After Hill Country floods, families face a difficult question: Rebuild, or let go?
They lost homes and summer cabins to the July 4 flood in Kerr County. Now they are weighing whether it makes sense to rebuild. Full Story
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![A drone view along the Guadalupe River on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, in Hunt.]()
Credit: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune -
Texas identifies the 119 people killed in Kerr County floods
Most victims were Texans, but some were visiting from other states like California, Florida and Alabama. The youngest victims were 1 year old; the oldest was 91. Full Story
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![People gather at a memorial for the victims of the Kerr County flood during a vigil on Friday, July 11, 2025, in Kerrville.]()
Credit: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune -
Hundreds of old EV batteries have new jobs in Texas: Stabilizing the power grid
After reaching the end of their automotive lives, the batteries are being reused to provide lower-cost grid energy storage. Full Story
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![580 EV battery packs are deployed in B2U’s SEPV Cuyama energy storage project in Santa Barbara County, Calif. The system charges from on-site solar and from the grid.]()
Credit: Courtesy of B2U Storage Solutions -
Texas House committee discusses flood bills despite standstill
Only one Democrat taking part in the quorum break was absent from the panel as the group discussed five bills and the chair vowed their work would go on. Full Story
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![Texas Repersentives gather for a committee hearing regarding flood relief in the Capitol Extension on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025 in Austin, Texas.]()
Credit: Ronaldo Bolaños/The Texas Tribune -
Kerr County officials failed to follow certain aspects of disaster plan during Texas floods
The five-year-old plan, required by the state, detailed when additional monitoring was to take place and who was responsible for alerting the public to evacuate. Full Story
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![A woman looks at a pile of debris in Hunt on July 8, 2025.]()
Credit: Brenda Bazán for The Texas Tribune -
“Nobody came”: Hill Country flooding survivors recount anguish, neglect during emotional hearing
Residents told state lawmakers about what they’ve lost and the hardships they’re experiencing almost a month after the July 4 disaster devastated the region. Full Story
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![Alicia Jeffrey Baker receives a hug after testifying during a joint committee hearing at Hill Country Youth Event Center on Thursday, July 31, 2025 in Kerrville, Texas. Baker lost her parents Emlyn and Penelope Jeffrey and her daughter Madelyn “Emmy” Jeffrey in the flooding.]()
Credit: Ronaldo Bolaños/The Texas Tribune -
Top two Kerr County emergency officials say they were asleep as July 4 floods struck
Their statements to state legislators marked the first time county officials have spoken publicly about what they were doing the morning of the disaster that killed more than 100 people in the county. Full Story
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![People listen in to a panel of local Kerr County officials testify during a joint committee hearing at the Hill Country Youth Event Center in Kerrville on Thursday, July 31, 2025.]()
Credit: Ronaldo Bolaños/The Texas Tribune -
As the floods hit, Kerrville officials’ messages show lack of information about what was coming
Lawmakers plan to hear testimony Thursday in Kerr County. Questions remain about how state and local entities responded to flood warnings. Full Story
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![A July 5 aerial view of toppled trees near Hunt reveal the scope of the devastating July 4th flood in Kerr Co. Texts and emails show local officials were slow to grasp the severity of the disaster.]()
Credit: Brenda Bazán for The Texas Tribune -
Feds move to eliminate petrochemical watchdog, putting Texans and others at risk
Amid increasingly intense weather, the Chemical Safety Board is the lone independent agency watching over the Gulf Coast’s petrochemical corridor. Full Story
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![Smoke rises from a fire burning at the Intercontinental Terminals Company in Deer Park, east of Houston, on March 18, 2019.]()
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East Texans condemn Dallas millionaire’s plan to pump 16 billion gallons of their groundwater to other parts of the state — every year
Texas law largely allows landowners to do what they want with the groundwater beneath them, potentially protecting the latest plan to ship water out of East Texas. Full Story
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![Kyle Bass speaks during the Reuters Global Investment 2019 Outlook Summit in New York on Nov. 14, 2018.]()
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Texas buys land for new state parks that will be developed using $1 billion voter-approved fund
The fund opens a new era of public land acquisition and park development for Texas, which ranks 35th nationally in state park acreage per capita. Full Story
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![Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologists and staff use an anode, an electrical rod that temporarily stun fish during electrofishing for netting, during an aquatic sampling search at Yancey Creek in what will become Post Oak Ridge State Park, a newly acquired park near Lampasas, Texas, on Thursday, June 5, 2025. The park’s acquisition marks the first since $1 billion dollars were allocated to buy more land for the state parks system as part of the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund, approved by the state legislature in 2023. Before development can begin, survey teams collect samples and information regarding the environment and wildlife at the newly acquired land.]()
Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune -
The guerilla campaign to save a Texas prairie from "silent extinction"
Students and naturalists have been sneaking onto private land to extricate threatened native plants: “This is a war between us and the developers, and nobody’s calling uncle.” Full Story
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In Kerr County, some summer camps are reopening after the devastating July 4 flood
At least two summer camps in the Texas Hill Country have invited campers back after sustaining little to no damage from the flood. Other camps are still combing through the rubble. Full Story
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![Brandon Briery, COO of Camp CAMP, gives a thumbs up to a camper, Adam, during breakfast on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, in Center Point.]()
Credit: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune -
Texans will pay higher power bills as clean energy development slows because of tax credit cuts, economists say
The One Big Beautiful Bill drastically shortens the timeline for wind and solar projects to qualify for tax credits. This will impact even Texas, where wind and solar power have boomed and power demand is rising. Full Story
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![A solar project on Wednesday, April 16, 2025, in Ector County.]()
Credit: Eli Hartman for The Texas Tribune -
Struggling Texas cotton industry emphasizing the hazards of fast fashion
A group representing High Plains region farmers has launched a campaign to make buyers aware of synthetic fibers’ impact on the environment and health. Full Story
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![Walt Hagood leans on his truck on his cotton farm in Wolfforth on May 12, 2025. .]()
Credit: Annie Rice for The Texas Tribune -
Plans for flood warning system floundered before Hill Country floods, witnesses tell legislative flood committee
Lawmakers serving on special committees investigating deadly floods blasted a river authority for failing to build a flood warning system on the Guadalupe River. Full Story
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![Members of the Texas Senate and House hold a joint Disaster Preparedness and Flooding committee meeting Wednesday, July 23, 2025 in Austin. The joint committee was formed in the aftermath of recent devastating flooding in the Hill Country.]()
Credit: Ronaldo Bolaños/The Texas Tribune -
Texas startups make products from the carbon in fossil fuels
As consumption of fossil fuels continues to rise, technologies developed by companies in Texas could help change the view of carbon as a hard-to-manage waste product. Full Story
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![Patrick Hanks, chief technology officer of Graphitic Energy, pats the carbon formation vessel on the company’s San Antonio pilot project, which pulls solid carbon graphite out of methane gas.]()
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Texas lawmakers largely ignored recommendations aimed at helping rural areas like Kerr County prepare for flooding
Texas lawmakers’ inaction on flood prevention often hits rural and economically disadvantaged communities the hardest, experts said. Full Story
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![Photos and flowers hang on a fence as a memorial to flood victims.]()
Credit: Brenda Bazán for The Texas Tribune -
“You can’t replace memories”: Volunteers seek to return personal items after Texas floods
Volunteers are hoping to find the owners of stuffed animals, photographs and other keepsakes salvaged from the debris. Full Story
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![Michael Guyer holds photos and patches from the Heart of the Hills camp that he has found while volunteering in search efforts in the aftermath of the flood in Kerr County.]()
Credit: Brenda Bazán for The Texas Tribune -
How a small East Texas town turned a devastating tornado into funding for sirens
As the public scrutinizes parts of the Hill Country for a lack of sirens during the July 4 floods, Crockett turned its own tragedy into preparedness. Full Story
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![A siren alert system in Comfort on Thursday July 10, 2025. Across the state in East Texas, the city of Crockett has secured the funding and has embarked on installing its own auditory alarm system.]()
Credit: Brenda Bazán for The Texas Tribune