Green and purple ribbons are tied around trees and road signs in Central Texas in remembrance of the deadly Hill Country flooding in July.
It’s an area known as Flash Flood Alley. And it has a history of these devastating storms. Ten years ago, the signs on trees and road signs read “Wimberley Strong.”
In May of 2015, the Blanco River rose too quickly and killed at least 12 people. The cleanup there has long been done, but the recovery remains ongoing – and so does unpacking the lessons for further prevention.
The Wimberley Lions Club is hosting a forum this week to talk about the progress and the road ahead. It will be moderated by Patrick Cox, a Wimberley resident and a retired history and media history professor at the University of Texas.
Cox joined the Standard with more. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity.
Texas Standard: Does the 2015 Wimberley flood still weigh heavy in the community a decade later?
Patrick Cox: In many ways, the 2015 flood here of the Blanco River Valley still resonates with people who lived here back then.
I’ve been here since the 1970s. And it resonates because we’ve gone through floods before, but nothing as dramatic and catastrophic as the one in 2015. It was eerily similar to the one on the Guadalupe River this summer.
As a practical matter, what’s been done to make Wimberley and the surrounding area safer since 2015?
There have been a number of actions, primarily by local government entities, to help address a number of topics, but the other purpose of this forum is to talk about things that still need to be done.
For example, the county has a plan that they put into effect to address floods, storms, drought and other major weather events. And local entities participate in this. And an important part of this is also having a flood warning infrastructure and a warning system that will alert not just residents – of course that’s a major impact – but Wimberley, like Kerrville, is a big tourist area.
What are you hoping to accomplish with this forum?
We have four panel members who are local elected officials and also local emergency service officials. They will bring people up to date and talk about what’s been done since 2015 and what still needs to be done in the road ahead. And again, that’s in the way of communications, infrastructure, preparedness and a number of other issues.
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There are a lot of Hill Country communities by banks of waterways that have been known to flood. Are these conversations typical of what’s happening elsewhere in Hill Country, to your knowledge? Or is this the sort of thing that is sort of now gaining speed, especially in the wake of what happened back in July?
Well, I think you’re right, it is gaining speed.
But I go back to when I was here in Wimberley in the 1970s and our family founded the newspaper, The Wimberley View. And back in 1976, we had a major storm event here over the Blanco River Valley. And at that point, we started working not just with the county, but with other communities. And lo and behold, two years later, 1978, the same thing happened on the Guadalupe River and our friends and people in Kerrville.
So we worked with other Lions Clubs, but we also started working to strengthen communication between the local officials and organizations because there’s a lot of civic organizations, not just in our two communities, but throughout the Hill Country.
How do you think the July flooding is going to affect the conversation you’re going to have at this forum?
I think it’s going to have an impact because of the widespread media attention. And again, many of us have connections, friends, family members, business associates. There’s a Lions Camp in Kerrville. And so we have a lot of connections already. So I think it’s going to help rejuvenate and spur us more so into action and cooperation.
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