Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Cynthia Phillips's avatar

Before my grandparents moved to San Marcos and Martindale, they and their people lived along the Frio River in Leakey and Sabinal. I remember when we built our house on our Hays County ranch, my grandfather came and helped choose the site so it wouldn't flood. Old-timers like him knew how to guess water flow based on the shape of the canyons and their water marks. People looked at the contours of the land and they knew what it meant. You also got an important clue from how high old debris from previous floods was lodged up in the trees.

To this day, I really don't like not having my house on high ground. You can always go down to the river or creek to fish, but come back up to sleep.

Expand full comment
Linda Aldrich's avatar

Thank you so much for this excellent summary. Can’t wait to read part 3! And I guess part 1 if this was part 2?

I worked at 2 different camps year round in the mid-90s in the Hunt area. They were still talking about the ‘87 flood and the campers that were swept away back then. At one of the camps (it was on a 40,000 acre ranch) we would hike the kids a couple of miles out from camp base to backcountry campsites, teaching them about edible plants, tracking tips, geology, etc. along the way. We always hiked some in a draw and would ask kids how high they thought the water could get when big rains came. They were always amazed to realize that the debris stuck in trees so far above their heads was the high water mark.

We used to get gullywashers fairly regularly, and we knew exactly what roads would flood out. All of our housing was not necessarily near camp; it could be miles away in a different part of the ranch. One time the rain came and we purposefully situated ourselves at one of the houses we knew would be cut off so we would be guaranteed a day or two off because we wouldn’t be able to drive to camp the next day (we didn’t have campers at the time). Our plan worked, but then we got bored and by mid morning ended up hiking through the woods to camp anyway, (avoiding flooded areas of course) to be with everyone else. 😂

Expand full comment
7 more comments...

No posts