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July 4, 2025: a date that will live in a mixture of hope and tragedy in the memories of Texas Hill Country residents who saw record flooding that day as the Guadalupe River overflowed.
Rivers surpassed their banks across the region from the San Saba to the Frio. At least 139 perished, the majority in Kerr County, including 25 girls and two teenage counselors at a children’s camp near Hunt.
Immediately following the crisis, Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Disaster Relief volunteers deployed extensively in San Saba, Kerrville, Leander, and San Angelo to meet needs and assist in rebuild efforts. One year later, as first responders and survivors reflect, it’s not how the Lord has worked through one of the worst natural disasters in Texas history that has been so inspiring.
It’s that He has moved in ways many in these parts say they’ve never seen before.
Warnings heeded
Marsha Hardy, a member of San Saba’s First Baptist Church, saw the disaster coming. She always does, as she serves as the San Saba County emergency manager.
“My husband and I were relaxing at home. It was Friday, a holiday,” she said. “It had been raining quite a bit, and we were monitoring the Lower Colorado River Authority gauges.”
Hardy knew the river patterns, that normal flooding in that area follows a 12-hour cycle, beginning in Menard and Brady. Once the San Saba River crests at Maxwell’s Crossing to the west, floodwaters can reach San Saba within 6-8 hours.
When she received notification of County Judge Jody Fauley’s call to open an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at the county courthouse, she and her husband, Bobby, started for town.
The couple told their cats goodbye and drove off, not realizing it would be days before they would again be able to access their property.
“The state had staged Texas Task Force One’s swift water rescue teams. One team came to San Saba,” Hardy recalled. “We expected flooding in town.”
Events moved at breakneck speed. City and county workers set up computer terminals. Fauley issued an evacuation notice, urging residents to seek higher ground. Local law enforcement officers, city and county workers, and volunteers disseminated the information and prepared the civic center in Mill Pond Park to serve as a shelter. The judge addressed citizens frequently on social media, and Mayor Ken Jordan also communicated regularly with townsfolk.
The flood came. Hardy and her fellow first responders were hemmed in, roads blocked on all sides.
The EOC operated for 48 hours before moving to standby status, Hardy said. She nodded off in the courtroom while Bobby slept in their pickup, unable to go home.
Over the ensuing days, Bobby kept checking to see if the roads to their place were passable while Marsha stayed on the job doing reports, fielding phone calls, compiling information, and generally working with “uniforms of every color” as personnel arrived.
“Anybody that could get in came in, even though we were blocked off,” she said. Several swift water rescues of people stranded in homes or stuck in vehicles occurred.
Bobby, 77, finally made it back home on Sunday afternoon. Though their outdoor cats had survived, Bobby called his wife with bad news: “We’ve had water in the house.”
“Are you kidding me?” she asked. Their home was located on a high bluff above the San Saba River. Bobby, a lifelong resident of the area, had never seen it rise to such levels. Neighbors estimated the property was flooded with four feet of water, with the Hardy house taking on several inches.
Ready in a moment’s notice
Earlier on July 4, before the river rose, SBTC DR teams already headed to the town, answering a call from Alan Arthur, pastor of San Saba’s First Baptist.
“The sheriff wanted us to be in there because they had a 12-hour warning that the flood was coming,” said Lowell Warren, SBTC DR incident leader. “It wasn’t like Kerrville, where they had only 45 minutes notice.”
Warren positioned a shower/laundry unit and set up SBTC DR headquarters at First Baptist on July 4, with other teams soon to follow.
SBTC DR feeding teams, chaplains, assessors, and recovery crews all got to work, staying in the area until July 25, with Southern Baptist DR volunteers from across the nation coming in to relieve Texas volunteers. They were joined by other relief agencies as well. Rebuild teams worked for weeks in September, December, and January.
Throughout, San Saba’s First Baptist served the entire community.
“Our church really stepped up,” Arthur said. “We became the central hub for all the immediate DR. … If anybody wanted to volunteer to help move furniture, clean out mud, get homes prepared for SBTC DR mud-out teams to come behind, they came to the church.”
Arthur praised SBTC DR personnel and also “great volunteers” like deacons Craig Whiting and David Dean, who coordinated volunteers and worked alongside SBTC DR.
Another flood hit the area July 12-13. This time Fauley issued mandatory evacuation orders, and most citizens rapidly complied. Recovery mode paused.
Rebuilding efforts would be further delayed because of the need for authorities to issue elevation certifications, Hardy said. Homes that had flooded could not be rebuilt unless their elevations were raised. Some citizens would not be allowed to rebuild on the same sites. A maze of construction and building permits had to be navigated, with homeowners whose houses were more than 50% flooded facing tough decisions: rebuild higher or relocate.
“I finally had to tell people that I do understand. My home was flooded also,” Hardy said. “I had to stop work on my home as well.”
Volunteers continued to stream into the area, representing church and community groups from across Texas and beyond.
SBTC DR crews coordinated by Lowell Warren, whom SBTC DR Director Scottie Stice tasked as point person for rebuild efforts, continued to help after damage assessors and recovery and mud-out crews finished their jobs.
At First Baptist, Whiting and Dean worked with local, regional, and out-of-state volunteers, matching them with appropriate jobs.
“The yellow shirts [SBDR volunteers] … had the skills and ability to do what was needed,” Hardy said. “You put them in and they do what they do. They worked on my house. I was there when the crews changed. If there’s another team to follow, the two leaders talked about what had been done and what needed to be done. It was seamless—and really fascinating.”
‘I can make a difference’
Hardy’s home became a rebuild priority not only because she had directed operations during the emergency, but also because she lost Bobby, her husband, on Christmas Day following the flood.
“I guess that bumped me to the top. We were living on our property in an RV. My kids were uncomfortable with me staying in the RV after Bobby passed away,” she said.
“Multiple families were affected in the church, including Marsha,” said Whiting, a retired physician. “It was difficult for her. As the county emergency management coordinator, she had a lot of responsibility after the flood, but was dealing with her own personal problems too. It was a horrendous time. Her husband was terminally ill. The church was very supportive. SBTC DR had people at her home very quickly.”
From Christmas Day to early March, Hardy moved into a house in town while SBTC DR and church volunteers from First Baptist and other congregations worked to restore her home.
“One day I was told that 35 people worked in my house. My house isn’t that big,” she said.
Today, Hardy is back on her property. Work on her home is almost complete, and a sturdy porch replaces an older, rickety version.
Others in town have been restored to their homes, while some have accepted assistance in relocating to property outside the flood plain. Work goes on. Organizations are expected to continue demolition and undertake rebuilding efforts through the fall.
Despite the many losses, Hardy said she still has hope.
“I am a preacher’s kid. I know where they [Bobby and her parents] are. I know my parents met him at the gate [of heaven]. I know his brother met him at the gate. When I go, they will be there for me,” she said.
Although she could retire, she keeps working. “I go to work because I can make a difference. We are not anywhere near being done with the flood. People are still displaced. They need help to navigate the paperwork. They need help when they must be told they cannot live in their homes anymore because they are too unsafe.”
Working all things together for good
“The flood hit a part of town that our church has struggled to reach,” Arthur said. “This opened the door to being able to reach some sections of our town that we hadn’t in the past,” including predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods, he explained.
The Saldivar family was among those assisted. SBTC DR volunteers installed new doors and helped make their house habitable again, enabling the large extended family to gather for a Thanksgiving meal on makeshift tables.
“We were blessed,” homeowner Amanda Saldivar said.
The flood, Arthur said, helped the congregation start looking more outward than inward, asking how it could get involved in serving the community while bringing the gospel to every corner of San Saba.
“The flood helped flipped the switch, change our mindset,” Arthur said. “I don’t know how many people we have seen come to Christ in the last year or so. Last year, there were more baptisms than our church had over the past 20 years. This year we are way ahead of pace over last year. We have seen a lot of people come to Christ and want to be baptized since the flood.”
Average attendance was 260-270 before the crisis; now it is over 320 in a town with a population of around 3,000, the pastor said.
“I was really proud of how our church responded. … If it wasn’t for the SBTC DR teams … they helped me through it. Lowell Warren ministered to me through the entire project. I can’t thank him and Scottie [Stice] and the SBTC enough. They made a big impact,” Arthur added.
The work goes on
“The biggest changes have yet to occur,” Whiting said, noting that they had been told to expect two years of recovery and rebuilding.
Nine months after the flood, a quarterly report issued by a community support organization showed that 262 families had been affected by the disaster, 117 had received assistance, 15 homes still needed demolition, six homes were awaiting rebuild, and a dozen families were still displaced.
“We have never lived through this kind of disaster before,” Whiting said.
David Dean echoed Warren’s observation that San Saba is providing a testing ground for SBTC DR to engage in rebuild in addition to relief work.
“God has been just so evident through the process so far,” Dean said. “We have not hit a roadblock we can’t get past. In God’s economy, we should not be surprised.
“We’ve been impressed with the pouring out of God’s love with all the guys and gals who have come to help. … We are still seeing fruit,” he added, confirming that ministry has expanded in San Saba where it had not existed before.
SBTC DR was a big part of that, he said.
“[Those] guys were out there every day just speaking to these people,” he said. “God used [them] to open our eyes to the needs.”
