Heavy rain turned dangerous in the Hunt area of Kerr County on Thursday morning, sending rescuers into flooded streets and forcing evacuations as water cut off road access and stranded some residents. Kerr County later posted on Facebook that the situation was a flash flood emergency for Hunt and Kerrville.
The emergency was not just about rising water. It was about speed. Floodwater left some people unable to get out by road, while others were told to shelter in place because it was no longer safe or possible to reach higher ground. Officials also urged people not to drive through flooded roadways and to move to higher ground if they could do so safely.
That warning came as water from the Guadalupe River was rising rapidly and, in some places, entering homes. A source said runoff flooding was driving the river up fast, and another round of heavy rain was moving across the Hill Country, adding pressure to ground that was already saturated and rivers that were already swollen. In that kind of setup, water does not need much more rain to spread quickly and trap people where they are.
By Thursday morning, rescues and evacuations were underway in Kerr County, but the number of people helped was not immediately clear. The bigger problem was access: rising water had already cut off parts of the area, and that meant the usual advice to get to higher ground did not work for everyone. Some residents could leave. Others could only wait for floodwaters to fall or for help to reach them.
For residents in Hunt and Kerrville, the immediate question is no longer whether the flooding is serious. It is how much farther the water will rise before the next round of rain passes and crews can safely get back into the hardest-hit areas.
