‘An urge to say what happened’: July 4 flood loss and survival shapes Pulitzer-winner’s account
By Sarah Asch | The Texas Standard
May 14, 2026 at 5:35 AM CDT
When the Guadalupe River overtopped its banks last July 4, Texas Monthly senior editor Aaron Parsley found himself a part of the biggest breaking news story in the state.
His harrowing and deeply moving first-person account of last summer’s floods, “The River House Broke. We Rushed in the River.” was published in the August 2025 issue of Texas Monthly.
Last week, Parsley got word his story won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. It’s the first Pulitzer in the history of the magazine.
He joined Texas Standard to talk about his ongoing reporting efforts — including a follow-up Texas Monthly story and an upcoming podcast series. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: I want to begin by talking about the title of the story. It’s a quote from your niece, four-year-old Rosemary: “The river house broke, we rushed in the river.” I think it’s made all the more devastating because it’s so simple and childlike.
What made you decide this story had to be told in the first person?
Aaron Parsley: I had a message that I wanted to convey about my sister and what she was able to do the morning of the flood. We were dealing with an unthinkable tragedy and in my mind I saw her as a hero of the day.
I wanted to let the world know that she did everything that she could — that she saved her daughter, she saved herself, and that we were really grateful for that. This was an effort to give testimony, to say what I saw, what I felt, what heard, and also what my family witnessed.
I don’t want to go too far without mentioning Clay, your 20-month-old nephew who was killed when the house was swept away. I think a lot of us would have found it really hard to write about this, much less report on what happened.
I felt like you were trying to say something not just about Clay but about others who were in the flooding that weekend.
Certainly. I mean, this is an event that we were not expecting. We went to bed the night of July 3 a happy family, and Clay was at the center of all of that.
And he was a wonderful little boy. He had lived a life of happiness. He was healthy. We had a good time with him. We got in the river with him the day before.
Losing him is incredibly hard and I know that we’re not the only family that lost people. I can speak to the love that we have for him and I’m sure that many others who are suffering with grief and loss understand that.
And he’s on our mind. We miss him and we also are grappling with the loss of what he would become, who he would become.
Was there a sense that writing this down was also an act of preservation for your family?
There was just an urge to say what happened. It was me wanting to process and yeah, make sense of it.
That morning we were all traumatized in the chaos of this flood. Being inside the house when it got swept away, memories get jumbled — there’s gaps in the memory.
I did go to the various family members who were there and asked them to tell me what they remember and we sort of pieced it together in that way, because in that chaos, in that trauma, the timeline is bent. There are pieces of it missing. And then of course we were all separated.
So I needed to get from each of them what they remember, what they heard, where they ended up, and what was on their mind.
How did they feel about you sharing this with the world?
My family is really supportive of me and of my career in journalism. They are longtime Texas Monthly readers and I think there’s a lot of trust there.
I think they were a little bit confused about why I wanted to write something so quickly. We were on deadline at the magazine, so everything had to happen pretty immediately.
I wrote the story in a couple of days, a couple early mornings actually. They trusted me, but I think they were kind of unsure about why this all needed to happen right now. But when the story was published online, which was less than a week after the flood, I think they knew immediately why I wanted to do it.
At one point you write that you considered the possibility of death, and I’m wondering if you understand that moment any differently now than you did when you were living it or writing it out?
I certainly knew that death was a possibility for me. I remember thinking that this is how I’m gonna die and I’m going to die at 48 years old in a flood. And I just felt sort of accepting of that, if that was the outcome.
I don’t necessarily feel different about it right now. I still think it could have gone either way. I don’t think that there’s anything that I did that others who lost their lives didn’t do. I think it was absolutely a roll of the dice.
I’m grateful to be here. I’m grateful for my family members who survived. It was a turning point in my life, I think. And I’ve spent the last year, almost nearly a year, remembering that — what it felt like, trying to understand it.
Is it hard to keep reliving these moments? Did you feel like, in a way, after almost a year that you had been able to sort of move past it in a sense?
Actually, no. I’ve been working on a podcast about the flood. And I’ve written another story that will be on the cover of Texas Monthly’s June issue.
I’ve sort of immersed in these feelings and these ideas and the thoughts that come from this experience. And it’s not easy. It can be emotionally draining.
But I feel like I don’t really have a choice. This is the stuff that would be on my mind regardless. And I think being able to do work with it is a privilege.
You said that in that short span of time, something changed. You changed. And I’m curious how you feel that you’ve changed?
This follow-up story that I’ve written is kind of about how we’ve all changed.
When you experience something like that, I feel like I had a closer look at the universe in a way. You have a new understanding about your relationships with the people that matter most to you. There are new priorities. There is a new perspective.
So many Texans have a relationship with the Guadalupe River, and I’m wondering, after all that’s happened, what does that river mean to you now?
Well, that river is where my nephew died, first and foremost.
I mean, it’s a beautiful part of the state of Texas. It’s a place that holds a lot of wonderful memories. It’s the place where my family and other families gather for joy and happiness. It means something for many people’s childhoods.
I don’t think that that’s changed, but it is now a place of sadness and a place where I feel a deep reverence for the folks that died out there.
I’ve been back a few times and the community, the people that I’ve met since the flood, I feel a lot of love from them. But it is not the same as it was before.
If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.
His harrowing and deeply moving first-person account of last summer’s floods, “The River House Broke. We Rushed in the River.” was published in the August 2025 issue of Texas Monthly.
Last week, Parsley got word his story won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. It’s the first Pulitzer in the history of the magazine.
He joined Texas Standard to talk about his ongoing reporting efforts — including a follow-up Texas Monthly story and an upcoming podcast series. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: I want to begin by talking about the title of the story. It’s a quote from your niece, four-year-old Rosemary: “The river house broke, we rushed in the river.” I think it’s made all the more devastating because it’s so simple and childlike.
What made you decide this story had to be told in the first person?
Aaron Parsley: I had a message that I wanted to convey about my sister and what she was able to do the morning of the flood. We were dealing with an unthinkable tragedy and in my mind I saw her as a hero of the day.
I wanted to let the world know that she did everything that she could — that she saved her daughter, she saved herself, and that we were really grateful for that. This was an effort to give testimony, to say what I saw, what I felt, what heard, and also what my family witnessed.
I don’t want to go too far without mentioning Clay, your 20-month-old nephew who was killed when the house was swept away. I think a lot of us would have found it really hard to write about this, much less report on what happened.
I felt like you were trying to say something not just about Clay but about others who were in the flooding that weekend.
Certainly. I mean, this is an event that we were not expecting. We went to bed the night of July 3 a happy family, and Clay was at the center of all of that.
And he was a wonderful little boy. He had lived a life of happiness. He was healthy. We had a good time with him. We got in the river with him the day before.
Losing him is incredibly hard and I know that we’re not the only family that lost people. I can speak to the love that we have for him and I’m sure that many others who are suffering with grief and loss understand that.
And he’s on our mind. We miss him and we also are grappling with the loss of what he would become, who he would become.
Was there a sense that writing this down was also an act of preservation for your family?
There was just an urge to say what happened. It was me wanting to process and yeah, make sense of it.
That morning we were all traumatized in the chaos of this flood. Being inside the house when it got swept away, memories get jumbled — there’s gaps in the memory.
I did go to the various family members who were there and asked them to tell me what they remember and we sort of pieced it together in that way, because in that chaos, in that trauma, the timeline is bent. There are pieces of it missing. And then of course we were all separated.
So I needed to get from each of them what they remember, what they heard, where they ended up, and what was on their mind.
How did they feel about you sharing this with the world?
My family is really supportive of me and of my career in journalism. They are longtime Texas Monthly readers and I think there’s a lot of trust there.
I think they were a little bit confused about why I wanted to write something so quickly. We were on deadline at the magazine, so everything had to happen pretty immediately.
I wrote the story in a couple of days, a couple early mornings actually. They trusted me, but I think they were kind of unsure about why this all needed to happen right now. But when the story was published online, which was less than a week after the flood, I think they knew immediately why I wanted to do it.
At one point you write that you considered the possibility of death, and I’m wondering if you understand that moment any differently now than you did when you were living it or writing it out?
I certainly knew that death was a possibility for me. I remember thinking that this is how I’m gonna die and I’m going to die at 48 years old in a flood. And I just felt sort of accepting of that, if that was the outcome.
I don’t necessarily feel different about it right now. I still think it could have gone either way. I don’t think that there’s anything that I did that others who lost their lives didn’t do. I think it was absolutely a roll of the dice.
I’m grateful to be here. I’m grateful for my family members who survived. It was a turning point in my life, I think. And I’ve spent the last year, almost nearly a year, remembering that — what it felt like, trying to understand it.
Is it hard to keep reliving these moments? Did you feel like, in a way, after almost a year that you had been able to sort of move past it in a sense?
Actually, no. I’ve been working on a podcast about the flood. And I’ve written another story that will be on the cover of Texas Monthly’s June issue.
I’ve sort of immersed in these feelings and these ideas and the thoughts that come from this experience. And it’s not easy. It can be emotionally draining.
But I feel like I don’t really have a choice. This is the stuff that would be on my mind regardless. And I think being able to do work with it is a privilege.
You said that in that short span of time, something changed. You changed. And I’m curious how you feel that you’ve changed?
This follow-up story that I’ve written is kind of about how we’ve all changed.
When you experience something like that, I feel like I had a closer look at the universe in a way. You have a new understanding about your relationships with the people that matter most to you. There are new priorities. There is a new perspective.
So many Texans have a relationship with the Guadalupe River, and I’m wondering, after all that’s happened, what does that river mean to you now?
Well, that river is where my nephew died, first and foremost.
I mean, it’s a beautiful part of the state of Texas. It’s a place that holds a lot of wonderful memories. It’s the place where my family and other families gather for joy and happiness. It means something for many people’s childhoods.
I don’t think that that’s changed, but it is now a place of sadness and a place where I feel a deep reverence for the folks that died out there.
I’ve been back a few times and the community, the people that I’ve met since the flood, I feel a lot of love from them. But it is not the same as it was before.
If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.