Why We Started

Epic Floods Hit Communities Along the Blanco River in 2015

On Saturday May 23rd 2015, Memorial Day Weekend, a massive storm system stalled over the Texas Hill Country and caused historic flooding of the Blanco and San Marcos Rivers. A literal wall of water swept downstream taking out homes, trees, bridges, and unfortunately lives. As the river increased from a volume of 700 cubic feet per second to over 70,000 CFS in less than 4 hours, residents near the rivers had little time to react. At one point the Blanco river doubled in size in 3 seconds and increased 10 fold in just over 30 seconds. As this wall-of-water swept through the cities of Wimberley, San Marcos, and Martindale, the lives of thousands of people would be changed forever in a matter of minutes. Ultimately 2700 households would file an IA claim with FEMA, and more than 400 homes would be listed as totaled or destroyed.

Then as many of the homes were being cleaned out, repaired, and in a few cases families returning home, a second disaster struck on October 30th 2015 when a massive and extremely intense storm system dropped up to 6 inches of rain per hour for multiple hours. This second disaster, to be known as the All Saints Flood, added to the heartache and burden of those who survived the Memorial Day Weekend event. In many cases people would throw their hands up and give up all hope, but not the people of Blanco River Regional Recovery Team. That is when BR3T hit the ground running and fought to make sure that these and future events do not destroy the Spirit of Central Texas.

BR3T is the designated Long Term Recovery Organization for Blanco, Hays, Caldwell, and Guadalupe Counties and will remain as a permanent organization to assist in future disasters.