It’s been a tough week in Texas and Oklahoma. Thunderstorms brought flash floods and tornados to a vast area from the Mexico border northward into Kansas. Many people lost their lives and their homes, their worlds turned upside down in a way I can barely imagine.

Here, in Central Texas, we remain cautious. Just one week ago, this past Memorial Day weekend, a storm raged through our area dumping as much as eleven inches of rain in one night. At the time of this post, the flash flood has claimed nine lives in Hays County alone, with at least ten people still missing.

The small town of Wimberley, TX, will never be the same. Its 300+ year-old cypress trees felled, basically ripped out of the banks as the Blanco River rose 41 feet in just a few hours. One home was lifted off its foundation, pieces of it found scattered downstream for miles; an entire vacation party, family and friends, gone, all except one survivor. Many others have no place to live, their homes completely in ruin, their lives disrupted in a way that makes recovery difficult and long.

Wimberley is our sweetheart. It’s one of those places that feels like a sanctuary, where your blood pressure drops as soon as you round the bend and see the town square dappled in sunlight. You want your children to know Wimberley, to swim in Jacob’s Well and Blue Hole. You teach them to swing from the high limbs of the cypress tress and land in the deep, cool waters of the Blanco River. You eat Tex-Mex and shop for vintage cowboy boots, rocks and gems. You discover the best pecan pies this side of Georgia.

Our property lies twenty or thirty miles north of this area and we are safe, suffering only minor damage–tree limbs down, drainage issues due to construction, and a small leak where water wicks under the eaves when winds become unpredictable and wild.

Yesterday, Marq and I sorted through our excess and created a pile of gently used clothes and housewares. Tomorrow we’ll drive to the donation center in hopes of helping out in some small way. We’ll make a monetary donation and hope you will, too. I believe any contribution helps.

As days turn into weeks, and weeks into months, we vow to not forget the sweetheart of the Hill Country and the residents of Hays County. As they grieve, we all grieve.

Sources: Photo by Alison Moore, “Wimberley Flood – 2015”

KVUE News–http://www.kvue.com/story/news/local/hays-county/2015/05/24/300-homes-destroyed-1000-damaged-in-hays-county/27886949/