Kerr County Flood Dangers Will Persist Until Community Is Properly Informed
Kerr County Rivers appear to be holding steady so far after some areas have seen over 4 inches of rain in Kerr County over the past 72 hours.
Streamflow anomalies continue to show true in Kerr County even after $43 Million was spent by the State of Texas dredging Lake Ingram and Nimitz Lake since the July 4, 2025 catastrophic flooding event. Areas upstream of Lynx Haven Crossing on the South Fork of the Guadalupe River, an area of the Guadalupe River between Riverview Rd. and Arcadia Loop, and the tributaries feeding the Guadalupe River downstream from where the City of Kerrville Wastewater Treatment Facility enters Lake Kerrville from the delta of Third Creek show streamflow anomalies within the National Water Prediction Service map layers at water.noaa.gov
Even notated, this experimental map from NOAA and USGS does not capture the full truth about the situation regarding streamflow gains and losses in Kerr County, Texas. There is a continous large percentage of streamflow loss between Nimitz Lake and the USGS gauge in the Guadalupe River near the Kerrville - Kerr County Joint Municipal Airport across TX-27.
The copious amount of disappearing water is not evaporating. The water loss is highly disproportional compared to the amount of water that TCEQ permits the City of Kerrville to divert from the river, which has been calculated to about 15 cubic feet per second. The water is going back underground.
Local officials do not answer questions or respond to credentialed and well-established news agencies such as Kerrville Breaking News, which shows data from Government agencies that squarely contradicts the statements and reasonings made from local officials, if they aren't completely silent about what appear to be "risky subjects" for them.
Instead, they stonewall and then use their media partners to push out distractions, psuedo-truths, or outright falsehoods, like the heavily damaged riparian buffer being the reason for the July 2026 flood damage extent when it was powerless against stopping the 2025 flood catastrophe.
Another article is an "opinion piece" by Louis Amestoy from Kerr County Lead, which claimed that the formations under Kerrville are only capable of water movement of centimeters per day. The article is the perfect example of what the people in our community have been up against for a century.
One of those people, who went on to be Kerr County Judge, William Gillespie Stacy, strongly opposed UGRA's implementation of what is now Kerrville's Aquifer Storage and Recovery System. In the Kerrville Daily Times on February 15, 1989, there was a quote from Judge Stacy that said, "What if they (UGRA) screw this up like they've done other things?" The Kerrville Daily times commented on his quote, saying that Judge Stacy claimed that UGRA's "foul-ups" are "well-documented."
Judge Stacy, who passed away in 2005, is related to the Eastlands. Seaborn Eastland was married to his sister, Anne Stacy Eastland Spears. Along with Scott Schreiner, Judge Stacy's grandfather was one of the first UGRA board members, then it passed to his son, Seaborn Eastland in 1943 when "Pop" Stacy passed away, then it was passed to Frank Harrison in 1959, who was hired to manage Camp Mystic after Pop's death. Judge Stacy was Dick Eastland's uncle, who was on the board at UGRA when these statements were made and replaced Frank Harrison during the family's first generational UGRA board successions. Dick Eastland and Charles Schreiner IV were both on the UGRA board together for several years.
Judge Stacy wrote several letters to the editor at Kerrville Daily Times. One said "Protect us from UGRA" and mentioned a report from 1973 that described putting water back into the ground as "dicey." On the board at UGRA during this time, was Dick Eastland, who was vocal about some topics, like wastewater and how most campers return to Camp Mystic.
UGRA was formed shortly after Camp Mystic lost three to four cottages during what Camp Mystic calls "The Great Flood of 1932." Camp Stewart, who advertises a blue hole on their property lost five cottages during the daytime flood in 1932, according to the Kerrville Mountain Sun. The daylight was attributed for being the reason that the campers survived.
The Stonewall Strategy
Kerr County Judge Elect and former president of Headwaters Groundwater Conservation District, Tom Jones, made his presence known in his official capacity as Kerr Co. Commissioners, Pct. 1 at the Headwaters Groundwater Conservation District Meeting March 11, 2026 and cautioned the District against responding to what he calls social media articles, according to the minutes from that date.
Tom Jones - Kerr Co. Commissioner, Pct. 1 - He cautioned the District against responding to social media articles. - Headwaters Groundwater Conservation District March 11, 2026 Minutes
The first article regarding the subsurface issues hours after they were discovered, and published by Kerrville Breaking News' transitionary publication, Karma Breaking News, entitled "Floodgate 4: The City of Kerrville's Ticking Water Bomb That Exploded July 4 Killing 37 Children, 119 Total" was published just five days before Kerr County Judge-Elect Tom Jones brought his "stonewall strategy" to Headwaters Groundwater Conservation District.
No member of any government agency, including, NOAA, NWS, USGS, The State of Texas, The United States Government, The City of Kerrville, Kerr County, UGRA, or Headwaters Groundwater Conservation District has released information or made statements which were contradictory to the information that Kerrville (Karma) Breaking News published March 6, 2026 and later.
They can't. It's their own data. The City of Kerrville's Mayor, Joe Herring, who ran unopposed in the 2026 election, who has publicly bragged prior to July 4, 2025 about being the mayor when the City of Kerrville's Aquifer Storage and Recovery program was starting in 1992, who was also working with the Upper Guadalupe River Authority to start the program, driving to Austin at one point to testify in favor of it, made a statement that he had not seen any information showing that the ASR was responsible for the mass casualty event and that he "would be interested" if a licensed hydrologist or hydrogeologist brought it to him.
That was his out, which is a pattern of moving the goal posts when he is faced with serious questions that are not favorable for him or the City of Kerrville. He exhibited the same type of behavior at a press conference after the the July 4, 2025 disaster when he was asked by a reporter whether or not he was invited to the TDEM briefing July 3, 2025. Mayor Herring's response was that he did not receive a phone call. He didn't mention any other types of communication.
The Data is Overwhelming
The compaction of the Lower Trinity aquifer, the fault lines running under the Lower Trinity less than a mile from the main ASR injection point, the Lower Trinity's connection to the Ellenburger aquifer throughout the City of Kerrville, and other factors concerning the geological foundation of the Kerrville area would be enough to interest elected officials who were operating in the best interests of the people they swore to serve.
Former City of Kerrville Public Works Director, Stuart Barron made statements during a Kerrville City Council Meeting on January 28, 2020 about the ASR 3 well that was drilled next to the Waste Water Treatment Plant off of Loop 534 that has experienced over a decade of problems. "We've gone through a lot of design alterations and we cannot find a good way to limit the water from the Lower Trinity and the Ellenburger. There's no good way to seal them off where we you can do testing without one interfering with the other."
"We cannot find a good way to limit the water from the Lower Trinity and the Ellenburger" - Stuart Barron, Kerrville City Council, January 28, 2020
Former Kerr County Commissioner Tom Moser, in 2020, on record at Kerr County Commissioners Court called the 800 gallons per minute that the new Ellenburger well pumped "fantastic, if the Ellenburger doesn't run all over Kerr County, but its fingers of where it could be located." He went on to say, "It's my understanding that the Trinity and Ellenburger do communicate and I don't know quite exactly how that is, probably nobody knows except God."
Hard to tell how much new groundwater
Hours before City of Kerrville Mayor, Joe Herring, would tip Kerrville Breaking News off that there were major problems which were not being disclosed, Former City of Kerrville Public Works Director gave an update at the City Council Workshop before the City Council Meeting September 9, 2025.
"It's hard to tell how much new groundwater we're getting, other than what we're putting in" - Former City of Kerrville Public Works Director, Stuart Barron
There are many more examples which are documented and will be released in the final Floodgate Report upon its completion.
And now, Kerr County and City of Kerrville elected officials, with their appointed partners at UGRA, three of which were Camp Owners or managed camps until July 4, 2025, two from the same family (Dick Eastland and Jeanne Stacy), are either deceased with their own victims from the catastrophic disaster or our elected and appointed officials, who have been working with camps to hide and bury the truth along with all of the Guadalupe River drowning victims, are actively stonewalling when residents ask questions about the flooding emergencies.
Instead, they are trying to convince people that water moves at the speed of sound across the surface when it's actually below ground that the water moves with extreme velocity during intense pressure events, while promoting tree giveaways for those who live near Kerr County waterways.
Trees take years to grow large enough to climb when the subsurface makes connection with the rivers and creeks. Life jacket giveaways would seem more appropriate for the continual extremely dangerous matters of public safety, especially for low-income families along Kerr County creeks and riverbeds who have not yet seen the financial help necessary to rebuild or relocate to a safer location.
The Serious Flooding Possibility and Saturated Soils
The NOAA Hydrologic Ensemble Forecast System (HEFS), which is labeled as experimental, is showing that there is at least a 10% chance of moderate flooding in Hunt within the next 10 days.
The National Soil Moisture Analysis is showing that the near-surface soil moisture varies between 45% and 100%, with the darkest areas showing higher amounts. The section showing between TX-16 and US-83 is estimated to be between 85% and 95% saturated.
In a Karst environment like the Edwards Plateau unit, limestone dissolution has led to speleogenesis of massive cave networks which are found in the lithology logs when wells are drilled throughout the Guadalupe river basins in Kerr County.
While a portion of precipitation runs through these networks and emerges from perennial springs, there is documented vertical communication between all of the layers in the aquifer stack in Kerr County all the way up and down through the faulted Hickory formation, which is the lowest formation in the Precambrian bowl which contains the Kerr Basin, which contains Kerr County, which is called the Precambrian basement.
The Precambrian basement is always saturated. There is nowhere for the water to go. The edge of the basement runs along the southeastern edge of Kerr County, which is sandwiched between the Precambrian basement and the Llano Uplift on the northern side, creating a concave groundwater pool under the surface. During drought conditions, the water levels in the Precambrian basement, which also contains ancient reefs, rivers, sands, and formations like the heavily karsted Ellenburger formation and its collapsed cave networks isn't as full as when the river's springs are bubbling and creating the lush vegetation and riparian utopia that was wiped out along the river July 4, 2025 along with countless 600 year old bald cypress trees that had withstood six centuries of floods.
Drought conditions, in turn, lead to dryer "soil" conditions and lower potentiometric head levels in the monitoring wells throughout Kerr County. One gauge, which has been accurate in showing the flood potential during the past two catastrophic flooding events in Kerr County, retrospectively during the first and prior to the second which was shared with local emergency management shortly before the 2026 flood, is drilled through the Lower Trinity formation into the Paleozoic formation below it. This well is Headwaters Groundwater Conservation District Monitoring Well No. 11. Many of Kerrville's public water wells are drilled through the Lower Trinity into the Paleozoic formation, into either the Pennsylvanian Shale or the karsted Ellenburger limestone.
HGCD Monitoring Well #11 is currently is showing groundwater pressure from the confined Lower Trinity Aquifer Unit at less than 300 feet below the surface. In fact, it's showing that the pressure rises above the pressure in the Middle Trinity Aquifer Unit. At its last reading at midnight overnight, the Lower Trinity formation's potentiometric head level was almost 20 feet higher than the Middle Trinity Unit's.
Contrary to drought conditions, when central Texas sees large-scale rain events like it has over the past 72 hours, the water table elevates and saturates the formations. October was a basin-filler of a month as well, regionally and in parts of Kerr County.
NOAA's Precipitation Estimate at water.noaa.gov is showing that up to 8" of rain fell in portions of Kerr County in October, 2026. The yellow area shown in the image above is where the least amount of rain fell, which was between 2-3 inches. The majority of the county, shown in orange, was met with between 4-5 inches of rain, while the lighter shade of red is showing areas that received between 5-6 inches of rain. And, it's not going to end there.
This weekend, another rain event has been forecasted for central Texas. The current forecast for the Hill Country is showing Excessive Rainfall Day 5 Marginal (At Least 5%) as true for Kerr County and the entire Hill Country region.
While our local elected officials and their media partners work to downplay the increasingly dangerous situation that our community is in, Kerrville Breaking News will continue to work overtime as necessary to ensure that you receive the information that you need to make informed decisions when needed.