{"id":375878,"date":"2026-07-16T19:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/375878\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T19:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T19:44:09","slug":"guadalupe-river-flooding-traps-families-destroys-texas-fire-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/375878\/","title":{"rendered":"Guadalupe River flooding traps families, destroys Texas fire station"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cUnbelievable! Again, for the second time. I\u2019ve lived here my entire life, I\u2019ve never seen the water go this high<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Charles Holt, fire chief of the Center Point Volunteer Fire Department, could be heard saying in a Facebook Live video<\/a> outside the department\u2019s fire department shortly before the video cuts out at about 8:15 a.m. on Thursday, July 16.<\/p>\n

For the second time in a year, the Texas Hill Country is being ravaged by catastrophic flooding<\/a> caused by a severe weather system that has sparked tornadoes, flash flooding, and rising rivers from the Texas\u2013Mexico border to San Antonio. Late Thursday morning, Holt told\u00a0MySA that the Center Point fire station has been submerged by floodwaters and is no longer usable, just as the Guadalupe River is expected to continue rising.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost my station again. Everything out of the inside. It damaged the building this time. We lost a\u00a0SAR (search and rescue) trailer, a UTV and some other pieces of equipment,\u201d Holt said.<\/p>\n

The fire chief added that this year\u2019s floodwaters<\/a> have risen higher in Center Point than those of last year\u2019s deadly July 4 floods. Despite the loss of the station and equipment, and the loss of electricity and internet service, Holt said he and his volunteer crew remain undeterred.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still strong. It\u2019s not going to stop us. All my people are still going on,\u201d Holt said.<\/p>\n

As of about 11 a.m., Center Point firefighters and first responders were preparing for \u201canother wall of water coming down the river\u201d by staging airboats and other watercraft for more rescues. When asked how many people have been rescued in the town so far, the fire chief said so many that he couldn\u2019t venture a guess.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t tell you. I can only tell you (about) the last one,\u201d Holt said. But thus far, there have been no reports of fatalities or severe injuries from the flooding in the Center Point area, Holt said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, outside of Hunt, Crystal Simmons, 47, her husband Lewis\u00a0Dever, 49, their two teenagers, and a number of animals \u2014 including dogs, cats and donkeys \u2014 are trapped on their property located off of Farm-to-Market Road 1340 just a few dozen feet from the Guadalupe River<\/a>. The only access off the property \u2014 a low water crossing \u2014 has already been submerged by the raging, rising river. Though Simmons told MySA she doesn\u2019t think the floodwaters will get as high as they did last year, she was still shocked by just how fast the waters rose.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we woke up this morning, it was already 6, maybe 7 feet high, and within 30 minutes, I kid you not, it went from that high to 10 more feet,\u201d Simmons said.<\/p>\n

Simmons said the\u00a0Guadalupe would have to rise<\/a> another 40 feet or so before reaching her home located on a hill. If that happens, her family can safely get to higher ground further up the property, but they will be unable to leave until the waters recede. Like Center Point\u2019s fire chief, however, Simmons is shocked by the magnitude of going through another catastrophic flood so soon after last year\u2019s July 4 disaster<\/a> that killed more than 130 people, including dozens of children who had been spending the summer at recreational camps in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s scary.\u00a0Deja vu,\u201d Simmons said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cUnbelievable! Again, for the second time. I\u2019ve lived here my entire life, I\u2019ve never seen the water go…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[847,2320,820,3091,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-375878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-mysanews","tag-mysasotx","tag-mysastaff","tag-mysawx","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}