Kerr County flood damage has once again reshaped daily life in Kerrville, with officials counting roughly 490 damaged homes barely a year after the catastrophic Independence Day floods of 2025.

Among the buildings hit this time was Notre Dame Catholic Church, an institution that spent the past year helping others recover and now finds its own campus underwater.

Two Floods, Two Years, One Priest

Father Scott Janysek is only starting his second year leading the parish in Kerrville. He has already lived through two historic floods.

He arrived four days before the first one and, as he put it, threw everything he had planned out the window.

The second arrived last week.

A Different Kind of Flooding

This event did not follow the pattern of last summer’s disaster.

The 2025 flooding primarily struck communities along the Guadalupe River. This time, Janysek said, intense rainfall simply overwhelmed Kerrville’s urban drainage system, pushing water into neighborhoods with no history of flooding whatsoever.

That distinction matters enormously for the families affected. People who had never had reason to consider themselves at risk are now facing repairs, and many carry no flood insurance because nothing in the historical record suggested they needed it.

Damage at Notre Dame

The church campus took a hard hit.

Janysek described water two to two and a half feet deep rushing through areas outside the buildings. All but three structures on the property took on water, including:

• Classrooms
• The gymnasium
• The parish adoration chapel
• Community gathering spaces

Teachers lost classroom supplies they had bought with their own money. After the water receded, photos, books, rugs and educational materials lay scattered across the grounds.

The timing is particularly cruel. Students are scheduled to return for the new school year in a matter of weeks.

Parishioners Hit Harder Than Last Year

Janysek said this flood affected his congregation more severely than the 2025 event did.

He estimated a list of more than 30 people who lost everything. Their homes were not washed away, he said, but they took on multiple feet of water, which for practical purposes produces the same outcome for a family’s possessions.

The County-Wide Picture

Officials have tallied the damage across Kerr County:

• Approximately 490 damaged homes
• Roughly 100 affected businesses
• About 135 residences either destroyed or sustaining major damage
• More than 219 households have already requested cleanup assistance

Volunteer organizations are working alongside residents to clear debris and begin the rebuilding process.

The Governor’s Assessment

Gov. Greg Abbott toured flood-damaged areas across Kerr, Kendall and Comal counties on Monday.

His central message was that last year’s tragedy produced changes that saved lives this time. He said the way local leaders and residents responded prevented deaths, crediting first responders, volunteers and residents who acted quickly as water rose.

Abbott specifically pointed to improvements in warning systems and emergency planning implemented after July 2025. He said the systems put in place proved successful and helpful, and expressed a goal of achieving similar results in every region of Texas.

He attributed the reduced loss of life to a combination of factors: residents who prepared, local officials monitoring conditions in advance, and better coordination among emergency agencies.

That assessment holds even though this week’s storms caused widespread damage throughout Kerrville and surrounding communities. Property losses were heavy. The human toll was not what it might have been.

Volunteers Show Up Again

Janysek found something familiar in the response.

Within hours of putting out a call for help Thursday morning, more than 50 volunteers arrived to push water out of buildings and start cleanup.

“Floods do the same thing,” he said. “We’re all in it together.”

The Relief Fund Reopens

Notre Dame’s track record from last year is substantial. The parish raised and distributed more than $1 million in flood relief grants, reaching roughly 70 to 80 families. Some received multiple rounds of assistance as their recovery stretched on.

That fund is open again following this latest disaster.

Donations, however, have been slower this time. Janysek attributed the difference to geography: the flooding covered a much larger region this year, which means more communities competing for the same charitable attention.

The church says money goes directly toward housing repairs and other immediate recovery needs for flood victims.

The Harder Question

Beneath the immediate recovery work sits an uncomfortable issue that Kerrville will have to confront.

Two historic floods in two years, with the second one hitting neighborhoods that had never flooded before, suggests the flood maps and drainage assumptions the community has operated under may no longer describe reality.

That has practical consequences. Insurance decisions, building requirements and infrastructure investment all rest on risk assessments drawn from historical patterns. When the patterns change faster than the assessments, families end up uninsured in homes nobody expected to flood.

What Recovery Looks Like Now

For the moment, the work is physical and immediate: hauling out ruined drywall, replacing classroom supplies, getting a school campus usable before students return.

Kerrville has done this before. That experience is why more people survived this time.

It is also why the exhaustion in the community is real. Doing it twice in thirteen months asks something of a place that no amount of preparation makes easy.