In late September 2000, longtime Carr County resident W. Thornton Secole Jr., resident of Carr County, Texas, sat down with an oral historian to tell his story. Like many residents recorded as part of a decades-long effort by the Carr County Historical Commission to document the history of the community, Secor had said a lot about flooding in the area.
“It seems like it’s always happening at night,” Secole said of the local flooding he and his family experienced. “I can’t see most of it.”
Secor, who passed away in 2022, was the third generation manager of the lodge, which operates along the Guadalupe River. His oral history shares memories of a family in the flood that date back to 1932.
Now, Secor’s daughter, Mandi Secor Lipscomb, remains in consideration of the future of the lodge in the aftermath of another devastating flood on July 4th.
Often, when you try to understand the location or handle a big news event, you look for records held by your local historic society or libraries. Archived documents, preserved photographs, and oral history collections allow you to see how the community understands themselves. So I went looking for historical context, as news coverage of the country’s flooding in the Central Hill of Texas was poured throughout the week. What local knowledge is retained by the people who live or live in, what are repeated “a flash flood alleys?” How do past people in Kerr County compete with the floods of their time?
A flock of over 70 oral history recorded by the Kerr County Historical Commission begins to answer those questions. The recordings record memories of floods dating back to 1900, but oral history alone rarely gives a complete or accurate story. Still, there is at least one conclusion to draw. Everything has history. The flood that killed more than 130 people in the Carr County area this month isn’t the first time that flash floods on the Guadalupe River have taken the lives of people, including children.
On July 20, 1987, the homepage of the local newspaper, Carville Daily Times. . Credit: Carville Daily Times via newspapers.com
With this history in mind, hear local and state officials say none of them could see this coming. This exchange will be made between a reporter and Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly:
Reporter: Why were these camps not evacuated?
Kelly: I can’t answer that. I don’t know.
Reporter: You are a judge. I mean you are the best formula of this county. Why can’t you answer that? I have a missing child. These camps were causing harm. I knew this flood was coming.
Kelly: I didn’t know that this flood was coming. Don’t worry, no one knew that this kind of flood would come. We always have floods. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States. And we deal with floods regularly. When it rains, we get water. There was no reason to believe this would be something like what happened here. There is not at all.
My colleague Jennifer Berry Haws wrote last week about the eerie similarities between the floods in Texas and Hurricane Helene. In both disasters, weather forecasts predicted potential devastation, but people were left with harm.
And another colleague, Abrahm Lustgarten of Propublica Editor, pointed out in an article about how climate change makes disasters like floods in Texas more common.
“Does Carr County, where the majority of deaths occur, need to install warning sirens along the channel’s stretch? Lustgarten wrote. “Why emergency updates seem to have been communicated only by mobile phones and online in rural areas with limited connectivity.”
As we wait for answers, or journalists dig for them, verbal history shows that Kerr County residents have been warning each other about floods for a long time, with newcomers and out-of-town contestants. In its 2000-year oral history, Secor said it recalled a spring in 1959 when her father tried to warn one new town woman about building a house near the river.
“He took her out and showed her a wooden watermark in front of our house,” Secole said. It probably mentioned the watermark from the 1932 flood. The flood killed at least seven people.
“Oh, she said, ‘It’s not going to happen again,'” Secole recalled.
He said her body was found in the trees a few months after the flood blew off her and the roof on which she stood up.
“We’ll be surprised when another flood occurs, like 32 floods,” Secor said in 2000.
“I’ll take us again someday.”
Some Texas officials did not respond to flood alerts, reflecting the tragedy of Hurricane Helen
Texas Flash Flood Preview of upcoming confusion
When the Guadalupe River rose over the weekend of July 4th, the 16 cabin lodge owned by his daughter was sold out and full of guests. They all escaped the flood, Secor Lipscomb said. They ran barefoot into the mud and climbed steep hills over the retaining walls of the property. They took shelter in the barn.
Secor Lipscomb then assessed the damage to her family’s property. What she saw left her in tears: the four cabins had water up to the ceiling. Another two were flooded about 5 feet. However, within the wreckage there was a crew of nearly 40 volunteers ready to help clean up.
By the time I reached out to her, and by the time I asked her about her father’s oral history, the six cabins and main camp office had already been demolished.
The shed her great grandfather and grandfather built together over 100 years ago was still standing. But it’s not that long. It’s very damaged by water so you have to go too.
“This is our family history, our family’s heritage,” Secor Lipscomb told me. “Of course I’ll rebuild it.”
When they do so, their customers are ready. Many of the families who survived the flood told her they were first in line to book the next July 4th.
