God and the Guadalupe long reigned over Texas Hill Country. Now grief permeates.

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KERRVILLE — The storied Guadalupe River meanders through this Texas Hill Country town and into the unincorporated parts of Kerr County like a vein.

Sports bars, summer cabins and RV parks dotting its banks often feature the rugged and great Guadalupe’s name in banners and signs. For generations, Kerr County residents have gathered at the headwaters of the spring-fed river, which flows 260 miles out into the San Antonio Bay along the Gulf Coast.

Texans from all corners of the geographically diverse state flock here, too, for the Americana experiences of summer camp, tube floats and riverside getaways.

Clifton Fifer, a 72-year-old lifelong Kerrville resident, used to dip his feet in the water as a kid. When he got older, he would come out to fish.

“The river was our playground,” he said this week.

But in the pre-dawn darkness on July Fourth, the very river so core to the region’s identity betrayed residents and the countless vacationers who’d come to the Guadalupe for a long, leisurely holiday weekend celebrating America’s birthday. In less than an hour amid a torrent of rain, a 26-foot wall of water turned the river into a ferocious enemy that submerged homes, carried away vehicles, washed out roads and pulled hundreds of people into its unforgiving currents.

The full toll of one of the deadliest flash floods in Texas history continued to emerge in the week after the Guadalupe swelled. At least 120 people were killed. Thousands of recovery workers are still searching for at least 172 people still missing, though the likelihood of them being found alive dwindles every hour — and it’s been days since anyone was found alive.

Among the victims are 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, itself a celebrated Texas icon. The devastation at the all-girls Christian camp garnered immediate global attention and compassion last weekend. But as officials released new counts in the days since and the number of people killed and still missing rose, it became starkly clear that the flood’s victims also include local residents who were at home, vacationers staying in rental cabins and people in RV parks all along the Guadalupe.

Today, one week after the disaster first began unfolding, miles of the river basin are filled with mangled metal and mountains of debris. Over the past seven days, Kerrville and the surrounding communities have hosted a cacophony of varied scenes as Texans desperately searched for missing loved ones, volunteers inundated the county, recovery workers meticulously combed miles of upheaval and locals tried to figure out how to move forward.

For many Texas families who have lived or vacationed here for generations, grief requires enduring in the very place where the overwhelming loss overbearingly lingers.

The people in Kerr County are deeply religious. Faith has emerged as a source of comfort and a way to embrace each other. As they rebuild, residents are also reexamining what it means to live alongside the river, finding ways to honor what was lost while searching for a path forward.

For some, this isn’t the first time. After all, this is part of “Flash Flood Alley.” The region’s dramatic elevation changes and non-absorbent soil conspire to send water rushing downhill fast when heavy rain storms hit. Still, many said the July 4 flood is the worst they've seen in their lifetime.

At around 3 a.m. on July 4, the river’s currents first tore through Camp Mystic and the surrounding neighborhoods in Hunt, an unincorporated town that sits at the upper tributary of the Guadalupe River. Most houses there, residents said, sit roughly 40 feet above the river.

On Wednesday afternoon, James Wright and his son were among families in Hunt scavenging for any salvageable items in their homes. Trucks pulled in and out of the houses, hauling branches and furniture. The only sounds from a distance were airborne drones, an endless stream of trucks cramped in the two-lane road and a recovery worker manning a whirring saw.

Wright, 69, has owned his home in Hunt since 1990. He, his wife Donna, and their three sons live in San Antonio year-round but summer in Hunt.

While Wright and Donna slept, the river grew and ripped through the house. They woke up to water on the floor. They ran to the attic in a carport next to the house, where they waited out the flood for about two hours. At about 5:00 a.m., the couple walked to a nearby Methodist church.

On Wednesday, as Wright collected the paintings he inherited from his mother, he, like so many others, grappled with the truth that their beloved homes stand on unforgiving ground.

“We’re always prepared for a flood, to be stuck here for a couple of days without electricity. That’s just a contingency of living on the river,” he said. “But none of us ever thought the water was going to get in these houses.”

Salvaging what’s left

Nancy Allery’s family also owns a home in Hunt. The Houston native wasn’t there when the home, like Wright’s next door, flooded. But her sister, brother-in-law and niece were there when the deadly currents hit. Richard Zdunkewicz, her brother-in-law, was the first to wake up to the sound of the raging river at 3 a.m. He told his wife, Catherine Zdunkewicz, and his daughter, Nancy Zdunkewicz, to get in the car. But the river grew so fast that they were scared to drive further than the fence. So the three climbed up the trees. The water reached Richard’s knees and Catherine’s ankles. Nancy kept looking at her mom to make sure she still clung to the trunk, she said.

They held on for two hours until the water receded and the street became walkable again. Two women they did not know picked them up on the side of the road and drove them to the Methodist church, where Nancy’s brother picked them up.

“There was no way of understanding how quickly the water was going to go up,” Nancy Zdunkewicz said. “It was just this bubbling, violent, dark river, and then you could just tell you did not want to be at the point where water from the road was meeting the river, swirling.”

Nancy and her mom, both of whom went to Camp Mystic as children, said it was hard for them to think about the campers the night the area flooded.

“If you went to Mystic and you were in those cabins, you think about how young you were. It was black outside, it was pitch black, and how scary it would be to be dealing with that in those waters at that age.”

Allery said the county should invest in sirens to alert people along the river of a crisis. Local, state and federal officials have faced a barrage of questions and criticism about the lack of warning ahead of the floods. The National Weather Service sent out its first flash flood warning for part of Kerr County three hours and 21 minutes before the first flooding reports came in, creating a window to warn people along the banks. Amid conversation about a flood warning system before the flood, Kerr County officials have been caught between a desire to make the region safer and constituents’ demands to reduce property taxes and government waste.

Texas lawmakers will consider better warning systems during a special legislative session that begins July 21. On Thursday, the Texas Senate and House formed special committees to consider stronger disaster preparedness and flooding laws.

Allery doesn’t know if she wants to be in Hunt for the next flood. The home and some of the items she recovered on Wednesday had been in the family for 30 years, she said. Her family has had ties to the area for almost a century. For decades, she watched campers laugh and run around the field and along the river. But now, Allery said, the family doesn’t know whether they should keep the home.

Her husband, Darrell Bowling, thinks they’ll keep it.

“Did you hear my wife talk about this place, the connection to this place?” he asked. “Her connection to this place is in our hearts and the spirit of who she is, and that’s the same for the people here. That’s what this place is about, and it’s how we’ll survive.”

Amid staggering loss, a prayer

Kerr County has about 55,000 residents and more congregations than grocery stores. Kerrville is the county seat. And in these towns and enclaves, Christianity is just as important to many as the river.

“It is part of the culture of Kerrville,” said Josh Smithson, who led a sermon at the vigil commemorating the dead and missing this week.

During his sermon, kids as young as 8 or 9 years old recited the Bible verses back from their memory with their eyes closed.

“People are seeking comfort in that,” Smithson said.

The county’s churches were early response hubs, for worship and for aid efforts. At Riverside Church of Christ, minister Chris Carrillo tried to help the best he could. As soon as members of his congregation filtered out of the pews after his Sunday service, he started to sort through and deliver bucketloads of supplies, many of which were donations from across the country.

Lois Shaw, 84, lost two longtime friends in the floods, including Camp Mystic director Richard "Dick" Eastland, who died trying to save the lives of his campers.

“It has pulled me down. To see all that devastation, to see so many families separated,” Shaw said. “I’ve been asking God to give me strength because others need me. And I want to be there.”

Shaw works at the Doyle Community Center as a facilities manager. All week at work, she’s listened to the gospel station Keeping Him Close By.

Shaw lived through the floods of 1987, where a bus of kids trying to evacuate did not survive. She is still hurting from that, and now she is hurting again. She doesn’t know if the hurt will ever stop.

When asked about current recovery efforts, she paused and offered a quiet smile.

“I’m trying to practice prayerful thinking,” Shaw said.

Out near Hunt, the law enforcement and ambulance sirens came and went Wednesday on Junction Highway, the road to the western part of the county, where most of the bodies have been recovered. The sirens are an unrelenting reminder of how many families continue to wait for their children and parents and grandparents to be found.

Near the road, Donna Ragsdale held a sign that said, “PRAYING.”

Ragsdale, who teaches at Ingram Tom Moore High School, stood in the sun with her sign to show support for recovery workers.

“We all need prayers,” said Ragsdale, who has been crying in church these days. “I know God is going to take care of us."

Grief at every turn

Randi Webber, 38, looked out onto the Tivy High School football field after the Wednesday night vigil. As a student 20 years ago, she cheered on those very sidelines. Every few minutes, a friend came up, outstretched their arms and asked if she was doing OK.

Is she? Is anyone? In a town as small as Kerrville, everyone is tied to one another. So loss doesn’t stay in one household. It spreads, through classrooms, through church, at the store.

One of her closest friends took his wife and two sons camping in an RV in nearby Ingram for the holiday weekend. Their daughter was staying at a nearby camp.

The four family members who were camping were swept away. In the days after the storm, Webber went out to the Guadalupe — the same river where she had played and prayed and learned her whole life — to look for them. Webber’s friend and his wife are now among those confirmed dead. Their two boys are among the 172 still missing. Their daughter is now the sole survivor of the family.

The friend’s wife had just been declared free of cancer.

The family members who died or are still missing are among an unknown number of victims drawn to the river for a holiday weekend. Just as the Guadalupe is lined with summer camps for kids, it also has recreational campgrounds and RV parks that draw tourists.

In nearby Ingram, at least 26 people staying at the HTR Campground overlooking the river were swept away, according to the Kerr County Lead. On the morning of the flood, Ingram City Council member Raymond Howard, who lives in a single-family home on the same block as the campground, saw an RV with its interior lights on drifting down the otherwise pitch-black Guadalupe.

“I could see three or four people, maybe five people, in that camper, screaming for help," Howard said.

Webber’s been left searching for a new normal. Usually, she’d reach out to her friend, who worked at a local funeral home and is now among the dead. He always knew what to say. He always had a way of making things make sense.

She’s struggling to help guide her own children through the personal loss — and the staggering collective grief wrought by the river they know so well.

Webber has found herself looking back at old text exchanges with the friend she lost — especially messages he sent her as solace when her own father died.

She won’t be keeping those conversations to herself forever.

“What he said about dads and daughters, that's exactly what I’m going to tell his daughter,” said Webber. “He just laid it all out.”

At bedtime Tuesday, Webber’s 11-year-old son folded his hands to pray.

“Dear Lord,” she recalled him saying, “thank you for today and all the blessings you have given us … like the bodies, even though they are …”

His voice trembled.

“…gone. We have their spirit. Like you. And thank you for the reconstruction and all the workers. And let us come together. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.”