re-energised when I made two arts documentaries in Palestine, making sure we filmed Alan while we were there and connecting with a NZ trauma nurse who was also filming.

By 2022, we knew we needed to complete the doco. We started sorting through many years of footage in different formats, getting the interviews transcribed and edited. The last big push was in 2023. We raised funds and got a few people to help with the logistics.

I spent six months with three editors and then we used the rough cut to do one last fundraiser that helped us over the line, finally finishing it in March of 2025.

Our documentary shows the humanity of everyday Palestinians, pre-2022, as told through the eyes of a retired NZ heart surgeon, his wife and two committed female film makers who were told in 2006 that no one cares about old people, sick Palestinian children or Palestine.

They were wrong. We cared and maybe you do, too.

What is happening in 2025 means it’s even more important now for people to see the ordinary people of Palestine

Dr Alan and his wife, Hazel are now 90 and 85 years old respectively. They are the most wonderfully humble humans. Their work over 20 years is nothing short of inspiring.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.