Free Post-Flood Counseling: The Greater Austin YMCA is offering free counseling sessions for people impacted by the recent flooding, both in person and via telehealth. To schedule, select a counselor on the YMCA’s website and choose “Flood Support” from the drop-down options.
Still Missing: Roughly 100 people, presumably drowned, are still missing two weeks after a 25-foot wall of water, broken trees, and mud descended on people near Kerrville in the early morning hours of July 4. At this point, officials count 132 deaths, according to The Texas Tribune, but officials say an exact figure of the missing is impossible to know because so many people were vacationing on the Guadalupe River that Fourth of July weekend. If all those still missing have died, the Hill Country floods will become the second most catastrophic natural disaster in Texas history, after the 1900 Galveston hurricane.
Volunteers Needed: The Big Sandy Creek neighborhood in Northwest Travis County is going through the debris piles too, and officials are asking for volunteers to help. The area was hit with its own wall of water during the July Fourth floods. At least nine people died. Many more lost their homes. Three are still missing. KUT News reports that residents have taken off work to clean the heaps of debris and expect the process to take months. Hundreds of personal items have been recovered, including toys, books, and old family photos.
Working Through Debris: Many of the bodies still missing in Texas are likely buried in mud or large piles of debris. Recovery teams are continuing their work and likely will for weeks. “Sometimes in flooding, we’ve seen the Earth only yield its final death toll some months, and maybe even years, later,” Lucy Easthope, an adviser on disaster recovery, told the Tribune.
Grieving in Leander: Towns in the area continue to process the tragedies. Several hundred Leander residents gathered at their ACC campus on Saturday to mourn the loss of the flood victims. In nearby Marble Falls, the community is remembering longtime volunteer fire chief Michael Phillips, who was swept away on July 5 as he tried to save two people trapped in their vehicles near Cow Creek. The search for Phillips’ body continues nearly two weeks after his disappearance.
Cloud Seeding Not to Blame: After tragedy, often comes conspiracy theories. This week KUT debunked the spreading rumor that weather manipulation caused the floods. Cloud seeding is a method of combating drought by using tiny particles to spark rain. It doesn’t create clouds but increases rainfall from them in localized spots, KUT reports. People online pointed to cloud seeding in a different part of Texas two days before the storm in the Hunt area. But, “There is zero science whatsoever out there, zero, that correlates these two [things],” said a longtime National Weather Service meteorologist.
Department of Education, Undone: The Supreme Court is allowing Donald Trump to dismantle the Department of Education, and it didn’t explain why. Monday’s ruling isn’t the last word, as the case continues through the lower courts. But suing states and school districts fear the damage done to the department before a final ruling will be irreversible. Already SCOTUS gave Trump the green light on a different set of mass layoffs, but at least then there was an explanation. This week, nothing. As The Atlantic put it: “There’s something taunting, almost bullying, about this lack of reasoning, as if the conservative supermajority is saying to the country: You don’t even deserve an explanation.”
More Federal Losses: SCOTUS also cleared the way last week for thousands of workers at the Health and Human Services Department to be fired. Monday, they began receiving layoff notices. The New York Times reports the cut workers included communications staff, public records officials, and people who oversaw medical research contracts. Meanwhile, the Senate is poised to approve legislation that defunds public broadcasting.
Federal Cuts Hit Texas Schools: Schools in the state are expecting to lose millions in federal funding for mental health programs for students impacted by mass shootings. The federal Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, created after the Uvalde school massacre, funds Texas grant programs which support 86% of the mental health counseling provided at Texas campuses. Republicans are cutting it by $1 billion. The Tribune reports that, per an analysis from the Learning Policy Institute, five other federal programs that support public schools have been frozen. It all amounts to withholding roughly $600 million from Texas, more than 16.1% of the state’s federal K-12 funding.
Pentagon Contract for Musk’s Antisemitic AI: X’s AI tool, Grok, has gone on antisemitic rants calling itself MechaHitler. Last week, it posted, “To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question.” While the European Union responded with new industry guidance to clamp down on hateful AI, Elon Musk announced that the U.S. Department of Defense now has a contract with Grok, with a ceiling of $200 million.
Epstein List: One of the only criticisms Trump’s fans raise in all of this is that his administration has refused to release the “client list” of Trump’s friend, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Why they would want the list released is unclear, given the possible implications. There are many photos of Trump and Epstein floating around the internet documenting the pair’s association, and last November journalist Michael Wolff released audio recordings in which Epstein claimed he was Trump’s closest friend for 10 years. Trump is continuing to defend Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision not to release any information on the case but modified his message in classic Trump fashion after the MAGA pushback, saying Bondi should release “credible” information but claiming he didn’t understand the fascination with Epstein. “He’s dead for a long time,” Trump told reporters. “He was never a big factor in terms of life.”
Abbott Musk Email Intrigue: Lauren McGaughy at KUT reported an interesting detail in her ongoing research into Elon Musk’s grip on state politics. On Monday, the reporter revealed that Gov. Greg Abbott has refused to release months of emails with Musk, arguing that they are private and potentially embarrassing – something that is easy to believe. McGaughy writes that, initially, the governor’s office charged KUT $244 to process the communications. After cashing the check, office spokespersons told KUT the records were confidential and that it had asked Attorney General Ken Paxton to shield them from public scrutiny.
Pursuing Execution: Speaking of Paxton, he is trying to get one of Texas’ citizens killed again. The A.G. has taken a particular interest in the case of Robert Roberson, stepping in to request an execution date of Oct. 16 for the death row inmate whose guilt in the 2002 death of his daughter Nikki has been widely questioned, including by a bipartisan majority of the Texas House of Representatives. Last year, Republicans and Democrats managed to get Roberson’s scheduled execution delayed, after a House committee took the completely unprecedented step of subpoenaing Roberson to appear at the Capitol. Roberson’s attorney, Gretchen Sween, told reporters that Texas attorney generals almost never step in to prosecute criminal cases in court. “The A.G.’s office has not been involved in this case and plainly does not know the case,” she said.
Population Slowdown: In Austin, population growth is slowing in a major way, the Austin Monitor reports. In 2022, Austin broke into the top 10 largest cities in America, and was the fastest-growing large metro area in the country for the 12th year. Now, Austin is just the 13th-largest city, and the fourth-fastest-growing region in the country. In 2023, more people left Travis County than moved in.
Narrower Roads: The Urban Transportation Commission wants Austin to narrow its roads, based on research that lanes around 12 feet wide were associated with a higher rate of crashes, unlike narrower lanes between 9 and 10 feet. A resolution passed unanimously by the commission recommends that City Council move to reduce down to 10 feet for standard and 9 feet for “constrained” lanes, with 11 feet for lanes often used by trucks, buses, or other larger vehicles.
Quote of the Week
“Nobody has any idea how and why a thing like this could happen.”
– President Donald Trump after surveying flood damage in Central Texas
This article appears in July 18 • 2025.