The Flood of 2025

Just a month ago today (on June 6^th) I was prompted (Lord knows why) to share my memories of the Flood of ’72. Yesterday we had another terrible flood (they are calling this one a 500-year flood, or even a 1000-year; how are these things determined?). I didn’t realize just how devastating it was while it was going on. I was hunkered down, waiting it out, when I wasn’t moving stuff around after the electricity snapped off, like an ant moving eggs in a threatened anthill. We did get flash flood warnings over the phone, and I heard Andy being called out with his wrecker several times for emergencies, but I didn’t know the extent of the flooding until yesterday evening.

In the flood area, which stretches over several counties along the Guadalupe River, there have been 70 deaths, about a third of whom are children, and many people missing, including some girls who were trapped at a Bible camp [July 10 Update: the confirmed death toll is 120 - including those poor girls at Camp Mystic - and 170 missing]. I shudder: I seem to recall when my niece Kelsey was threatened by the possibility of a similar situation some years ago; she left in time; but the memory of the anxiety is very evil, and makes me feel all the more for these poor children.

My posts of yesterday seem very smug and snug, almost self-congratulatory, for coming through what was barely an inconvenience for me. If I had just looked out the door over at bridge spanning the little creek at the bottom of the yard (there’s usually a clearance of five or six feet under it) I might have seen how close to danger I was.

 Today in church we prayed very fervently for all those lost and unhoused. We had been praying for rain persistently for the past month or so (we certainly needed it) but for some reason it was not as emphasized today.

We are still under a flood watch. We are going to lose another tree whose roots have been weakened by the rainfall.