Where the Water Reached

Editor s Note This photo essay is published in partnership with The Texas Tribune I walked into an apartment slipping and stumbling on mud so thick I couldn t see the floor underneath The table in the dining room was set decorated with charger plates flowers and napkins nicely folded The mud and debris covered everything On the wall I saw a red white and blue garland with American flags a reminder that the day prior had been the Fourth of July I tried to imagine the life or lives that had been lived in this place A pair of sunglasses left behind caught my eye I studied water I studied rivers and tributaries and floodplains and watersheds Hydrology was a main focus of my research as a learner of environmental science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley I even attended a summer operation at the National Water Center in Tuscaloosa Alabama in that focused on flood mapping and crisis response But theory is one thing and seeing -year-old cypress trees laying flat on the ground absolutely uprooted is another I accepted the surreality after seeing a kayak stuck feet high up on a tree branch among other things that were absurdly out of place Hills of mud vegetation and personal artifacts deposited by the flood had changed the landscape It all recounted the story of what had happened that early morning Everywhere I went along a -mile or so stretch of the Guadalupe River there were excavators and people digging looking hopeful to find the missing The scale of the devastation the search and recovery efforts and the grief all things unfathomable to me even after I witnessed them Locality members survey the damage left behind in Kerrville s Louise Hays Park The interior of a beauty salon in Ingram A woman looks at fallen trees in Kerrville on July Left Determined photos and patches from the Heart O the Hills camp Right Neighborhood members honor casualties with a July vigil and memorial Grieving at Cross Kingdom Church in Kerrville on July A small American flag on the trunk of a fallen tree in Ingram The post Where the Water Reached appeared first on The Texas Observer