'Any word on Camp Mystic?': Texts, emails show confusion, concern among Texas river authority officials during flooding [View all]

Source: ABC News

August 13, 2025, 10:16 AM


As the Guadalupe River overflowed in Kerr County on the Fourth of July, officials with a local agency charged with "managing water quality and water quantity" in the Texas Hill Country appeared perplexed by the extent of the unfolding crisis and their role in addressing it, according to emails and text messages obtained by ABC News.

"Wow!! It's a beautiful thing!" an official initially wrote to an Upper Guadalupe River Authority (UGRA) group chat at 7:09 a.m. -- including a screenshot of a graph showing a massive increase in streamflow levels along the river in Kerrville -- following drought conditions that Kerr County had faced prior to the flooding.

As others in the group chat shared the increasingly concerning reports they were hearing, it quickly became clear that there was cause for alarm. "So I know I said it's a beautiful thing earlier," the official wrote at 7:38 a.m. "I had just woken up and hadn't looked at the gages yet. It's terrible."

By that time, parts of Kerr County had already been inundated with floodwaters for several hours, flood alerts had been issued, and the Kerrville Police Department had received calls for multiple water rescues.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/assume-worst-internal-texts-emails-show-confusion-concern/story?id=124588857