River of Angels, River of Tears

I am forgoing the usual IWSG participation because... I am in the Virgin Islands for the month of August and because I have to say something about July. And I've debated with myself about what to say and how much.

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   This is a long post.

The placid Guadeloupe River, looking west. This is right in downtown Kerrville.
The park, were our 4th of July celebration was to be held, is to the left.

This is the same view. July 4th, 2025.
The river rose from 0 to 27 feet in 30 to 45 minutes.
In some places, estimates say it rose as high as 50 feet.

I don't know how many of you realize that I live in Kerrville, Texas. Yes, that Kerrville. The one that got hit by that devasting flood on July 4th.

3 trillion gallons of water flowed into the Guadeloupe in just a few hours. It takes 1.5 months for that amount of water to flow over Niagara Falls.

It was strange being on the national and world news. Of course as with all things, and with attention spans being what they are, the spotlight will move on to other dramas while we live with the day to day reality of what happened here. 

The river basin is so changed, so scarred... I won't see it recover in my life time. It will take a long time for all the debris to be removed. I don't think any of us will ever be able to lounge on the banks or look on the waters, once they return to their placid blue-green state, and not feel the loss and perhaps wonder... is this where they found a body? Every inch of the18 miles between Camp Mystic (and even farther upstream) and Kerrville (and further downstream past Center Point and Comfort) is littered with the remains of cars, trucks, RVs, cabins, mobile homes, homes, businesses... and their contents. Mattresses caught in trees 30 feet up. Mangled trash dumpsters. Stuffed animal toys. Jewelry. Photographs. Then there are all the uprooted trees. No video or picture shown on TV comes near to what it looks like in person.

The strangest thing for me is the bizarre experience of driving over the river. 

The Guadeloupe pretty much bisects our town. If you live on the north side and have to bank at Wells Fargo, or want to shop at the mall, or you need to go to the hospital, or you have to get your driver's license renewed, you have to cross the river. If you live on the south side (like I do) and you need to get your car license renewed, or pay your property taxes, or go to the library, or feel like eating Thai food, you have to cross the river. A person can cross the river a dozen times a day just in the normal course of going about one's business. I cross it approximate 4 times a day on the days I work, sometimes more.

The remains of a dumpster.

So here's what's bizarre. I'm driving along, everything's normal. Car dealership, gas stations and minimarts, businesses of all kinds, traffic moving. People doing what people do and it's normal, normal, normal. Then SUDDENLY there's the river and it's death, destruction, terror. Then SUDDENLY, normal, normal, normal. The bridge is a scant .4 miles in length and it's within that space that everything happened, that lives changed. Normal, normal, normal, death destruction, terror, normal, normal, normal. So everyday any of us going about our business is slapped in the face as we cross the river. Normal, normal, normal, death, destruction, terror, normal, normal, normal.

There are lots of questions about why this happened and there is plenty of blame that can be shared by local, state, federal officials and government, all of whom, sad to say, are republicans. The systematic defunding and cutting of NOAA and FEMA has not helped. Kristi Noem didn't sign a release for FEMA funds and people until THREE days later! And because it took so long the chief of FEMA's search and rescue team resigned. He and his team were ready to go, all they needed was the ok, but Noem (and the missing "head" of FEMA) were missing in action. NOAA did it's best, but I didn't get my first phone alert until 8:10 in the morning by which time the river was in full flood and both my husband and I were in complete shock to learn what was happening. I got the news on Facebook for crying out loud!

Conservatives don't like regulations, and Texans in particular hate being told what they can and can't do with their land so, RV parks, summer cottages, homes, businesses, camps were built in KNOWN flood plains. The Guadeloupe is narrow and winds like a snake through a narrow valley. That's one of the things that makes it so pretty,  as well as dangerous. There is one, narrow two-lane road that follows it from Ingram to Hunt and beyond up the North and South forks. Would sirens have been enough to save people? Would people have had time to hook up their RVs, pack up their cars and leave? No. Would all those out of towners and campers have blocked the road? Yes. How do we who live here educated people from Dallas or Wisconsin that the only thing to do when you hear a siren is grab your family and pets, your purse and wallet and head for high ground, NOW? Don't get in your car, don't try to leave in your RV, don't pack up your clothes and food. Literally you have to head for the hills. And to do that all a person has to do is cross the road. There will be a driveway or a road into a subdivision that goes UP almost anywhere along it. If not, scramble up through the bush. How do you educate tourists for a situation like that?

Maybe some day I'll get used to the "normal, normal, normal, death destruction, terror, normal, normal, normal." What I do know for sure, is that this present government failed to do what it could. Not that it could have prevented this from happened entirely, but it has failed to realize that climate change is real, and that denying science comes at the cost of human lives. (Note the floods in New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Illinois, etc. Will these places get the same help and attention that Texas has gotten? And we're only at the beginning of hurricane season... can states like Louisiana or Mississippi afford to pay for any and all clean up and rebuild if they get hit with a CAT 5? I don't think so.) Many people people don't understand what FEMA did. It didn't just hand out tarps, bottled water and food. It comes into a natural disaster area and becomes a kind of umbrella that helps to coordinate all the different organizations that come in to help with clean-up, search and rescue, and anyone who is helping. Without FEMA our small town is struggling to deal with the influx of supplies and people. We are a small example of how bad things will get if a Cat 5 hurricane hits a coastal city.

Many things could have been done on the local level that might might have kept this from becoming the horror it turned into - like keeping the creeks and river as free as possible of dry and dead bush and trees, like dredging out behind the numerous dams when the opportunity arose (as it has during these past 10 years of drought), like putting in a reliable siren/alert system, like not letting people build on flood plains, like educating people on how to survive a flash flood. 

Just this past state legislative session a bill requesting a mere one million dollars for a flood alert system was voted down. Our own state rep voted against it. That money would have come from Texas's "rainy day fund" which is around 26 BILLION dollars. Since the flood, the governor has decided that bill needs to be considered again during the next special session. It was NOT on the list of bills to be considered before the flood... Yet here we are, everyone scrambling to look important and concerned.

One of the only places I've been able to get reliable and accurate news during this awful time has been from our local NPR station. But guess what? To add insult to injury, and for some unknown and insane reason, this administration has seen fit to terminate all funding to both PBS and NPR. Who does that affect? We the people who live in rural places like Kerrville. This administration, and the republicans who comprise it, don't give a flying f**k about us.

I'm sick at heart and mad as hell.

Maybe some day I'll get used to the "normal, normal, normal, death destruction, terror, normal, normal, normal." And... life goes on. The youngest among us and those yet to be born will have no memory of what happened here or what the river and it's lush banks once looked like. This is their normal. They will experience it for what it is. They will play on the new gravel "islands", splash in the new pools, paddle canoes in the new bends river carved out for itself, and not be burdened by the memory of the lives that were lost on that wet, stormy night of the Fourth of July.

River of joy, river of fears.

River of Angels, river of tears. 

Quote of the Month

"Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to reveal a social disaster." Jim Wallis 

Being Thankful

I am thankful my husband and I are safe and unharmed. 

I am thankful to be in Virgin Islands where I can still myself and recharge.