Texas Residents Pull Together

Search and rescue continues along the Guadalupe River throughout the Texas Hill Country after the July 4th weekend floods left more than 100 people dead. 

Groups walked the river in Comfort, Texas, on July 7, including volunteer Alli Robertson, who told The Epoch Times they were looking for the deceased. “They found two bodies right down here yesterday,” Robertson said of an area near the Interstate-10 bridge.

The river’s flow was strong enough to toss trucks and debris into nests against the trees that are still standing.

Brothers Sam and Zach Cummings grew up in the Kerrville area and traveled from Corpus Christi to assist in recovery efforts near the Heart O’ the Hills camp for girls in the hard-hit town of Hunt. “We felt almost obligated to come up and help,” Sam Cummings told The Epoch Times.

The Cummings brothers began chainsaw work around 7:30 a.m. July 7, clearing debris in a field across from the camp, and said it was there that search dogs alerted. 

“A dog started sniffing, and that’s how they found the first body,” Cummings said. They believe two bodies were discovered approximately a mile apart.

“State troopers told us they have records of missing people, but there are hundreds of Fourth of July campers with no documentation,” Cummings said.

Heartbreak in Kerrville

Lillian Sanchez of Kerrville was using a handsaw to remove tree roots at the Guadalupe Keys RV Resort and told The Epoch Times that the recent flood has revealed the true spirit of her hometown, which has resisted the temptation to turn the tragedy political.

She and some 50 volunteers with chainsaws and heavy equipment were attempting to restore some semblance of order to the chaos left by flood waters.

Sanchez said she isn’t worried about more flooding because she keeps track of the water flow of the Guadalupe and other nearby rivers on an app.

Mounting Casualties

Local authorities continue to recover bodies, with the number of missing persons still uncertain, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha told The Epoch Times.

Many visitors flocked to the river in the Texas Hill Country during the holiday weekend, he said, making it difficult to pinpoint the number of missing.

“We need some prayers right now,” the sheriff said. “This whole community needs closure, and we’re working on that, but it’s going to take a while.”

Residents of the area have also been asked to travel the area as little as possible to allow emergency personnel easy access to necessary areas.

Kerrville Police Department’s Jonathan Lamb said he understands people are curious and want to see the flood damage, but asked onlookers and freelance volunteers to stay home.

“Now is not the time for sightseeing. Our first responders have had a very difficult time getting to where they need to go because of the amount of people who are flooding our roadways.” 

Lamb told The Epoch Times that people who wanted to give funds or volunteer could do so at TCR.communityos.org.

Businesses and Nonprofits

Several nonprofit emergency relief groups have offered support, including Team Rubicon, a veteran-led humanitarian organization that helps communities impacted by disasters.

Art Delacruz, the CEO of Team Rubicon, told The Epoch Times in a July 7 interview that he believes it’s important to remember that even though it seems like the worst has passed, “the storm isn’t over yet.”

He said it’s important to remember that the rush to help can complicate the situation.

“We oftentimes see in disasters like this, what we call, the second disaster, which is, donation of a lot of goods and materials that might not be needed,” Delacruz said. “We’d encourage people to be really, really diligent about what they donate.“

Texas grocery giant H-E-B spoke out soon after the tragedy, offering its support for Kerrville, which was the birthplace of the state-wide chain.

“Our H-E-B Family is heartbroken by the enormous devastation and loss caused by the flooding in and around the Kerrville area,” HEB said in a press release from their website. “We are grateful to local authorities, first responders, and volunteers for their tireless efforts.”

—Darlene Sanchez, Savannah Pointer

BOOKMARKS

Border czar Tom Homan says Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to boost arrests of illegal immigrants, following the passage of Donald Trump’s megabill last week. The legislation, which Trump signed on July 4, provides ICE with thousands of new border agents, and funding to increase detention capacity.  

The Department of Veterans Affairs is still looking to downsize, but has scaled back the number of workers it plans to cut by more than half. The agency is on track to reduce its workforce by 30,000 employees by September, but the original plan called for around 84,000 jobs to be eliminated. 

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Tuesday that the United States will move to ban the sale of American farmland to Chinese nationals, citing national security concerns. Although Rollins said her agency is not in a position to reclaim land that has already been purchased by the Chinese, it “will ensure transparency of foreign U.S. agricultural land ownership and pursue robust and overdue updates to data collection, reporting, and analysis” in the future. 

The federal hiring freeze, which was supposed to end on July 15, has been extended to Oct. 15. There are exceptions—like military and immigration enforcement personnel—but agencies are warned not to hire outside contractors in an attempt to sidestep the hiring ban.  

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts has temporarily blocked the portion of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that withholds Medicaid funds from some abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood. The judge issued the two-week halt after hours, on the same evening Planned Parenthood filed suit against the government. 

—Stacy Robinson