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Last Wednesday, a press conference with the mayor of Kerrville, Texas, grew heated. Reporters—many of them in town from national news organizations to cover the aftermath of the devastating flooding of the Guadalupe River, which left well over a hundred people dead—had been pressing city officials for information about any miscalculations that may have contributed to the high death toll.
“Listen, people are yelling, and I didn’t really want you all to be yelling,” said Mayor Joe Herring. Off camera, a reporter shot back, “Well, if you offer only three questions, you’re going to have people yelling.”
“Guess what, you’re in Kerrville, and you’re going to do it my way,” the mayor responded curtly. Looking around, he quickly spotted a familiar face to call on instead: “Morgan Chesky, please.”
Chesky does not live in Kerrville—he is an LA-based reporter for NBC News—but he was born and raised there. His mother still lives in town—she survived the flooding—as do many old friends. “The mayor taught me Sunday school for a little bit as a kid,” Chesky said recently, as he drove through spotty cell service in Texas Hill Country, where he’s been reporting on the flood since last Saturday. “There are no strangers here.”
Given the chance, Chesky pressed the mayor on why better flood warning systems had not been put in place over the years. (“I’m more focused on the future than the past,” the mayor replied.) As he reflected on the past week, he found he was still wrestling with the dual role of national reporter and local resident. “Having covered disasters all over the world, you arrive and, whether you’re aware of it or not, there’s a layer of separation,” Chesky said. “And when I rolled into Kerrville and saw the damage, there was no layer of separation. I didn’t anticipate it hitting me as hard as it did.” His account has been edited for clarity and concision.
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On Friday morning, I woke up to half a dozen text messages asking me, essentially, How is Kerrville? Is your family safe? Is your mom okay? Then I see the text from my mom saying, “I’m safe. But here’s Kerrville.” And it was the city park, and all you could see was the bridge and water. And within about two minutes, I realized what’s happening.
I had to be in both modes [reporter and son-of-Kerrville], because I’m following the updates on the flash flood and then a hometown group text hits me saying that a guy I went to high school with has a daughter at Camp Mystic and she’s missing, and then that’s followed by a phone call from my mom saying, This isn’t confirmed but there are at least two dozen girls at Camp Mystic who may have been washed away. I have to be careful every time I talk about this, because I just break down. And I actually did in that moment, because my daughter was sleeping in the next room, and I couldn’t even wrap my head around what those parents were feeling.
I made it clear immediately upon hearing how bad it was that I needed to cover my hometown. And to NBC’s credit, which I will forever be grateful for, they got me there as soon as possible.
I landed Saturday and drove through the rain to Hunt [the town in Kerr County where Camp Mystic was situated]. I have seen many floods in my lifetime in the Texas Hill Country, but I had not witnessed anything like what I did on that drive. It was a level of devastation that—I mean, I was essentially tearing up the entire time I drove alongside the river because I was trying to wrap my head around this unprecedented power that had rolled through in the dark in the middle of the night.
Saturday afternoon, I drove toward Hunt and I took a walk alongside the river and I saw these T-shirts tangled in the branches and they were all from different summer camps that were upriver. And they were all torn and muddy, and it just really drove home what had happened. And then I spoke to the brother of Jane Ragsdale, the owner of Heart O’ the Hills camp, who washed away—she passed, actually; she’s been recovered. And I spoke to her brother Jeeper Ragsdale, and he told me, you know, they’ve grown up on the river their entire lives. He told me that when Jane woke up, there was about a foot of water around her bed, and by the time she got out and called him to tell him that the river was coming down, that was the last he heard of her. These are people who are intimately familiar with this river, yet on that night, in a few minutes it was too much. Jeeper told me that if he doesn’t get the call from Jane, there’s a good chance that he may not have been able to get the word out to others. So he credits her with helping him save lives by giving him the warning of just how bad it was.
Knowing how coverage can go with tragedies of this scale, I just wanted to make sure to put the people first. And as I wrote my stories, I imagined my hometown watching it and listening to every word. And I’ve been blessed that, with that awareness, it’s resulted in friends and family and members of the community feeling represented and feeling like they have a voice amid an incredibly dark time. And for that, I’m forever grateful. Because as tough as it’s been to be here, there’s no other place on the planet that I’d rather be: working through this alongside the folks that I grew up with, trying to mourn the lives lost, trying to see how we can keep this from happening again, and just kind of processing everything in real time. Because again, you grow up with floods in the Texas Hill Country; it’s a way of life. But this is not something we’ve ever experienced before.
My love for the hometown and this area, I’ve only viewed it as an asset. That said, having covered disasters all over the world, you arrive and, whether you’re aware of it or not, there’s a layer of separation. And when I rolled into Kerrville and saw the damage, there was no layer of separation, and I didn’t anticipate it hitting me as hard as it did.
On Tuesday, a press conference with Kerr County officials went viral, after reporters became frustrated with officials who dodged their questions about the region’s flood notification system. Chesky could feel the tone of the coverage changing.
When I heard that the press conference became very contentious, on Tuesday, I realized that this was the moment that the story started to shift, and that the calls for accountability were growing louder. But to be clear, the local folks were still processing what had happened. In a way, it felt like the story was shifting, or being taken out of the hands of the local people personally impacted, and shifting into a who’s-responsible, who’s-to-blame, who’s-at-fault situation.
The accountability questions are absolutely valid. However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little uncomfortable during those moments. The mayor taught me Sunday school for a little bit as a kid. There are no strangers here. There’s no six degrees of separation. You’re one or two degrees at most. But I think two things can be true. This is a flood, unlike anything the Hill Country has ever seen before. And questions need to be asked to ensure that a tragedy of this scale doesn’t happen again. As for who’s to blame, I don’t believe it’s any one person or any one entity. But I do believe there needs to be scrutiny in figuring out if there was anything that could have been done to prevent further loss of life.
In a profession where we often have to parachute in and report on the worst moments of a person’s life or a community’s history, I think what this has taught me is that you have to start with the people. And if you already arrive with assumptions on a place, I think your reporting from that point forward will be lacking crucial context.
If people only remember one thing about our coverage, I want it to be the people who live in this place and who will stay in this space long after the cameras leave, who are going to have to pick up the pieces following a disaster that seems to have rewritten the rules here.
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