Introduction
When rain falls on the RVs that line Big Sandy Creek, it sounds like gunfire. The harder it pours, the louder it gets. But what bothers Ashlee Willis the most is how the wind makes them sway. It is so unsettling that she cowers in her camper’s narrow hallway with her two frightened cats, a Taylor Swift blanket stuffed into their carrier in case they have to flee.
The Night of the Disaster
It reminds her of that terrible night in July, when the creek ran so high and so fast that the mobile home Willis lived in actually bobbed after the water tore part of it from the foundation. Within hours, the flood would kill 10 people and destroy 74 homes in Sandy Creek, a small community in central Texas.
Rebuilding and Challenges
The Gerstner-Willis family is among hundreds of survivors struggling to recover from the July 2025 floods that killed 139 people in central Texas and caused $1.1 billion in property damage. For many, the months since the disaster have revealed the complexities of recovery, a long, hard process that goes beyond repairing what the water destroyed.
Conclusion
The community is still rebuilding, but nature has reclaimed the land ruined by the flood, just as Tamerra Garcia predicted it would a few weeks after the disaster. Before the summer heat settled in, the fields were ablaze with sunflowers. Prairie verbena, firewheels, and beebalm growing along the road swayed in the breeze.
Source / Reference
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline One year after the Texas floods, home feels further away than ever on Jul 1, 2026.