At the October 14 Rotary Club of San Antonio luncheon, Mindy Wendele, president and CEO of the Kerrville Area Chamber of Commerce, told the club what she called a tale of two floods: the July 2025 disaster that drew national attention, and a second flood in July 2026 that hit downtown Kerrville just as the community was catching its breath.
A lifelong Kerrville resident, Wendele has served on the Kerrville City Council and in leadership roles with the Kerrville Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Peterson Health Foundation and the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country. She is also a two-time member of the Rotary Club of Kerrville.
Her talk covered three themes: how Kerr County organized its recovery, how the second flood differed, and why recovery will take years.
Kerr Together
The July 4, 2025 flood took 119 lives in Kerr County alone. On July 7, Wendele, the head of the Kerr Economic Development Corporation and city officials met in her office. Within two hours they had a framework. That afternoon, about 22 community leaders gathered in the chamber’s conference room and launched Kerr Together.
The effort is organized around nine pillars — among them emotional and spiritual care, individual assistance, public infrastructure and economic recovery — with 16 working groups that met every week for more than a year. Recovery from the 2025 flood has included 55 homes rebuilt or under construction, 417 business recovery grants totaling $15 million, and more than a million cubic yards of debris removed along 28 miles of the Guadalupe River basin.
A Second Flood, Without a Declaration
On July 5, 2026, Kerr County marked the one-year milestone. Eleven days later, creeks rose through downtown Kerrville. One person died, and building and business losses were concentrated downtown. More than 1,100 people have sought help. The City of Kerrville estimates $100 million in infrastructure damage.
This time there was no federal disaster declaration, and private giving has been far smaller. The Kerrville Area Chamber Foundation — established three days before the first flood — received $2.3 million in unsolicited gifts in 2025 and made 332 cash grants of $2,500 to $10,000 to small businesses. For the 2026 flood, it has received about $400,000 and made 36 grants totaling $212,000. Wendele added that only 4 percent of Kerr County businesses converted their SBA loans after the first flood.
Recovery Measured in Years
Long-term recovery, Wendele said, means five to seven years. Tourism and hospitality account for about 1,200 local jobs, and the county’s 16 youth camps — nearly all now reopened on modified schedules — generate an estimated $40 million a year. The chamber’s Love Where You Live campaign urges residents to spend locally, and its Y’all OK initiative connects people with trauma counselors whose caseload has quadrupled since the second flood.
Six flood warning stations installed before the 2026 flood sounded as designed at 1:30 a.m. The chamber is bringing seven legislative priorities to the area’s state legislators ahead of the January session. Along the river, where an estimated 53 percent of the riparian canopy was lost, volunteers have collected nearly a million cypress seeds toward replanting 50,000 trees.
During questions, member Rick Cavender noted that United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County sent $1.9 million to Kerr County. Wendele said the chamber is now writing a how-to guide for other communities facing disaster. Her advice in the meantime: “give ourselves a little grace, and laugh a little bit, and pray a whole lot.”
Chair of the Day Lori-Ann Tinajero of the American Red Cross introduced Wendele, and President-elect Chris Holden presented a check from the club’s Rotarians to support Kerrville’s recovery.
