Comfort family’s flood recovery struggle not unique

Agency: Homeowners face heavy damage, limited aid

Editor’s note: This story is part of a continuing look by the Boerne Star into recovery efforts in the aftermath of the July flooding, much of it centered on Comfort — one of Kendall County’s hardest-hit areas.

COMFORT — For families like Dustin Castro’s, unexpected flood patterns, insurance gaps and limited official assistance have turned a single night of high water into what looks like a long, costly recovery.

His story, officials said, is emblematic of what so many have endured since mid-July when the storms began.

Bryce Boddie, executive director of Hill Country Family Services in Boerne, said he is hearing cases like Castro’s, as the agency turns its focus to their neighbors– in-need in Comfort.

“ We’re helping distribute monies from the Community Foundation while also doing what we normally do to assist families in Kendall County,” Boddie said.

His agency’s client list continues to grow, even five weeks after the record-setting flood.

“So far, we’ve assisted probably 36 families from Kendall County who had received different amounts of water into their homes,” Boddie said. “We’re not working directly with businesses except a couple of small ones, landscaping businesses where folks lost their tools, and carpenters who lost their tools due to the flood.”

Meanwhile, the ordeal for Castro began when a neighbor pounded on the door of his home at 7th and Broadway streets about 5 a.m. yelling about flooding. “You need to get out,” Castro recalled the neighbor saying.

Over the next three hours, Castro and his son scrambled to move belongings uphill as the water rose.

“I was taken by surprise,” said Castro, a single father and real-estate photographer who operates a home-based business.

The deluge that morning struck differently than past events.

Castro has lived through storms in 2002, 2007, 2016, 2025 and this year, as well as smaller high-water years. Normally, water backs up from Cypress Creek into neighborhood drainage ditches.

This time, and during the deadly floods last year during the July Fourth weekend, the Guadalupe River jumped a berm and poured into the creek, inundating the town.

“I’ve never seen flooding like this before,” Castro said.

Footage from one of his airborne drones showed the unusual path the raging waters took during the storm. Heavy rains began falling in the Hill Country July 13, with the worst flash floods occurring July 16, according to meteorological reports.

Every home in Castro’s neighborhood was affected and nearby ranchers also lost miles of fencing, he said.

Castro’s house is now uninhabitable. He and his son, who started school last week, are renting an apartment so the boy has a stable address, the father said. Temporary hotel or bed-and-breakfast vouchers were offered, but Castro needed longer-term housing.

Because the mortgage is paid off, flood insurance was no longer mandatory. As a single father already stretched to cover auto insurance, Castro said he carried neither homeowners nor flood coverage.

“I’m completely out of pocket,” he added.

So far, Kendall County has not been declared a federal disaster area, so individual assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency is unavailable, Boddie said.

He expounded on what happens if FEMA does get involved.

“A FEMA declaration raises the antenna for helping organizations to come in and start to rebuild. The county permitting office hasn’t seen many folks apply for permits yet, though they have waived the permitting fees,” he said. “That will help us in determining who needs assistance.”

Relief organizations have told media outlets that financial support for recovery efforts in this year’s flood have not matched the dollars that poured in after the July 2025 disaster, which claimed more than 135 lives and cost more than an estimated $1 billion in damages.

“I’m completely out of pocket.”

— Dustin Castro