Flash-Flood Alley Drowns Again: A Hill Country Jeremiad for the Damp and the Damned

Local Bodies, National Bullhorns: D.C. Talks, Hill Country Treads Water.

A barricade blocks a road with flooded water with an American flag near a home blurred in the distance (Matt Pierce)

I watched the Guadalupe River eat a summer camp before sunrise on the Fourth of July and thought, Hell, I’ve seen this movie before—only the body count keeps climbing and the soundtrack gets shriller. Over 100 Texans are now zipped into disaster-bag sleeping bags after a night of rain that dumped half a season in three stroboscopic hours. The pundits on cable say they’re “shocked.” Our governor blames “unpredictable weather.” And the White House press shop swears up and down that “nobody expected it.” That’s not spin—it’s malpractice bordering on criminal negligence.

We Knew This Was Coming, Bucko

Ask any Hill Country rancher who’s watched the Guadalupe pop its banks since the Eisenhower administration. Ask the families who still smell mildew from Harvey’s 60-inch puke fest back in 2017, or the folks in Beaumont who learned the hard way during Imelda that a “tropical storm” can drown you just as dead. “Flash-Flood Alley” isn’t a cute nickname—it’s a geological fact tattooed on every limestone bluff from Austin to Kerrville. We have topographic receipts and decades of near-misses. The only thing “unprecedented” this week was how many of us got blindsided after a hundred red-flag warnings.