At least two people have died in catastrophic flooding across Texas Hill Country, where the same region’s Guadalupe River overflowed a little over a year ago and killed over 130 people. The water is back. So is the wreckage. And once again, ordinary people are the ones getting swept into the current while officials talk about response after the fact.
Who Pays When the Water Rises
USA TODAY reported the deaths on July 17, 2026, at 9:07 a.m. ET. Gov. Greg Abbott said on July 16 that a male near the city of Comfort died after being swept away in an RV, and a female in Uvalde was swept away by floodwaters while driving on a road. Abbott did not release the victims’ identities or ages. That silence hangs over the whole disaster. The state counts the dead, but the dead remain unnamed.
Jennie Steward told the Associated Press that one of the victims was her husband, 65-year-old John Mark Steward of Kerrville. She said she was away visiting her parents when she heard from a neighbor that their mobile home had been swept away. “It’s really hard that I wasn’t there with him,” she told the AP, adding that they had just celebrated their third anniversary. A family’s loss lands in a sentence. The machinery of emergency management keeps moving.
Extreme rainfall in the last few days has totaled near 2 feet in some areas of Texas Hill Country, according to totals from the Weather Prediction Center. In Leakey, Texas, 23.37 inches have fallen since Monday afternoon. At one recording station in Kerrville, hit hard by storms in July 2025, 20.71 inches of rain have fallen. The numbers are brutal, and they’re local. This isn’t some abstract weather map. It’s homes, roads, and lives getting crushed under water.
The Apparatus of Rescue
Abbott said more than 230 water rescues have been performed since flooding began. There were 2,350 emergency responders working on flood response, and about 1,400 vehicles including helicopters, rescue boats and high-profile vehicles had been deployed, he said. Texas Game Wardens said they have been involved in rescues from homes, submerged vehicles and cars swept off roads. They shared video of a responder carrying a small child wearing a life vest and snorkel goggles through floodwaters and into a waiting boat. Another video showed a rescue by helicopter.
Officials urged residents not to drive on any roads covered by water. That warning arrives after the roads are already underwater, after vehicles are already submerged, after people are already being pulled from the flood. The state’s language is always the same: urge, deploy, activate, respond.
Most of the rain has been concentrated in Uvalde, Kinney, Bandera, Kerr and Gillespie counties, where widespread totals were between 6 and 13 inches, Abbott said on July 16. More heavy rain is expected on July 17 due to a slow-moving weather pattern, the National Weather Service said. Fifty-nine Texas counties were under a flood watch, Abbott said on July 16. The scale is wide, and the burden spreads downward fast.
Last Year’s Warning, This Year’s Flood
Flooding just over a year ago, over the night and early morning of July 4, 2025, caused the Guadalupe River to pour into surrounding communities, killing more than 130 people, including 28 at a Christian summer camp for girls, Camp Mystic. Abbott said the lessons learned from that flooding event have served to prevent more catastrophe this time, though the behavior of the water along riverfront campgrounds is different than it was then. Abbott said early on, over 80 people were cleared from campgrounds.
Flood warning systems installed after the 2025 flooding were activated, he said. That’s the official answer: systems, warnings, clearances, rescues. But the river still surged. The Nueces River near Uvalde reached a record crest of 28.01 feet on July 16, according to preliminary data, breaking a record of 24.88 feet set in 1996. Abbott said the Nueces was expected to reach two times the flow of Niagara Falls. Photos from Kerrville show water from the Guadalupe River covering roads and downed trees. Video shared by Texas Game Wardens showed vehicles submerged and being swept away in water.
The flood keeps exposing the same old hierarchy. People at the bottom lose homes, vehicles, and family members. Officials at the top count rescues, issue warnings, and claim the lessons are working while the water keeps proving who actually bears the cost.