Townspeople reflect on flood, recovery of business, tourism
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second and final part of the “Comfort, Six Months Later: Where We Are” series, a look at how the city has recovered and resumed life along the Guadalupe River.
COMFORT — When reflecting on the Guadalupe River flood of July Fourth, the stories are as unique and different as the people sharing them.
For Susie Schwethelm, July Fourth posed problems for her business in Kerrville, while she handed out shovels, supply backpacks and food at Comfort Park.
For Charlie Hueber, July Fourth presented challenges for the days and weeks that followed, keeping restaurants and businesses open.
For Bryce Boddie, the Fourth put Hill Country Family Services front and center, while also developing a new clientele.
The flooding that began with an early morning apocryphal rainstorm ended up claiming more than 130 lives, including 117 of those in Kerr County as the Guadalupe surged over its banks.
Three more perished in Williamson County as the San Gabriel River overflowed. In addition, nine people died in Travis County and five in Burnet County.
According to weather experts, the holiday disaster was the country’s deadliest inland flooding episode since the 1976 Big Thompson River flood in Colorado, surpassing storm waters from Hurricane Helene in 2024.
Damage estimates in the Hill Country and Central Texas range from $18 billion to $22 billion.
No lives were lost in Kendall County, recovery officials have said.
Schwethelm, a fourth-generation Comfort resident, said the flood locally was not as significant as a deluge in 1978, but knowledge of the loss of life upstream meant so much more.
“Because we’ve gone through the flooding before, this was more mild on our side than in the past,” Schwethelm said. “So we knew what to expect.”
Comfort already had sirens and sensors installed to alert residents about threats from high water.
While Comfort — which is unincorporated and lacks municipal services — largely escaped the ravages that made the flood a national incident, its residents showed concern for their neighbors.
“I found out through talking to people, the Kerr County Salvation Army was sending people to Comfort,” Schwethelm said. “It was difficult to get to Hunt and Center Point, so a lot of people came to us.”
Schwethelm, who owns East End Vintage Market on Water Street in Kerrville — helped man the relief station set up in Comfort Park “doing whatever needed to be done each day.”
She split her focus between her home and her business.
“We had water up into the front parking lot (in Kerrville) and it came in the garage door on the side, (coming) a couple inches in the back,” she said. “Across the street from us were cabins that are Airbnbs; we’ve watched some of them being gutted and cleaned out.”
Schwethelm said Comfort’s recovery, meanwhile, has been slow but steady.
“The Guadalupe River is never going to look the same. All those cypress trees are gone,” she said. “The tourists are slowly coming back. And people who have homes close to the river, those properties aren’t going to go anywhere for quite a while.”
Asked how the flood registers with herself and her Comfort neighbors, Schwethelm pondered its long-lasting impact.
“I don’t know if we’ll be ‘back to normal’ for a while. It’s in the back of everyone’s minds,” she said. “We’re still expressing concern for Hunt and Ingram; it’s a longer process (for them) to recover than that.”
Comfort Chamber Executive Director Hueber’s focus changed as well, from answering the constantly ringing phone and witnessing the river’s destruction, to caring about restaurants and businesses missing their customer base.
“When you didn’t sell anything for a weekend ... 25 to 35 percent of their budget comes from an event like that; that’s a tough one,” Hueber said. “The economic stabilization was our key: how do we keep our businesses from hemorrhaging money.”
The town’s planned July Fourth extravaganza at Comfort Park was nixed; the park soon became “cleanup central,” as volunteers massed and manned a distribution point for all comers.
At the same time, area merchants needed a boost in the midst of the chaos.
“America Reclaim, they had invested a lot of money into opening a new store on July Fourth ... to zero people,” Hueber said.
Restaurants lost money, he said — and not just from absent customers.
“When the food trucks rolled in, to give out free meals to the first responders and volunteers who were so active in the searches and cleanup, it’s hard to sell food when it’s being given away 100 feet from your storefront,” he said.
Six months later, businesses are still feeling the effect on the bottom line.
“Our business community… (depends) on people spending money here. And that’s just something we had to come to grips with,” he said.
Boddie, executive director for Hill Country Family Services, said his organization exists to offer relief during catastrophes such as the flood.
“As an agency, we primarily serve Kendall County in times of need, in times of distress,” Boddie said. “A lot of things we were able to resolve very quickly.”
HCFS partnered with the Chamber and the Salvation Army to establish a collection and distribution point at O.W. Lee, a local furniture manufacturer.
Boddie said most of his agency’s work in Kendall County was wrapped up by mid-September.
“What we don’t do,” he said “is long-term. We’re there for the triage, the crisis point, then move on.”
The agency still provides counseling and intervention for first responders.
“We’ve probably had 15 first responders use the (peer support),” he said. “They just found out there’s somebody out here who listens.”
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