KERR COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — One year after devastating flooding swept through Kerr County, many families are still working to rebuild their lives — both physically and emotionally.
While homes and infrastructure can be repaired, the emotional toll of that day continues to linger. Now, a network of nonprofits, backed by millions in grant funding, is stepping in to support survivors still struggling with grief and trauma.
“The past year has been a seismic change in the Hill Country and especially Kerr County,” said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country.
In the immediate aftermath of the floods, the Community Foundation launched a relief fund to help affected communities. As recovery efforts evolved, so did the focus — shifting toward long-term mental health support.
“One of the things we know about grief is that it’s not linear and that it’s long,” Dickson said. “Some of our investments have been multi-year investments, particularly around mental health.”
As of May 28, the foundation reports a $78 million impact, supporting people and organizations across the region.
Helping families navigate grief
Part of that investment includes a $100,000 grant to The Christi Center in Austin, which provides grief support for children and families.
“We offer a space for people to process their grief,” said Executive and Clinical Director Jocelyn Chamra Barrera.
The center specializes in peer-based support groups, where facilitators have experienced loss themselves. They now help others navigate similar journeys.
The organization also partners with schools, providing support to students coping with unexpected loss, including the sudden deaths that many families experienced during the floods.
Mental health providers say the need for support has grown in the months following the disaster. For many, trauma doesn’t surface right away.
“We saw a huge uptick in folks because this has triggered so many other grief symptoms,” Chamra Barrera said.
The Christi Center is one of 19 mental health organizations receiving grant funding aimed at addressing that demand.
Free care for flood survivors
The Austin Child Guidance Center also received significant support — $200,000 to expand access to care for young people and families. Clinicians there work to help families build coping skills and regain a sense of stability.
“Grief is really nonlinear,” said Ryan Guajardo, a clinical supervisor at the center. “It’s not always something that people move through at the same speed.”
Guajardo says trauma often surfaces after the immediate crisis has passed.
“You really can’t process trauma while you’re still going through trauma,” he said. “It depends on when families are able to regain a sense of normalcy.”
To remove barriers, the center is offering free services to flood survivors up to age 26.
“We’re able to provide services completely free of charge if they are flood victim survivors,” Guajardo said. “That’s a really great resource.”
Mobilizing mental health resources
The Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute received more than $1 million in funding from The Community Foundation. Their leaders were tasked with assessing the mental toll of the flooding event for the Kerr County community.
“That involved talking to many, many different stakeholders across Kerr County to better understand and elevate the behavioral health resources they already had, identify any gaps that they were suffering from in terms of mental health care, and then carefully look at what trainings might be needed to better equip the community to be able to serve kids and adults who have experienced trauma or loss in the context of this tragedy,” explained Julie Kaplow, executive director of the Trauma and Grief Center at the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute.
The institute has also helped victims of Hurricane Harvey, the Santa Fe High School shooting and the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde. In Kerr County, the organization trained about 60 community and school-based clinicians in treatments for both trauma and grief.
“That was designed to ensure that any child who had experienced the floods and were directly impacted would be able to receive that best practice care,” said Kaplow.
It’s not too late to get help
As Kerr County marks one year since the floods, community leaders say recovery is far from over, but the support remains throughout the region and beyond. Even a year later, mental health providers emphasize that support is still available, and it’s never too late to reach out.
“The grant is really flexible,” Guajardo said. “Even though we’re a year out, we can still serve people if they haven’t gotten services yet.”
For many families, that continued access to care can make a critical difference in their healing journey.
“What we’ve learned is that sometimes post-traumatic stress doesn’t show up for six months to a full year after the event,” said Kaplow. “We’re really trying to prepare the community to understand that the PTSD may not have gone away, that it is likely that for many people it is going to resurface around that one year mark.”
For those still carrying the weight of loss, that support, and the space to heal, may be just as important as rebuilding what was lost.
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