\n<\/p>\n
In late September 2000, longtime Kerr County, Texas, resident W. Thornton Secor Jr. sat down with an oral historian to tell his story. Like many of the residents recorded as part of a decadeslong effort by the Kerr County Historical Commission to document the community\u2019s history, Secor had a lot to say about the area\u2019s floods.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt always seems to happen at night too,\u201d Secor said of local floods he and his family had experienced. \u201cCan\u2019t see most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Secor, who died in 2022, was a third-generation manager of a lodge that still operates along the Guadalupe River. His oral history shares family memories of floods going back to 1932 \u2014 like the time a flood that year washed away most of the cabins his grandfather built.<\/p>\n
Now, Secor\u2019s daughter, Mandi Secor Lipscomb, is left considering the future of the lodge in the aftermath of another devastating flood, on July 4. Secor Lipscomb is the fourth-generation owner and operator of the same lodge, Waltonia on the River.<\/p>\n
Often when I try to understand a place or process a big news event, I look for records kept by local historical societies and libraries. In archived documents, preserved photographs and oral history collections, one can start to see how a community understands itself. So, as news reports about the floods in the Central Texas Hill Country poured in throughout the week, I went looking for historical context. What local knowledge is held by people who live, or have lived, in what\u2019s repeatedly described as \u201cFlash Flood Alley\u201d? How have people in Kerr County\u2019s past contended with floods of their own time?<\/p>\n
A trove of more than 70 oral histories recorded by the Kerr County Historical Commission begins to answer those questions. The recordings document memories of floods going back to 1900, but oral histories alone rarely tell a full or accurate story. Still, there\u2019s at least one conclusion to draw: Everything has a history. The flood that killed more than 130 people in the Kerr County area this month is not the first time a flash flood on the Guadalupe River took lives of people, including children.<\/p>\n
The front page of a local newspaper, the Kerrville Daily Times, on July 20, 1987. A flash flood killed 10 campers as they tried to evacuate.<\/span><\/p>\n I keep this history in mind when I hear local and state officials say no one could have seen this coming. Take this exchange between a reporter and Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly:<\/p>\n Reporter:<\/strong> Why weren\u2019t these camps evacuated?<\/p>\n Kelly:<\/strong> I can\u2019t answer that. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n Reporter:<\/strong> Well you\u2019re the judge. I mean you\u2019re the top official here in this county. Why can\u2019t you answer that? There are kids missing. These camps were in harm\u2019s way. We knew this flood was coming.<\/p>\n Kelly:<\/strong> We didn\u2019t know this flood was coming. Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming. We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States. And we deal with floods on a regular basis. When it rains, we get water. We had no reason to believe that this was gonna be anything like what\u2019s happened here. None whatsoever.<\/p>\n My colleague Jennifer Berry Hawes wrote last week about the uncanny similarities between the Texas floods and Hurricane Helene, which struck North Carolina last year. In both disasters, weather forecasts predicted the potential devastation, yet people were left in harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n And as another colleague, ProPublica editor Abrahm Lustgarten, pointed out in a piece about how climate change is making disasters like the flood in Texas more common, \u201cthere will be tireless \u2014 and warranted \u2014 analysis of who is to blame for this heart-wrenching loss\u201d in the weeks to come.<\/p>\n \u201cShould Kerr County, where most of the deaths occurred, have installed warning sirens along that stretch of the waterway, and why were children allowed to sleep in an area prone to high-velocity flash flooding?\u201d Lustgarten wrote. \u201cWhy were urgent updates apparently only conveyed by cellphone and online in a rural area with limited connectivity?\u201d<\/p>\n As we wait for answers \u2014 or as journalists dig for them \u2014 the oral histories show Kerr County residents have warned one another, as well as newcomers and out-of-towners, about flooding for a long time. In his 2000 oral history, Secor said he remembered a time in the spring of 1959 when his father tried to warn one new-to-town woman about building a house so close to the river.<\/p>\n \u201cHe took her out and showed her the watermarks on the trees in front of our house and all,\u201d Secor said, likely referring to the watermarks from the flood of 1932, which a local newspaper described at the time as \u201cthe most disastrous flood that ever swept the upper Guadalupe Valley.\u201d The flood killed at least seven people.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Oh,\u2019 she says, \u2018that will never happen again,\u2019\u201d Secor recalled. <\/p>\n He said her body was found in a tree a few months later after a flood swept her and the roof she stood on away. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to surprise newcomers when we get another flood like the \u201932 flood,\u201d Secor said in 2000.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019ll get us again someday.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Some Texas Officials Didn\u2019t Respond to Flood Alerts, Echoing the Tragedies of Hurricane Helene<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n The Texas Flash Flood Is a Preview of the Chaos to Come<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n As the Guadalupe River rose over the July 4 weekend, the 16-cabin lodge his daughter owns was sold out and full of guests. All of them escaped the floods, said Secor Lipscomb. They ran, some barefoot in the mud, up a steep hill beyond the property\u2019s retaining wall. They took shelter in a barn.<\/p>\n Later, Secor Lipscomb assessed the damage to her family property. What she saw left her in tears: Four cabins had water up to the ceiling. Another two had flooded about 5 feet. But among the wreckage was a crew of nearly 40 volunteers, ready to help with the cleanup.<\/p>\n By the time I reached out to her to ask her about her father\u2019s oral history, six cabins and the main camp office were already demolished. <\/p>\n The cabin her great-grandfather and grandfather built together more than 100 years ago still stood. But it won\u2019t for much longer. It is so damaged with water that it, too, will have to go. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is our family history, our family legacy,\u201d Secor Lipscomb told me. \u201cOf course we\u2019re going to rebuild.\u201d<\/p>\n When they do, their customers will be ready. Many of the families who survived the flood already told her they\u2019ll be first in line to book for the next available July 4.<\/p>\n
\n Credit: <\/span>
\n Kerrville Daily Times via Newspapers.com
\n <\/span><\/p>\n