On today's episode of FAFO

July 8, 2025

In light of the disastrous Guadalupe River flooding incident of July 4, I thought you might like to see what the Kerr County, TX Commissioners had been up to. Here are some transcripts from their meetings and I will let their own words speak for them. This is a deep dive; I spent all day prowling the transcripts but it’s vital to understand how this tragedy happened and how it didn’t have to happen.

May 23, 2015: the Blanco River rose 45 feet in one hour and killed 13 people—mostly tourists who weren’t familiar with the danger of flash floods-- in Wimberley, TX, 80 some miles east of Kerrville. Nearly 400 homes were destroyed.

June 27, 2016, Commissioner’s court regular meeting.

Commissioner Buster Baldwin (and I can just hear Tommy Lee Jones): “You know we had a baby flood a couple weeks ago, a month or so, whatever it was. And I keep hearing these reports of the old, old system, and I know we're not going to deal with that though… But it's still there and it still works. The thought of our beautiful Kerr County having these damn sirens going off in the middle of night, I'm going to have to start drinking again to put up with y'all.”

Commissioner Tom Moser (Billy Bob Thornton): “I think -- I think this and that's what the committee is going to look at and how to do it. I think the going in position is that we don't need to change anything, and is there a need to improve what we have. And if there's a need to improve how much is improved. And what the options for doing that and what it would cost. And I think the first thing to do is say why change anything. It worked this long and maybe we don't need to do a thing. And then it gets into the thing we talk about earlier today, and that's risk mitigation. And you know there's still people drowned and you know-”

Commissioner Baldwin: “And I hope you ask the question like who are we notifying, or who are we trying to get the message to? Are they these crazy people from Houston that build homes right down on the water?”

Commissioner Moser: “And the question is do we need to do anything. And what do we want to do and what can we afford.”

August 22, 2016: the Kerr County Commissioner’s court had a meeting, after having Hewitt Engineering conduct a study on their current flood warning system. It was deemed “inadequate.”

Commissioner Moser: “Their assessment was what existed today, and the Sheriff may want to comment on it, is antiquated and it's not reliable… we thought that there was a pretty ill-defined system that we have. So the engineering study we thought would be appropriate.”

Commissioner Baldwin: “I'm going to vote no because of numerous reasons. I think this whole thing is a little extravagant for Kerr County, and I see the word sirens and all that stuff in here… But step one of taking these funds out of special projects, out of Road and Bridge, that ticks me off a little bit.”

October 24, 2016: At the regular session of the Commissioner’s Court, Mr. Hewitt [the engineer] said “Sirens did not seem to get very much support. The thought was that sirens are better for tourists than local residents. The sirens would only be beneficial for someone that's not familiar with the area, and wouldn't know what to do.”

Tourism is a significant part of Kerr County’s economy.

January 9, 2017: The Commissioners discuss the recommended warning system.

Commissioner Moser: “The cost of that whole thing is going to be like 976 thousand dollars… the reason we're here today and moving so quickly is that there is a FEMA [Hazard Mitigation] grant that's available until as long as we apply by January the 20th… So it goes away just so happens to be when [Obama] leaves office… Code Red is the same that's going to get information to a lot of people; not to everybody, okay. One of the things that we'll do is identify a point of contact in all of the camps… So getting the information to the public is the end item of this whole thing. The first thing is sense a flood, then communicate that information to the local authorities… and then for them to have a system by with which to disseminate the information to the public.”

Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer (Matthew McConaughey): “No matter what we do it's going to be up to the public, okay. The notification is great. The only other thing is… most of the time it has been informal where we call people… we called camps, they made the decision that they thought they could beat that ride, and then that no matter what we do and no matter what we install there's going to be loss of life. It's educating people… there's a lot of informal things that really do work real well. Because this river can come up in a instant, we all know that with the drainage. But it will go down just as quick if they just hold tight with what they've got. But the whole key is just getting people that are traveling up here from somewhere –”

Commissioner Bob Reeves (Owen Wilson): “That's my concern is ones that don't live here.”

Commissioner Moser: “That's everybody's concern.”

Judge Tom Pollard (Woody Harrelson): “So this is kind of an offer, or to see if it's accepted by and also agreed to by UGRA [Upper Guadalupe River Authority] and the City.’

Commissioner Moser: “Correct.”

Judge Pollard: “And if they don't then where are we with this?”

Commissioner Moser: “If they don't then we just forget the whole project.”

Judge Pollard: “Just dead in the water.”

Commissioner Moser: “Dead in the water, right. It's dead in the water. Or the pun for the Flood Warning System.”

Judge Pollard: “Dead in the water.”

Calling the Flood Warning System “Dead in the water.” Eerily prescient in light of the past few days. Talk about foreshadowing.

The commissioners fail to get a grant, and nothing happens. They keep on with the status quo and the inadequate warning system they have but the weather keeps weathering.

November 8, 2021: They end up with $5.1 million in ARPA [American Rescue Plan Act] funds in the bank and discuss how to spend it at their regular meeting.

Commissioner Johnathan Letz (Forrest Whitaker): “I mean, my opinion is law enforcement and the internal communications are the number one and two [priorities for spending].”

Commissioner Don Harris (Jamie Foxx): “Well, that's mine. Because not only does it cover that, it -- the Sheriff's office, communications, getting it up to speed, and also the Volunteer Fire Departments and making sure that we can communicate with other counties… communications is one of our biggest weaknesses.”

Sheriff Larry Leitha (Dennis Quaid): “Preliminary, I'm looking at $3 million for just me.”

So that’s $3 million for new radios, but that leaves $2 million for a flood warning system that they said would cost about $1 million, if my math is correct here. They don’t even consider or discuss updating the system, however. And there’s one more hitch in their giddy-up; they don’t want to spend the ARPA funds because, well, keep reading.

November 8, 2021, regular commissioner’s court meeting. The residents are speaking on the topic of the ARPA funds.

Resident 2 (I will be nice and not use their real name): “And I'm here to ask this Court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House. And Kerr County should not be accepting anything from these people. They're currently facilitating an invasion of our border, and we're going to support these people? So that's what I have to say. Thank you.” Same philosophy that led to Texas rejecting the Medicaid expansion funds. Things don’t change much in the Lone Star State. Plenty of other counties in the U.S. spent the money on some really amazing things that improved the quality of life for their residents. Not Texas. It’s a MAGA mecca for a reason, and that reason is “Go ahead and hate your neighbor.”

Commissioner Harvey Belew (Jensen Ackles): “The money is in the bank right now. Hasn't been spent. In the event that you don't spend it, you send it back.”

Judge Robert Kelly (Gary Busey): “But we -- we need to know and get very comfortable with where we are with this grant before we start taking that money… my old law partner John Cornyn [Senator] tells me that if we send it back it's going to New Jersey or it's going to New York or it's going to California. And so I don't know if I'd rather be the custodian of the money until we decide what we have to do with it rather than giving it back to the government to spend it on values that we in Kerr County don't agree with.”

They don’t want to accept the nasty socialist Bolshevik weenie money, but they don’t want other nasty socialist Bolshevik weenies to have it, either because they’ll spend it on nasty socialist Bolshevik weenies so they wonder if they should hang onto it instead, as a good Republican does. In 2022, they signed a $7.5 million contract with Motorola for county emergency communications. In April of 2025, the Kerr County Hazard Mitigation Action Plan was submitted to FEMA, but with the agency’s future uncertain, no one knows what will come of it. The Upper Guadalupe River Authority requested bids for a flood warning dashboard, selecting a contractor in April 2025.

July 25, 2024: Commissioner Kelly requests that Governor Greg Abbott declare a state of emergency for Kerr County, in the wake of storms and subsequent flooding.

The Upper Guadalupe River Authority includes “Flood Warning system” in its Strategic Plan 2023-2025.

Just the facts, ma’am. It's their words, so do with this information what you will.

That’s all I have for you today, kittens.