One year after volunteer firefighter Razor Dobbs tirelessly searched the Texas Hill Country for victims of a catastrophic early morning flood, he found himself confronting an elderly couple hesitant to evacuate their Center Point-area home as rain poured down and thunder rumbled ominously around them.
It was approximately 3 a.m. on Thursday, and the Guadalupe River was dangerously swelling over its banks in the darkness.
With a deep understanding of the peril posed by floodwaters, Dobbs urged the couple to leave, unwilling to let them become part of the grim statistic of over 130 lives lost in July 2025. He flung open their back door and pointed emphatically, “That’s the river.”
Reflecting on the moment, he later expressed the fear that gripped him: “I know what y’all are going to look like if you don’t get out of here. I’ve seen what all of y’all are going to look like.”
Two devastating floods, just a year apart, have reignited trauma among first responders, volunteers, and residents in Kerr County. As rivers and creeks swelled to unprecedented levels, the aftermath—debris, damaged roads, and ruined buildings—served as a stark reminder of the 2025 disaster, revealing the impossibility of processing this year’s flood without confronting the horrors of the past.
“It is traumatic,” noted Darcy Hasty, a member of the Center Point Volunteer Fire Department alongside Dobbs.
“Thank God for therapy, right?” Hasty added, speaking from a displacement shelter set up in the Center Point Middle School gym.
The call for mobilization came at around 2:40 a.m. on Thursday, prompting Hasty to drive from her home in Bandera to the fire station in Center Point, her mind racing with concern: “Are people going to listen when we tell them to get out?”
During her efforts, Hasty encountered a woman who had disregarded barricades on the RM 480 bridge, seemingly drawn by the allure of the rushing Guadalupe River.
“I told her, ‘Ma’am, you really need to get off the bridge. There’s another wall of water coming,’” Hasty recounted. The woman simply responded, “I will,” leaving Hasty frustrated.
“I’m just … people died last year, what did she expect?” Hasty lamented. “Even if she didn’t die, you’re still going to become somebody else that we have to go save, and what if I lose one of my brothers or sisters trying to save her? Or does she not consider the fact that I may have to watch her get washed away?”
Last year, the Guadalupe River rose an astonishing 29 feet in just three hours, resulting in the tragic deaths of 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic, located about 30 miles upstream. In response, Center Point Fire Chief Charles Holt mandated therapy for first responders. The department anticipates similar mental health support will be provided in the coming weeks and months.
<p“People don’t consider the things that we see … what I see in my brothers’ and sisters’ faces when they get back from pulling bodies out of the river,” Hasty expressed.
For Hasty, witnessing the emotional toll on fellow responders was the most harrowing aspect of last year’s floods, especially when body bags ran out or when sorting through the personal belongings of children from Camp Mystic, feeling she could only offer love for the items returned to their grieving parents.
“And then for that lady not to care enough about our family, to just want pictures or a video of a disaster,” she recalled, reflecting on the woman on the bridge. “Just get off the bridge,” she urged. “It’s a picture.”
Collective Mourning and Community Support
A 20-foot-tall white cross stands solemnly in front of the Center Point fire station, with the words “Letters to Heaven” inscribed above a mail slot designed to receive notes dedicated to the victims of the Camp Mystic flood.
Sitting on the back of a muddy work truck with the cross in view, Dobbs was asked about his feelings as the river rose to heights reminiscent of the previous year.
“I haven’t even dealt with the flood from last year,” he admitted. After spending a month recovering bodies during the summer of 2025, Dobbs faced his own personal tragedy when his wife was diagnosed with stage four cancer, forcing him to focus on her care until her passing in December.
“I just went straight into her mode [as] caretaker,” Dobbs said, adding that before the flood, he dealt with several severe car accidents, marking a particularly challenging year filled with trauma.
While this year’s flood resulted in fewer casualties, the property damage was extensive. Governor Greg Abbott announced that 135 homes in Kerr County were either destroyed or severely damaged, with nearly 600 additional homes and businesses affected. The Center Point fire station, which had only recently completed repairs from the previous year’s flood, was overwhelmed with six to seven feet of water, undoing much of the restoration work and damaging vital equipment.
“For most of us, when we got up early Thursday morning to evacuate residents and clear out our station, we were all thinking to ourselves, this is déjà vu,” said Tye Turman, chaplain and president of the Center Point fire department. “Is it really happening, and can I deal with it?”
“That being said, everyone fully dropped into their roles,” Turman continued. “We have things to do. We can’t worry about last year. We have to focus on the moment. And I think everyone did an extraordinary job.”
The dedication of first responders was a key factor in minimizing casualties during this year’s storms, yet their preparedness was tinged with grief, a poignant reminder that last year’s flooding had taken many by surprise.
“We know what to do, but it doesn’t make it any better,” said Heather Joas, who lived in Bergheim during last year’s floods and utilized her search and rescue experience while assisting the Center Point fire department this time around. “If anything, it almost makes it worse. I don’t want to know how to do this.”
“This is devastating, and we’re mourning, but the subtle mercy we are receiving is that we are mourning with one another,” Joas added.
Faith and Community Resilience
Angie Walters, a case manager for Southern Oaks Church in Kerrville, views faith and the support provided by faith communities as crucial for navigating tragedies like these. “Every time a storm comes, I stop and pray now, and I find it very difficult to sleep,” she shared.
When a survivor of the 2025 flood texted Walters at 2:30 a.m. on Thursday to report water re-entering her home, Walters was overwhelmed with emotion. “I gave myself 10 minutes to grieve in that moment,” she recounted, “and then I said, OK, it’s time.”
Southern Oaks has been assisting survivors and local businesses throughout the recovery process over the past year, offering both financial and emotional support to individuals and communities grappling with loss and heartbreak. “We’ve had our shepherds who have reached out to their people, prayed with them, loved on them, given resources when resources have been available,” Walters explained. “We are God’s community. We are His hands and feet, and we will work towards making everybody whole again.”
Since Friday, two chaplains from Warriors Sworn to the Cross, a nonprofit dedicated to first responder trauma, have been stationed at the Center Point fire station.
“I’ve made it a point every morning, whenever I’m available, to say, ‘Let’s say a prayer before everybody gets started for the day,’” said Turman, who also takes time to check in on his team, searching for signs of pain and grief in their expressions.
Both Dobbs and Hasty credit their faith as a source of strength during these challenging times. “If it’s a fire, I pray that the fire’s out, that nobody gets hurt,” Dobbs stated. “It’s just automatic. I pray for strength.”
“We’re all able to lean on our faith, as well as on each other,” Hasty affirmed.
