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The Thursday night flood also hit the Woodcreek area pretty hard. Fairway Villages at Jacobs Well Apartments’ Esther Talley and her four children were unaware of the rising waters. At 7 p.m. the doorbell rang and a neighbor said that the waters were rising and to get out of there as quick as possible. At this time the water was up inside a neighbor’s condo.

She got her four kids, the laptops and iPads, her daughters prized blanket and made it to her vehicle, where she also retrieved a paycheck. But that escape was thwarted as one of the tires were flat. Luckily a daughter’s friend was there to give them a ride to Maxwell, Texas. On the way there they passed through a tornado. “It was pandemonium, transferring the kids, a flat tire, paycheck in the vehicle, you could imagine,” said Talley

When it rains as hard as it did last weekend, it’s not just the creeks and streams that flood. In fact, just about any area is susceptible to the draining water as it tries to find its way to the Blanco River. 

That is what Katherine Ann Porter School found out, for the second time, and their parking lot became the mouth of a would-be wet-weather creek.

“We got about four inches of water through the building,” KAPS Principal Kenn Peters said. “It’s about the same as it was from the Halloween Flood in 2013.”

The building that houses KAPS is a former furniture storage facility. The warehouse-styled building may have presented a blessing in the flood. The floors are largely concrete, which makes clean up a bit easier.

Additional rain overnight Friday, October 30 into Saturday morning, October 31, caused no additional flooding in Hays County or any of the cities.
Shelters in San Marcos housed 67 evacuees, Lehman High School in Kyle housed seven, and Wimberley High School housed one Friday night. The Lehman and Wimberley High School shelters will close on Saturday. The shelter at Miller Middle School in San Marcos remains open at this time.
County and city law enforcement agencies are continuing their normal patrols with extra emphasis on damaged and evacuated areas.

Hays County is recommending that persons who have evacuated their homes not return over night if their homes were flooded and ground is already saturated. Additional rain is expected overnight and properties may not be safe.

As of 6:30 p.m. Friday, October 30, the following locations are open as overnight shelters in Hays County:

In San Marcos:

Miller Middle School, 301 Foxtail Run (currently has approximately 40 persons)

The San Marcos Activity Center is closed to new evacuees. Those already at the Activity Center will stay there, but others seeking shelter should report to Miller Middle School. There are approximately 170 persons currently at the Activity Center.

In Kyle area: Lehman High School, 1700 Lehman Rd., Kyle (approx. 7)

In Wimberley area: Wimberley High School, 100 Carney Lane, Wimberley (approx.15)

Wimberley was once again hit by a historic flood, but this time it was largely Cypress Creek that raged out of the river banks.
At this point in time, there are no fatalities reported in the flood and nobody is reported missing at this time, according to Wimberley Fire Chief Carroll Czichos.
"So far, I think everybody is out," Czichos said. "We have gone back and check everybody that we had calls on and they are all accounted for."
The rain fall started at around 4:30 a.m. on Friday morning and estimated rainfall totals in the Wimberley Valley range from more than 7 inches 9 depending on the area.
Around 7 a.m. calls for help began pouring into the Wimberley Fire Department for water rescue. One woman, who was sleeping in her car in the Ozona Bank parking lot, was rescued by first responders from the top of her vehicle at Cypress Creek swept the SUV away.

The night of Sept. 11, 2012 has become a night of infamy as four people died in a terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. Kris Paronto was a security contractor protecting CIA assets in Benghazi the night of the attack, and last weekend he shared his heroic tale at the Wimberley VFW.

“He did not go near the political stuff. He said he could only talk about what he knew and saw first hand,” Lee Colee’, owner of Black Diamond Cabaret Theatre, which brought Paronto to Wimberley, said. “He then took the stage and acted out his story, which had the audience spell bound and absolutely silent. He is such an effective speaker he made you feel you were really there in the middle of the battle dodging bullets and feeling the pain of watching your buddies die.”

Hundreds gathered at the banks of the river to mourn, remember and begin the process of mentally moving on to the next step of recovery.

Based around the New Orleans “second line” tradition, where people follow the first line to the cemetery to remember a loved one and the second line back to celebrate their life, Wimberley gathered by the river in collective grieving.

“We still have to go on,” St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church Reverend Sandy Casey-Martus said. “We have to, at some point, have a cherished memory without the pain and suffering. Not denying that it happened, but it can’t have the last word. I think that is what this service did.”

The group was gathered along the river at Rio Bonito Resort, one of the businesses hardest hit by the flood.

After 12 years, the St. Mary’s Knight of Columbus has got it pretty well oiled. Lots of people, over a thousand, having a great time eating BBQ and drinking the beverage of choice. Old friends to talk to that you haven’t seen in a while, meeting new people, shaking hands with local politicians and dignitaries, laughing, but most of all, winning a new gun.

Again this year, even with the bad rain, the “under the big tent” was the place to be on Saturday night. First a local musical duo warmed up the crowd, and then the real fun would begin. Puppies and other items were auctioned, the chicken tractor was pretty cool, and then half the guns were awarded.

This Wednesday and Thursday, October 28 and 29, you can help put a Thanksgiving turkey on a table that otherwise might not be there. Ozona Bank will be collecting money for the Wimberley Crisis Bread Basket (CBB) and match any funds that are received on those days. A donation that doubles your donation.

This year for the first time the Hays County Food Bank will not provide turkeys to the Crisis Bread Basket. As a government agency, Hays County Food Bank wanted information on clients, more information than the CBB collects. 

The local CBB collects name, members in the family, and whether they live within the Wimberley Independent School District’s boundary. The do not require utility bills, rent or other information.

Electro Purification (EP) has contracted to pump from the Trinity Aquifer just diminished. 

The Houston-based firm’s contract with the city of Buda expired at midnight on Oct. 20. Buda, along with the Goforth Special Utility District and Anthem Development, were the first to sign on with EP when the form began drilling its controversial well field in western Hays County early this year. 

Buda’s contract was for one million gallons a day out of the 3.5 million gallons a day that EP initially wanted to pump. 

According to Buda officials, that was the smallest volume contracted by any of the three entities. A stipulation of Buda’s agreement with EP was that EP would be able to provide that amount of water within nine months of the start date of the agreement, which was signed on Jan. 20.