Suddenly the water receded. It retreated far enough for everyone to gather in Ashlee\u2019s wrecked house. They used glow sticks to spell \u201cHelp\u201d in the windows, then sang \u201cthe sun will come out tomorrow\u201d while waiting for it to arrive. When dawn came, they found their world remade. \u201cIt\u2019s all gone,\u201d Ashlee said at the time<\/a>. \u201cEverything\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n One year later, the family is still waiting to rebuild. So is the rest of the community.<\/p>\n The Gerstner-Willis family spent seven weeks in a hotel. Everyone had made it through the storm, even Brandy\u2019s sister Donna Wright, who had been swept 2 miles downstream before being caught by a light pole. Each morning they returned to Sandy Creek to sift through the confetti the flood had made of their lives. Sometimes they found pieces of the world that once was. Brandy unearthed someone\u2019s crystal bowl, perfectly intact, from what had been her goat pen. Not all discoveries were joyful. Workers found three human body parts. \u201cI was there when they dug up somebody\u2019s hip,\u201d Brandy said.<\/p>\n The family eventually moved into donated RVs. They sit no more than 30 feet from Big Sandy Creek \u2014 closer than before the flood. Gregg monitors the water level with security cameras, and sometimes shows Brandy the feed to calm her.\u00a0<\/p>\n A few months after the flood, Brandy attended a permitting clinic the county held to help people navigate the reconstruction process. \u201cThey informed us all, \u2018Any of you thinking of staying, there are new permit rules, and we are watching you all now,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThey watch us like hawks.\u201d<\/p>\n The rules weren\u2019t new \u2014 just new to Sandy Creek.<\/p>\n The Gerstner-Willis family is among hundreds of survivors struggling to recover from the July 2025 floods that killed 139 people<\/a> in central Texas and caused $1.1 billion in property damage. For many, the months since the disaster have revealed the complexities of recovery, a long, hard process that goes beyond repairing what the water destroyed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Residents of Sandy Creek face permitting requirements, limited aid, insurance gaps, and construction costs they did not anticipate. Travis County is requiring them to meet standards locals say it rarely enforced before the flood, but the poverty that put many of the community\u2019s 600 or so people in or near the floodplain leaves some of them unable to comply. Dozens of families remain in RVs, damaged homes, or temporary housing, caught between the need to rebuild and the cost of doing so.<\/p>\n For many homeowners, the problems started with a federal standard known as \u201csubstantial damage<\/a>.\u201d Anyone with damage equivalent to at least 50 percent of the home\u2019s pre-flood market value must bring the entire structure up to code. In Travis County, houses that sit in a floodplain must be elevated at least 2 feet above the expected height of a 100-year flood<\/a>. For the Gerstner-Willis family, that means building 12 feet in the air and installing a lift to reach the door. Meeting these requirements can increase costs by more than $100,000, on top of the thousands needed for engineering and surveys. For some, the burden is simply too great.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say 98 percent of the people out here are not going to be able to afford their houses to be raised,\u201d Brandy Gerstner said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Disaster survivors who cannot afford to rebuild depend upon a patchwork of insurance, loans, government assistance, nonprofits, and churches for help. But those in floodplains often find that this system isn\u2019t designed for them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe storm\u2019s not over,\u201d Brandy Gertner said in May, standing on ground still studded with shards of glass and debris 10 months after the inundation. \u201cSurviving after the storm has been much harder. We\u2019ve had to fight for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Two years before the flood, Ashlee Willis moved into a 1,500-square-foot double-wide manufactured home on her parents\u2019 land. Family compounds like that are common in Sandy Creek, an arrangement that has made it difficult for some to get help rebuilding. Willis isn\u2019t on the deed, and because her home is a second structure, few organizations could assist her. Some treated her as if she didn\u2019t own the home. Others saw her situation as a duplicate claim.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of these groups out here helping don\u2019t come across multigenerational plots of earth,\u201d Willis said. \u201cIt looked like double-dipping.\u201d<\/p>\n By early December, when the nonprofit organization Rebuild Sandy Creek encouraged her to apply for its home-rebuilding program, Willis had recovered just 3 percent of her losses \u2014 $1,000 from a church and $5,000 from Samaritan\u2019s Purse, an evangelical Christian relief organization<\/a>. Rebuild Sandy Creek board members selected Willis from among 17 or so applicants. The organization has struggled to raise money, but said it remains committed to helping Willis with construction costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her predicament exposed some limits of the recovery system. FEMA has registered 1,212 flood-affected households in Travis County and distributed $4.3 million in assistance. That aid, capped at $43,600 per household, is meant to stabilize people, not make them whole. Rebuilding can take anywhere from a few months for those with good insurance to a few years for those without it.<\/p>\n Read Next<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Texas floods showed why many rural communities feel abandoned in a crisis<\/a><\/p>\n Most don\u2019t have it. Just 2.4 percent of affected households in Travis County had flood insurance, which typically pays only enough for policyholders to rebuild what they already had. For everyone else, help ranged from federal loans to small payouts of up to $2,000 from various ministries to a county donation fund that distributed $7.85 million to 264 families, or about $30,000 each. A concert by country singer George Strait raised enough to give more than 60 families<\/a> $25,000 apiece. Governor Greg Abbott handed out the checks.<\/p>\n Austin Disaster Relief Network, which the county deployed to coordinate volunteers, offers help including funds for construction; it is still working through roughly 80 applications. Samaritan\u2019s Purse is installing eight manufactured homes \u2014 Wright got one \u2014 and letting homeowners choose from a furniture package that includes appliances.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Navigating this web of nonprofits is exhausting, and residents complain of \u201cform fatigue.\u201d The Travis County Recovery Alliance, which coordinates with 16 nonprofits to help 155 families, hopes to make the process easier by, among other things, creating a unified intake form so survivors fill out just one application. But things are still getting off the ground. \u201cWe\u2019re building the plane while we\u2019re flying,\u201d said executive director Janis Bookout.<\/p>\n The county has tried to make permitting easy \u2014 it waived fees, expedited paperwork, and for several months staffed a mobile office to walk people through the process. But residents have sought just 24 permits for work in the Sandy Creek Ranches subdivision since the flood, though not all were for flood-related work. Only eight were for new homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Simply preparing a lot for a manufactured home requires leveling and grading the land, laying a foundation, and installing utility hookups. Jason Hefner found the prospect of applying for the permit to do that overwhelming. \u201cI know I\u2019m gonna need one, but I have no idea where my home\u2019s gonna go,\u201d he said. \u201cEven though you might have the money to build back, it\u2019s just like, \u2018Oh my gosh, here we go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He received just $20,000 from his insurer and is betting Samaritan\u2019s Purse will replace his home. \u201cThat\u2019s one reason,\u201d he said, \u201cwhy a lot of us aren\u2019t looking yet to rebuild.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t Brandy Gerstner\u2019s first time starting over. After tumbling through California\u2019s foster care system, she set out on her own at 15 and made her way to Texas, where she found work in nursing. Ashlee came along in 1987. Four years later, Gerstner walked into a real estate office looking for a place to build a home. She couldn\u2019t afford any of the properties she saw until a realtor showed her a parcel with rent-to-own terms.<\/p>\n It sat on the banks of Big Sandy Creek, which had flooded a decade before. Weeds loomed over Gerstner, who is 5 feet tall, and a narrow path led to a mobile home built in 1975. It was overgrown with vines and infested with tarantulas, bats, and other vermin. Rattlesnakes bred in the flower bed. She squashed 75 scorpions within weeks of moving in. \u201cIt was horrific,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Gerstner rolled up her sleeves and set to work. She fixed the plumbing, tamed the yard, and built a deck. She planted apple, plum, and pear trees, established a garden, and later put up a greenhouse. Over the years she added chickens, pigs, and goats. In 2002, she bought a double-wide, which she eventually refinanced to add more buildings, including a garage for brewing beer, bottling honey, milling spices, canning fruit, and making cheese and wine. Her home was open to all, a place where 16 people frequently crowded around a dining room table meant for six. \u201cThis was where everybody came,\u201d she said. \u201cThey called it their garden of Eden.\u201d<\/p>\n Inexpensive land and scant oversight attracted others to Sandy Creek. Texas is a strong property-rights state where counties have limited power to regulate what is built and how. Some have little or no permitting, especially for manufactured homes and RVs. Enforcement is often complaint-driven, and few complain in places where people move specifically to avoid municipal meddling and taxes.<\/p>\n Travis County began regulating floodplain development in 1982, but many structures in Sandy Creek received exemptions because the community was laid out in the 1970s. Gerstner rarely bothered with permits unless a contractor required one. Few in Sandy Creek did. \u201cThis was kind of a free-for-all out here,\u201d she said. \u201cThe county doesn\u2019t care about the area.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In many ways, the Gerstner-Willis family is a best-case scenario, even as it illustrates where disaster assistance breaks down. The resourcefulness that allowed Brandy Gerstner to transform her property into a thriving hobby farm has helped her navigate recovery better than most. The family also had flood insurance, documentation, and the patience to negotiate with nonprofits.<\/p>\n Yet they still live in RVs that are closer to the creek than the house it destroyed. They also pay $4,000 a year for construction insurance on a project that hasn\u2019t started and continue fighting the insurance company for $200,000 they believe they\u2019re owed. Willis isn\u2019t surprised. \u201cI just had it in my brain, \u2018We\u2019re going to be in these things for probably two years,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cEveryone thought I was crazy.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n She and her parents plan to build two houses connected by a breezeway so Willis can help them as they age. It will cost about $1 million. They\u2019ve already spent $15,000 on the design, engineering, and land surveys.\u00a0<\/p>\n For many others, rebuilding doesn\u2019t feel like an option.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In December, Sara, a British nurse who has volunteered in Sandy Creek since the flood, visited an elderly woman whose floors were rotten. Rodents and cockroaches scurried about. The woman had been hesitant to let her inside, and had not sought help because she had been in and out of the hospital. Sara, who asked to be identified by her first name only amid concerns about her immigration status, recalled telling the woman, \u201cYou need to get out of this house tonight, this is dangerous.\u2019\u201d A social worker arranged a hotel, then a six-month Airbnb stay. Willis joined other volunteers in emptying the place and knocking it down.<\/p>\n Many remain in damaged homes, unable to afford repairs, afraid of invoking the substantial damage clause, or unwilling to leave their land and livestock. In some cases, FEMA did not classify their houses as a total loss after the flood, but they later grew rotten or moldy enough to be condemned after the assistance application period had ended.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read Next<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n A hotter, wetter South is becoming a breeding ground for mold<\/a><\/p>\n Landlords do not qualify for a lot of nonprofit aid, leaving many renters \u2014 who comprise 48 percent of Travis County households affected by the flood \u2014 in subpar conditions. Michelle Warner, a speech therapist who is recovering from knee surgery, moved to Sandy Creek 20 years ago from southeast Texas after losing everything to Hurricane Rita. She pays $1,175 a month for a three-bedroom mobile home scarred by the flood. \u201cI\u2019m just ready for this to look like it used to look, so I\u2019m not driving up still to a damaged house I can\u2019t fix on my own,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Noel Hernandez\u2019s insurance agent advised him not to file a claim on the house he rents out, which sits in a flood-risk area, because his rate would go up. It rose anyway. As a landlord, he didn\u2019t qualify for FEMA assistance and received about $3,000 in other aid \u2014 yet spent nearly $70,000 rebuilding. A family rented the place in February. An inflatable kiddie pool sits in the yard.<\/p>\n Dozens of families remain in campers. \u201cIf you go out there, it\u2019s basically an RV park,\u201d said Michelle Varela, a cofounder of Rebuild Sandy Creek. Last winter, space heaters sparked fires in some of them, Varela said. In mid-June, flooding washed out a portions of the water crossing the Gerstner-Willis family and others use to leave their property. The county bars RVs from remaining on a given site for 180 consecutive days or more. It doesn\u2019t look like anyone is enforcing the rule.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWho in the hell is monitoring that?\u201d Brandy Gerstner asked. \u201cWhat are you going to do \u2014 kick us all out of here? Make us all homeless?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The systems that made Sandy Creek residents vulnerable before the flood have kept them that way after it. Poverty, political disengagement, and scant regulation shape how communities are built \u2014 and how they recover.<\/p>\n \u201cLow-income people tend to live in low-quality homes in low-lying areas, because that is what the market allows,\u201d said Shannon Van Zandt, a Texas A&M researcher who studies post-disaster housing recovery. In desirable areas like western Travis County, they are even more likely to end up in flood zones. \u201cWe need to be doing a better job of making sure that income is not such an important predictor of the harm that someone receives during a disaster,\u201d Van Zandt said.<\/p>\n Texas counties have limited authority to regulate what is built and where it is built in unincorporated areas, and efforts to impose stricter standards often face resistance. Van Zandt said that contributes to poor-quality housing and suffering after disasters.<\/p>\n Counties have no legal obligation to offset these inequities, but Van Zandt believes they have a moral and practical one because resilience requires investing in vulnerable communities before a catastrophe. But residents of such places often lack the resources to make that happen. \u201cPeople who feel disenfranchised for whatever reason \u2014 whether it\u2019s income, race, ethnicity, or even documented status \u2014 are not going to get it because they don\u2019t ask for it, or they\u2019re seen as not entitled to it,\u201d Van Zandt said.<\/p>\n Many in Sandy Creek still rely on the generosity of others. Even now, a year after the flood, people still throw community fundraisers. There\u2019s one\u00a0coming later this month.\u00a0But relying on nonprofits to fill gaps is \u201cnot sustainable,\u201d said Michelle Meyer, Van Zandt\u2019s colleague. As tragedies like the Texas floods grow more common, even substantial contributions will not be enough. Donors are burning out, and inflation has made rebuilding costlier.<\/p>\n County governments sometimes buy vulnerable homes to minimize future risks and losses, but find many residents don\u2019t want to leave. Travis County has purchased hundreds of floodplain properties<\/a> in the lower Onion Creek area, a largely Latino part of South Austin. An unpublished study by the University of Texas found that, of 176 homeowners who accepted a buyout, nearly all moved beyond the floodplain, though most ended up near it. Van Zandt said buyouts work best when they are voluntary, offer enough to secure safer comparable housing elsewhere, and include efforts to preserve community cohesion. Researcher Kijin Seon, the author of the study, believes \u201crelocation came at the cost of social fabric.\u201d<\/p>\n Read Next<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n In Houston, a generations-deep community is being dismantled by mandatory buyouts.<\/a><\/p>\n The root of the problem, Van Zandt said, is too little regulation. In a meeting with rural county judges in May, she recommended higher standards for subdivision development, including installing drainage, elevating homes, and ensuring ready access. Travis County regulates<\/a> these things but lacks<\/a> broader land-use controls like zoning. \u201cThat\u2019s what they need,\u201d Van Zandt said. \u201cThey need to be able to limit development in those areas.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Many counties have long asked<\/a> the Legislature for greater authority to do that. Travis County has generally supported<\/a> \u201clegislation giving county governments the necessary tools to manage growth, protect property values, and preserve quality of life.\u201d But counties have found lawmakers reluctant to act.<\/p>\n Disasters create a \u201cwindow of opportunity\u201d in which political reform is possible, Van Zandt said. But it closes quickly if residents aren\u2019t engaged.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some in Sandy Creek are trying to hold that window open. Brandy Gerstner and Ashley Willis joined two other women in creating the Sandy Creek Alliance to lobby county and state officials to address the crisis. They visited Washington D.C. to call for strengthening<\/a> FEMA, and asked the governor to create Fund Texas Forever<\/a>, a disaster reserve financed by the state\u2019s rainy-day fund to expedite relief. Willis handed him a letter outlining the idea and inviting him to return to Sandy Creek to hear from survivors. He thanked her and read it. \u201cNothing happened,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Andrew Mahaleris, the governor\u2019s press secretary, told Grist in a statement, \u201cGovernor Abbott and the State of Texas continue to use all necessary resources to help Texans recover and rebuild from last year\u2019s disastrous flooding.\u201d He noted that the state has provided more than $500 million to assist families and communities, and that Abbott signed legislation to better protect people from catastrophic flooding events. \u201cThe governor will continue to work with the Legislature to strengthen flood regulations and preparedness,\u201d Mahaleris said.<\/p>\n Meyer supports the idea of a disaster reserve, something academics have suggested with little success. Politicians don\u2019t like setting aside money for future disasters, and cash assistance often gets tangled up with talk of welfare and self-reliance. Survivors, she said, carry more political weight in pushing for such programs.<\/p>\n Willis has made that her focus. She got a part-time job helping build Organizing Resilience, a new national network of disaster survivors that\u2019s advocating for reform. \u201cI\u2019m a Swiftie,\u201d she said, \u201cI always like to joke with county and government officials, \u2018Look what you made me do<\/a>.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The community is still rebuilding, but nature has reclaimed land ruined by the flood, just as Tamerra Garcia predicted it would a few weeks after the disaster. Before the summer heat settled in, the fields were ablaze with sunflowers. Prairie verbena, firewheels, and beebalm growing along the road swayed in the breeze.<\/p>\n The trees that once obscured Sandy Creek are gone, leaving the banks barren but for a few saplings. Neighbors who never saw each other before the flood now see into each other\u2019s backyards. They also hear every trash can being rolled to the curb on Wednesday nights.<\/p>\n In a lot that belonged to Garcia\u2019s grandfather, Harold Sherwood, a cardinal perched on a beam. Not much else remains of Sherwood\u2019s home, which was razed after water reached 5 feet up the walls. It was there, amid the muck and the stench, that Garcia made her prediction.<\/p>\n Her grandfather did not live to see it come true. Overwhelmed by the prospect of building a home 12 feet in the air to comply with the building code, he planned to live out his life in an RV. He eventually had a change of heart and decided to rebuild.\u00a0<\/p>\n He died a short time later, around Christmas, of cancer. His health deteriorated quickly after the flood and \u201call the stress [of] losing everything you\u2019ve had for all your life,\u201d Brandy Gerstner said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Friends and neighbors held a poignant memorial in early January on the land where his home once stood. The tattooed minister stood before a cross of branches draped in red, white, and blue fabric to honor Sherwood\u2019s military service. He reminded those gathered around it that Jesus was a carpenter, then invited them to imagine him building Sherwood a heavenly mansion.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Rotting-damaged-home-with-residents-in-it-IMG_1277.jpg\")
Many in Sandy Creek remain in damaged homes. The occupant of this one eventually moved into an RV, but others have not been able to do even that much.
Laura Mallonee<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/empty-lot-3.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
A \u201cKeep Out\u201d sign warns trespassers against entering a property that flooded on July 5, 2025. Several lots in Sandy Creek are, like this one, now vacant. Laura Mallonee<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SandyCreek_river_gradient.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Brandy-Gerstner-1.jpg\")
Brandy Gerstner purchased her property in Sandy Creek in 1991 and built a small hobby farm called Asher Acres that included chickens, pigs, goats, and honeybees. \u201cAsher means happy in Hebrew,\u201d she said. When floodwaters swamped her property last July, she fled to her greenhouse, which sits at the highest point on her property, and survived. Laura Mallonee<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Gerstners-5.jpg\")
Brandy and Gregg Gerstner stand in front of the RV they have called home since August. It sits even closer to Big Sandy Creek than the home the flood destroyed on July 5, 2025. Laura Mallonee<\/p>\n![\"an](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mold-final.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/harris-county-buyout-program-1-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Harry-Sherwood-1.jpg\")
A cross draped in red, white, and blue fabric stands on a concrete pad beside what is left of Harold Sherwood\u2019s home. Laura Mallonee<\/p>\n