This story was originally published by ProPublica, co-published with The Texas Tribune.
By Emily Foxhall, The Texas Tribune
Joan Connor and David Stearns survived the 2025 floods in Kerr County, Texas, by clinging to the pergola outside their house. Their home flooded again this year.
Texas lawmakers repeatedly failed to take action that could have protected residents in flood-prone areas. That’s left Kerr County residents with difficult choices after two straight summers of flooding.
When deadly flooding swept through the Texas Hill Country in July of last year, Joan Connor and her husband swam and waded out of their home, surviving only by clinging to a pergola in their front yard.
The Guadalupe River flood destroyed most of their possessions. It killed at least 119 people in Kerr County, where the couple live, about 100 miles west of Austin.
But Connor, now 82, and her husband, now 99, moved back into the refurbished house by Christmas, with donated furniture arranged by volunteer decorators.
They didn’t fear another flood. Connor said earlier this year: “We don’t think a thing like that will happen again in our lifetime.”
Last month, almost exactly one year after the last deluge, their house flooded again.
Reporting by the Texas Tribune, working with ProPublica’s Lexi Churchill and Pratheek Rebala, uncovered how Texas lawmakers missed dozens of opportunities over nearly 60 years to protect residents in flood-prone places — including preventing homes from being built in the most dangerous spots along rivers and moving youth camp buildings out of flood-prone areas. Texas is behind more than half of other U.S. states when it comes to passing more stringent elevation rules for buildings at risk of flooding.
Yet research shows more flood deaths have occurred here than in any other state. Texas also has more buildings in flood-prone places than any other state except Florida, according to a nationwide structure analysis. The majority of the people who died in the 2025 Central Texas flood were in one of those places identified as flood-prone by the federal government.
Even after the loss, some homeowners like Connor knew they wanted to rebuild. People have deep, generational ties to this part of the state, where the normally peaceful river winds through limestone under majestic cypress trees. People didn’t want to leave jobs and relationships here, or lose money by selling their land at a loss.
Lawmakers did not change how they regulated where RV parks could be built, though more than 40 people died in two Kerr County RV campgrounds during last year’s flood. They also didn’t change building rules for homes. That means that, unless a local city or county government adopts more stringent standards, properties affected by a flood can be fixed without being brought up to code if the cost to repair them doesn’t amount to half or more of the structure’s value. Homes can be entirely rebuilt in many flood-prone places so long as they are elevated to the height a 100-year flood is expected to reach.
Lawmakers did push through legislation that requires youth camp cabins to be moved away from riverside, flood-prone spots. The law only passed this time after gut-wrenching testimony and advocacy from parents of the 27 campers and counselors who died at Camp Mystic during last summer’s flooding.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office said he has addressed flooding issues by funding mitigation projects to lessen the storms’ impact.
This July, unusually intense rainfall pounded the Kerr County area again. It flooded some of the same spots. One person died. The disaster struck as people in the area were still working to heal emotionally, physically and economically.
Laura Cane, 65, had just reopened her vacation rental house in Center Point three weeks before this year’s flood hit. The water this year caused even more damage than last. But she plans to fix it up again because she sees that as the best financial choice.
Ten days after the flood, volunteers had just helped pull up damaged flooring in Connor’s home. She was desperately trying to save her new piano, which replaced the one she’d lost in last year’s flood. She worried about sleeping in the house because of mold.
Connor and her husband say they still plan to repair the house. Federal, state and county rules will likely allow them to do that. Legislators in interim hearings this year haven’t delved into these bigger development issues, instead focusing on things like the personal responsibility of the Camp Mystic owners.
Even though she’s exhausted from dealing with another flood, moving elsewhere felt like a step too far for Connor. She wants to stay even though a neighbor warned her that the house could face bad flooding again, and Connor believes her.
“We’ll just probably be very cautious if it starts raining in the middle of the night,” she said. “We’ll be hauling ass. I’m not going to live through another flood. I’m just going to get in my truck and head north.”
Said her husband, David Stearns: “Whatever happens, we’ll put up with it.”
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