Texas Hill Country Floods Kill Two As Record Rain Swamps Kerrville, Uvalde And Guadalupe River Communities
The Texas Hill Country is confronting another catastrophic flood emergency, barely one year after surging water devastated communities along the Guadalupe River. At least two people have died, hundreds have been rescued, homes have been flooded and major roads have disappeared beneath fast-moving brown water.
What we are witnessing is not an exact replay of the July 2025 tragedy. This storm has spread extraordinary rainfall across a wider area and kept rivers rising through several consecutive days rather than delivering a single overwhelming surge. Yet for families in Kerrville, Uvalde, Ingram, Comfort and surrounding communities, the result has been frighteningly familiar: midnight evacuations, submerged vehicles, damaged businesses and another uncertain recovery.
Two People Killed as Floodwaters Sweep Away Homes and Vehicles
One victim was identified by his family as 65-year-old John Mark Steward of Kerrville. His wife, Jennie Steward, said their elevated mobile home was torn from its platform and carried down Goat Creek after water rose rapidly overnight.
Jennie Steward was visiting her parents when a neighbor called to say her husband was missing. The couple had spoken on Wednesday while celebrating their third wedding anniversary. “It’s really hard that I wasn’t there with him,” she said after his body was found Thursday.
The second victim was driving near Uvalde when floodwater overtook the road and swept the vehicle away, according to state officials. Authorities had not publicly released that victim’s identity in the latest official accounts.
Both deaths underline the greatest immediate danger during flash flooding: attempting to travel on water-covered roads. Floodwater can hide washed-out pavement, carry debris and exert enough force to move cars, recreational vehicles and trucks before occupants have time to escape.
Nearly 28 Inches of Rain Falls in the Hardest-Hit Areas
The scale of the rainfall has been staggering. Preliminary totals compiled by the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center showed more than 27 inches near the Dry Frio River and Camp Eagle between Monday afternoon and Friday morning.
Ingram recorded more than 25 inches, Leakey received 23.37 inches and monitoring sites around Kerrville reported totals exceeding 20 inches. Several communities received in a few days an amount of rain comparable to what they would normally expect over many months.
These totals were produced by a slow-moving pattern that repeatedly carried moisture-rich storms across the same counties. At times, rainfall continued at rates approaching one inch per hour, while isolated storms were capable of producing more than two inches in an hour.
Nearly one trillion gallons of rain fell across the three counties experiencing some of the most intense conditions, according to an analysis cited by The Associated Press. Uvalde County alone received more rainfall over three days than the entire state of California had recorded during the previous month.
Why the Texas Hill Country Floods So Quickly
The beauty of the Texas Hill Country is inseparable from the geography that makes it dangerous during extreme rain. Limestone hills are covered by relatively thin soil, limiting the amount of water the ground can absorb after repeated downpours.
Once that shallow soil becomes saturated, new rainfall rushes downhill and pours into creeks and narrow river channels. Water levels can rise by several feet in minutes, giving residents, campers and motorists little time to react.
Meteorologists said hot air over the central United States helped slow the storm system while abundant atmospheric moisture supplied repeated rounds of rain. Some storms produced several inches per hour as they passed over already saturated terrain.
Experts have cautioned against assigning a single active storm entirely to climate change. However, a warmer atmosphere can retain more moisture, and the weather patterns that stall rain-producing storms could become more common as temperatures rise.
More Than 230 Rescues Conducted Across Flooded Texas Counties
Emergency personnel carried out at least 230 rescues by Thursday afternoon. Operations involved boats, high-clearance vehicles, drones, rescue swimmers and helicopters capable of lifting stranded residents from rooftops, homes and vehicles.
One operation rescued a man and his dog from a truck using a helicopter and a rescue swimmer. Texas Game Wardens had rescued close to 150 people by Thursday afternoon, including children removed from homes surrounded by rising water.
Texas deployed more than 2,350 emergency responders and approximately 1,400 vehicles and pieces of equipment. The response included Black Hawk helicopters, swift-water rescue boats and aircraft searching areas that could not be safely reached by road.
“Protecting life remains our top priority,” Abbott said while warning that catastrophic flooding remained the state’s primary danger. State officials ordered emergency agencies to remain fully engaged and support local authorities wherever additional resources were needed.
The rescue effort was particularly intense in Uvalde County, where floodwater cut off neighborhoods and surrounded homes. Game Wardens evacuated one multigenerational family, including children, an elderly relative and two dogs, by boat after arriving at the family’s door Thursday morning.
New Flood Sirens Face Their First Major Emergency Test
This flood has also become the first major test of warning upgrades installed after the 2025 disaster. Eight sirens were placed west of Ingram during April and May, with equipment positioned on tall poles and designed to operate through separate power and communication systems.
The sirens sounded during a real flood emergency for the first time Thursday. Abbott said one siren failed to activate during its first automatic trigger but sounded roughly five minutes later after a second alert.
Kerr County has committed more than $16 million toward warning systems, river gauges, emergency communications and related improvements. Much of the planned work remains incomplete, but officials said most of the systems already in place performed as intended.
The upgrades are designed to provide first responders with river and rainfall information as frequently as every five minutes. Older monitoring equipment in some locations supplied updates only once every 30 minutes, a major difference when water can rise several feet during that period.
Some residents said the increased number of warnings helped them react sooner. Mandatory evacuations began in several threatened areas, campground occupants were moved from riverfront locations and summer camps reported that their children were safe.
The systems cannot stop a river from overflowing, but they can buy precious minutes. In a region where the landscape can transform ordinary rainfall into a violent surge, those minutes may determine whether a family reaches higher ground before a road or doorway becomes impassable.
The Shadow of the Deadly July 2025 Flood Remains
The new flooding arrived just over one year after the July Fourth disaster of 2025 killed at least 135 people across Texas. Twenty-seven campers and counselors, most of them children, were killed at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River.
The 2025 flood struck with exceptional speed, rising dramatically during the night and sweeping through camps, houses, recreational vehicle parks and riverfront properties. Investigations that followed examined delayed warnings, limited monitoring, emergency coordination and the absence of a comprehensive siren network in the hardest-hit areas.
This year’s disaster unfolded differently. Rain fell over a wider region and, in many places, at lower hourly intensities, but it continued for days. The prolonged rainfall left soils saturated and repeatedly pushed new runoff into rivers that had little opportunity to fall.
The psychological effect is harder to measure. Residents who survived last year’s flood described waking whenever heavy rain began, checking doors and windows to see whether water was rising again.
For businesses in Ingram and Kerrville, the financial blow is also compounding. Some stores damaged in 2025 had not reopened before this week’s water arrived, placing a second disaster on top of an unfinished recovery.
Flood Threat Shifts as Kerrville and Uvalde Begin Cleanup
By Friday, water had receded enough for cleanup work to begin in portions of Uvalde and other heavily affected communities. Roads were gradually reopening, but mud, damaged vehicles, fallen trees and debris remained across neighborhoods.
The emergency was not over. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency for Sonora in Sutton County, where the Dry Devils River was approaching the top of its banks, and residents in vulnerable areas were urged to evacuate. Flood warnings also remained active downstream from the hardest-hit counties.
Approximately six million Texans were placed under flood watches during the storm. Although rainfall was tapering in parts of Kerr and Uvalde counties, saturated ground meant even a smaller additional storm could produce renewed flooding.
Texas now faces two simultaneous tasks: protecting communities still threatened by rising rivers and beginning another costly recovery in places that had scarcely finished the last one. The improved alerts and large emergency deployment appear to have prevented a death toll approaching the scale of 2025, but two lost lives and hundreds of rescues show how narrow the margin of safety remains.
The Texas Hill Country cannot eliminate extreme rain or reshape its limestone valleys. What it can do is strengthen river monitoring, complete warning projects, protect flood-prone development and ensure every resident knows where to go before the next siren sounds.
