Catholics mobilize aid after historic flash floods devastate Texas Hill Country

San Antonio, Texas, Jul 5, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

Catholics are responding with prayers and aid after record-breaking flash floods in central Texas devastated communities along the area’s rivers and killed multiple people. 

The flash flooding began in the early hours of July 4. Heavy rainfall filled the creeks that emptied into the several rivers that wind through the normally arid hills known as the Texas Hill Country, located north and west of San Antonio and Austin.

“At this time it is unknown how many have been affected by rising water levels along rivers and creeks,” the Archdiocese of San Antonio said in a Friday statement.  

“It is our prayer that those impacted by the floods will find the strength to rebuild. We pledge to be with the people in these challenging circumstances. Let us answer Christ’s call to love one another.”

On July 4, the Catholic Charities Mobile Relief Unit turned Notre Dame Church in Kerrville into a shelter where evacuees can find food and water as well as clothing and other supplies, the archdiocese said.

Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller and Bishop Michael Boulette traveled to Kerrville on July 4 as well to minister to victims of the flooding.

‘Totally destroyed’

The Guadalupe River near Kerrville, Texas rose so quickly that the National Weather Service’s evacuation orders were not issued in time to evacuate. The river swelled over 22 feet in half an hour around 4 a.m. on July 4, according to local officials, devastating parts of the towns of Hunt, Kerrville, and Comfort. 

The river washed away RV parks, cars, homes, and entire cabins at summer camps located along its banks. The total number of missing people is still unknown because of the large number of visitors to area rivers due to the Fourth of July weekend. 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a disaster for several counties on July 4, deploying more than 500 first responders, 14 helicopters, boats, high water vehicles, and drones. Over 237 people have been rescued so far.

Abbott pledged at a press conference in Kerrville on Friday that rescuers “will stop at nothing” to find every victim of the catastrophic flooding. 

A girls’ Christian summer camp in the area, Camp Mystic, reported more than 23 people missing, including an entire cabin of 8- and 9- year-old girls, who are feared to have perished.

Social media was filled with images of the missing young girls on July 4. By the evening, reports began to come in of the recovery of several bodies, including some of the young girls. Rescue efforts continued throughout the night and into the morning of July 5.

Camp Mystic director Dick Eastland is also reported to have perished after attempting to rescue some of the campers, according to a parent of a camper who wishes to remain anonymous. 

One camper said she was “heartbroken” and grateful to be alive, describing the camp as “totally destroyed” after her safe return to her home in Houston in the early hours of July 5.

Henry Chaudoir, 12, who was rescued from Camp La Junta, a boys’ camp in Hunt, told CNA he had prayed a decade of the rosary and the St. Michael prayer the night before the flood. He said he and his fellow campers felt “terrified” when flashes of lightning revealed “an ocean of water” covering the camp. He said he was grateful to God to be alive.

Chaudoir’s cousin, Jackson Adams, 18, a counselor at Camp La Junta, told CNA that he and all the other counselors decided to stay in their cabins as the water rose because of the strong current outside. 

Adams, whose 13 year-old brother Harris was also rescued from the camp, said the water “only went up to our waists in our cabin” before starting to recede. He told CNA, however, that it rose to the ceiling in another cabin filled with 7- to 9-year-old boys. The counselors lifted the boys onto the rafters, rescuing several who fell off after a wall collapsed.

Adams said the swiftly moving river carried away the Casita, a cabin that housed Camp La Junta staff. After the Casita collided with the cabin in which the boys were sitting in the rafters, it made a hole which enabled the staff from the Casita to rescue the boys. All of them survived.

“Praise the Lord the Casita hit the cabin!” Chaudoir said.

Adams said he plans to return to Camp La Junta to assist with rescue efforts.

One man in the town of Center Point heard a 22-year-old woman crying for help in the early hours of July 4 and called rescue workers, who plucked her from a tree she had clung to after reportedly floating more than 20 miles on the raging Guadalupe river from Hunt.

The flooding is the result of a slow-moving storm system that dumped 10–15 inches of rain on the Texas Hill Country, with some areas seeing up to 20 inches. 

The rivers continued to rise through the holiday. In the early hours of Saturday, July 5, the Guadalupe River rose to a record 47.4 feet in Bergheim, TX, about 50 miles from Kerrville.

The Llano and San Saba rivers have also risen, leading to evacuations of towns along their banks.

Tina and Luke Gunter, who live near the San Saba river about two hours north of Kerrville, had to evacuate their home after quickly rising waters dislodged part of their home and carried it away.

Neighbors allowed the Gunters, who have three young children, to stay in their guest house overnight, and other friends began to bring the family meals and offered other supplies.

The Gunters plan to repair their home, which they built themselves, as soon as possible.

“We will have a lot of work to do,” Tina told CNA. 

“But we are grateful we are all ok. It’s just a house. Better to lose a house than a child,” she said.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/265203/catholics-mobilize-aid-response-after-historic-flash-floods-devastate-texas-hill-country