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KERVILLE (AP) – After deadly floods killed more than 100 people in Texas’ Hill Country last July, officials vowed major changes in hopes of preventing the failures that contributed to the high death toll. They promised better flood warning systems, tighter safety rules for children’s camps and improvements to the state’s water infrastructure.

That work was far from done when a new round of storms began pummeling the state this week, triggering catastrophic flash floods in some of the same areas devastated in 2025. At least two people died. Hundreds needed rescue.

But residents in some hard-hit areas said a year of preparation did make a difference. Newly installed flood sirens sounded in the darkness, warning people to get out. Phones buzzed with alerts that weren’t sent out in last year’s disaster.

Still, stories of people surprised to find their homes inundated by rising rivers illustrate the challenges of trying to bolster early warning systems in a vast, rural area known as Flash Flood Alley.

Some agencies were more proactive about sending wireless alerts

Over the last decade, a variety of Texas state and local agencies missed opportunities to implement flood warning systems along the Guadalupe River, the AP reported after last summer’s floods killed 136 people, including 28 at a sleepaway camp for girls.

That changed after the tragedy as lawmakers and others scrutinized a lack of preparedness by government agencies and riverside camps.

Unlike last summer, when local officials in Kerr County said they had been reluctant to “cry wolf” and order evacuations and failed to send out wireless alerts to warn of flash floods, Kerr County issued four alerts and the city of Kerrville issued one early on Thursday as the risk for flooding became apparent, according to an Associated Press review of available data.

They warned residents along Quinlan Creek to evacuate to higher ground, and of “extremely dangerous” flash flooding. Those alerts came alongside flood watches, warnings and emergencies sent to broadcast outlets, weather radios and mobile phones by the National Weather Service. People who signed up for the CodeRED notification emergency system in Kerr County also received text message warnings.

“Last year, we got no alarms. We had no idea what was going on,” said Suzanne Sutphin Gschwind, of Kerrville.

“This year, very different,” she said, with multiple texts and calls coming in from local authorities, a weather channel and her doorbell camera. One night the warnings arrived “about every two hours.”

“I think we would all like to err on the side of too much,” she said.

The warnings didn’t reach everyone

Between the early morning hours of Tuesday and about 9 a.m. Thursday, the National Weather Service sent 38 alerts to people in certain southwest Texas communities, including 14 tornado warnings and 24 warnings that flooding was occurring or imminent and could be “life threatening.”

Those Weather Service notifications, though, often don’t contain the highly localized information put in alerts sometimes sent by municipal and county emergency agencies — and people in some places may not have gotten any of those local alerts, which can be more decisive for people considering whether to seek high ground.

An Associated Press review of wireless emergency alert data did not find any listed as sent by agencies in Uvalde County, which was hit hard by flooding, though agencies in that county might have used other means to alert the public.

Jaclyn Gonzales was awakened at 2 a.m. Wednesday by a friend who called to warn that a tornado might be headed toward her Uvalde-area home. When she jumped out of bed, the floor was wet.

“It was the shock of the water to my feet that made me really wake up,” she said.

Kat Sprawls only learned floodwaters were nearing her Batesville home when a friend called her at 3:30 a.m. Friday. It took five or six calls before she woke up, because she had her phone on do-not-disturb mode.

“There’s no warning system at all. It’s just like the flood in Kerrville last year — we had no warnings,” Sprawls said. “Over half of Batesville is under water now.”

Zavala County Sheriff’s Department secretary Jessica Belmarez said the department is updating its Facebook page with evacuation information and that law enforcement officers were going door-to-door in affected areas, including Batesville.

The network of flood sirens is expanding

Newly installed sirens in Ingram and in Kerr and Kendall counties were used this week to warn residents, said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, who authored legislation in 2025 to help fund the sirens. Twenty-eight additional counties are also eligible for flood warning funding. Most are in the process of putting together implementation plans for review by the Texas Water Development Board.

“Between the outdoor sirens, and the cellphone alerts, the response was very positive in getting people out of the way and to higher ground,” Bettencourt said. “It’s an enormous improvement over a year ago.”

Three of six new sirens installed in Kerr County were used to warn people to seek high ground, said Tara Bushnoe, manager of the Upper Guadalupe River Authority. The other three were in areas with only minor flooding, Bushnoe said.

The small town of Comfort had one warning siren for years. The volunteer fire department recently installed two more.

“Some people just don’t want to leave — that’s our problem here,” said Danny Morales, the assistant fire chief. “But we did set them off twice, probably an hour from one to another, just because we had people just lingering, and not wanting to move.”

Private companies are working to fill the gaps

Ian Cunningham founded River Sentry after the 2025 floods, building flood siren towers for privately owned sites like RV parks, camps and hotels. The sirens are triggered by rising water levels.

So far, the company has installed 104 sirens along the Guadalupe River, Cunningham said, including several near the site of an RV park where more than three dozen people died in 2025.

“We installed them about three months ago and did not expect them to be used so soon,” Cunningham said.

Hohonu, which has developed water-level sensor technology and a real-time data network, received a state contract that will make it easier for agencies to purchase its flood warning technology.

Watch Duty, a fire-tracking app used by millions, expanded earlier this year to help monitor floods.

Officials say the changes saved lives

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the lessons of 2025 led to a better emergency response this time.

“Everybody in Texas has been far more prepared to deal with what has happened this year,” Abbott said during a news conference in Uvalde. “Lives have been saved.”

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) — When Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, began her campaign last year, candidates weren’t talking about — or hearing about — data centers.

But with barely three months until November’s contest, the perceived threat to rural life, ranchland and dwindling water supplies could become a defining issue for her longshot challenge to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, dividing conservative rural areas that have traditionally served as a counterweight to Democrats’ urban strongholds.

The backlash to energy-guzzling server warehouses that power artificial intelligence is also shaping other statewide campaigns from Arizona to Ohio to New York, and even giving Democrats a glimmer of hope in Texas, where Republicans have dominated for three decades.

“There is this little issue that I recently started hearing about that I wanted to tell you about, in case you don’t know,” Hinojosa quipped to a Democratic Party-organized crowd of about 160 seated on fold-out chairs at an Amarillo social club in Texas’ panhandle. “It’s this issue of data centers.”

The crowd booed, and she went on: “They are owned by the richest men in the world. We’re all footing the bill. There are no rules. It is the wild west of data centers.”

The fast growth of massive data centers has already upended races for local offices across the country, often uniting conservatives and liberals in revolting against projects in their midst.

People don’t like the secrecy surrounding the projects or the prospect of air, noise, water and light pollution. They fear electric bills going up, wells going dry and losing open space, farmland or forest.

Now the ripple effects have spread to top-of-the-ticket races, where incumbents and challengers are trying to show that they hear an angry electorate.

In Ohio, Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown aired a television advertisement attacking Republican U.S. Sen. John Husted as the “face of data centers in Ohio” as people gather signatures for a statewide referendum to outright ban their construction.

In Wisconsin, a Democratic candidate for governor, Francesca Hong, is pledging to “tax the rich, fund our schools and stop AI data centers” as she campaigns for her party’s nomination in a crowded primary.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is facing heat from some voters who feel like he’s been too welcoming to tech behemoths. Sam Burleigh, a Democrat whose rural community is fighting off data center projects, accused Shapiro of “allowing these data centers to come in and take over acres and acres of prime farmland.”
Texas is fertile ground for data centers

Any political unrest may be felt most acutely in Texas.

The state is poised to overtake northern Virginia as the largest global data center market by 2030, according to a report by commercial real estate giant JLL. It has lots of land, lots of energy and a friendly regulatory environment under Republican leadership.

In rural west Texas and its panhandle, gargantuan data centers are under construction, including one near Amarillo touted as the world’s largest. Some come with designs for natural gas-fired turbines to power them.

Rumors are flying about others popping up — Google, which is building four data centers in northwest Texas, sponsored moderated conversations with officials and business elite in Lubbock and Amarillo in recent weeks — and it is sowing an outcry across small cities, tiny towns and sprawling ranches where people vote overwhelmingly Republican.

Google says its investments are advancing American innovation, fortifying cybersecurity and boosting energy capacity, while President Donald Trump has made data centers a top priority to help the U.S. compete against China for AI superiority.

But tech giants and developers can be secretive about their plans, making it impossible to know what will be built or what sort of pollution they’ll create, critics say. Some worry that data centers will destroy rural Texas’ low cost of living and sully sunsets and sweeping views that stretch toward the horizon.

Others say construction and an influx of workers are already causing havoc for ranchers and towns, driving up rents, snapping up farmland, illuminating the night sky, clogging roads and turning parts of rural Texas into industrial zones.
Opposition crosses a partisan divide

Democrats are prominent among the data center critics, but so are Republicans, including Texas’ sitting agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller. They say there are many more Republicans who are quieter because they fear publicly opposing their governor and party.

“They’re upset with Greg Abbott,” said Suzanne Bellsnyder, a former Republican activist from Spearman who writes a syndicated column that advocates for rural Texas. “Whether that translates into voting against him, I don’t know.”

Abbott has aggressively advocated for big projects in Texas and, in November, he helped make Google’s announcement of a $40 billion investment there, saying “Texas is the epicenter of AI development.”

Compounding that, Texas counties don’t have zoning authority — precisely the local land planning authority that communities around the country are increasingly using to fight off data centers.

Abbott seems to recognize that data centers are dividing his base. In recent weeks, he ordered regulators to take steps to ensure Texans weren’t paying higher electricity bills because of data centers and promised to push a legislative agenda next year to impose regulations on data centers.

At an East Texas campaign stop, Abbott said that includes taking away the state’s billion-dollar-plus-per-year tax break and preventing data centers from being built in “rural Texas neighborhoods.”

Hinojosa and others derided Abbott’s words about “rural Texas neighborhoods” as meaningless — “doublespeak that makes no sense to anyone,” Hinojosa said — and lacking urgency or seriousness.

“Now we have this gold rush of data centers in our communities,” Hinojosa said in an interview, adding that “people want a say, and I think that’s fair.”

As governor, she said she’d block a permit for a data center if it wasn’t a good deal for Texans or residents hadn’t gotten a say in the matter.
Abbott tries to soothe concerns

Abbott’s campaign season turnabout on data centers doesn’t seem to have soothed many.

Of great concern is the prospect that data centers will consume massive amounts of water and worsen drought conditions for ranchers and farmers in a state where water shortages already crippled the sugar cane industry.

“Oh, I guarantee you, it’s on everybody’s mind,” said Giles Dalby, a cattle rancher and a Republican county commissioner in west Texas.

Dalby, who raises Angus and Brangus cattle on ranchland that’s been in his family for 125 years, pointed to fast-growing cities where water authorities have had to go to greater lengths to procure water, including the “water wars” between San Antonio and ranchers several years ago.

Texas is increasingly steamrolling over landowner rights in the quest for public water, Dalby said, and that could mean that data centers get in line ahead of ranchers when shortages or rationing worsen.

Clayton Tucker, a rancher and the Democratic nominee for state agriculture commissioner, said his campaign events are consumed by talk of data centers. It doesn’t matter whether he’s meeting with Democrats or Republicans.

“This is the most cross-partisan issue I’ve ever seen in my life,” Tucker said.

Meanwhile, protest groups are springing up, including one in Lubbock that is led by Republicans. The founders, Stephen Sanders and Hallie Bertrand, like some other Republican opponents of data centers, say it’s possible or even certain they won’t vote for Abbott, although they may not necessarily vote for Hinojosa.

There is still time for Abbott to push through major legislation before the election and “be a hero,” Sanders said.

The big question is whether enough rural voters will turn against Abbott to give Hinojosa a shot. It’s hard to tell, Bertrand said, especially when some know nothing about the issue.

“They’ll just hit that button, Republican all the way down,” Bertrand said. “But I think it’s a step towards something that we have not seen in Texas in a long time, with people on the right switching to the left. Or scooting a little closer to the middle, maybe.”

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Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter

ANGELINA COUNTY, Texas (KETK) – The Angelina County Sheriff’s Office said a 16-month-old boy died on Tuesday night after they had a medical emergency at a daycare in Burke.

According to the sheriff’s office, deputies were sent out with EMS to the Building Blocks Academy in Burke near Diboll at around 11 a.m. on Tuesday after a medical emergency was reported at the daycare

EMS and the deputies immediately transported the child to a hospital in Lufkin, and the toddler was then transported by helicopter to a hospital in Houston. The toddler later died just before midnight on Tuesday, the sheriff’s office said.

Staff at the daycare have provided investigators with all the information they had about the emergency. Evidence gathered from the daycare is currently being reviewed by the Angelina County District Attorney’s Office, which is a standard procedure.

The sheriff’s office has found no evidence of foul play in connection with the victim’s death.

ANGELINA COUNTY, Texas (KETK) — The former city administrator for the City of Hudson has been indicted for alleged abuse of official capacity, city officials said on Wednesday.

Rodney McCarty was placed on administrative leave in December 2025 after a unanimous city council voted while the investigation was ongoing. The city said they took “appropriate notice of allegations involving suspected improprieties” when McCarty served as city administrator.

Those allegations were submitted to the Angelina County Sheriff’s Office, which led to an investigation by the Texas Rangers and referred back to the Angelina County District Attorney’s Office.

“Corruption will not be tolerated in the City of Hudson. Those entrusted by the citizens to use their hard-earned tax dollars wisely must always be held to the highest standards. I demand it and so should every public servant, whether they are elected or appointed,” City of Hudson Mayor Caleb Ramsey said.

The city said they are cooperating with law enforcement and will not interfere with the proceedings.

Tropical Storm Bertha made landfall in Louisiana and was southwest of New Orleans while moving west toward Texas early Thursday morning, after closing beaches on the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Mississippi.

The storm made landfall Wednesday afternoon in St. Bernard Parish about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of New Orleans. The storm was forecast to reach the upper Texas coast on Thursday before dissipating inland in Texas by Friday.

Early Thursday, the storm was about 110 miles (175 kilometers) southwest of New Orleans and about 120 miles (190 kilometers) southeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana, moving west at 12 mph (19 kph) with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph), the National Hurricane Center said.

The wind and storm surge were the main threats for the Deep South states. Parks and piers were closed up and down the coast, as were some low-lying roads. A tropical storm warning stretched from Alabama to Louisiana, including New Orleans where extreme heat was adding to misery.

Onlookers watched the storm surge at the Lake Pontchartrain estuary, with kids splashing in the floodwaters as Bertha approached the Louisiana Coast. Residents mowed their lawns even as streets filled up with water.

Tropical storm force winds were felt as much as 160 miles (260 kilometers) from the center of the storm, the hurricane center said. A wind gust of 44 mph (71 kph) was recorded at New Orleans Lakefront Airport on Wednesday afternoon. The strong gales knocked over a Waffle House sign onto a car in Panama City Beach, Florida.

But the heaviest rains were staying offshore, reducing the risks of flooding, the center said.

The storm is unlikely to leave behind widespread damage, Louisiana State Climatologist Jay Grymes said, adding that the impact should be manageable for coastal communities.

Gov. Jeff Landry called the forecast “encouraging” but also warned residents to be prepared for some flooding.

Storm surges up to 3 feet (1 meter) were possible in Louisiana and Alabama, forecasters said. Rain totals were forecast between 1 and 4 inches (3 to 10 centimeters), with higher amounts possible in isolated areas.

Elsewhere in the U.S., a line of storms on Tuesday generated reports of tornadoes stretching from Cincinnati to New Jersey. Torrential rains caused flash floods that swamped homes, washed out bridges and led to water rescues in West Virginia, authorities said.

Southern Louisiana was under tropical storm and extreme heat warnings for much of Wednesday — a rare double dose of suffering, the National Weather Service said.

It was the first time in at least two decades that’s happened in the area, the weather service said, citing records that date back to 2005.
Bertha is the second tropical storm of the Atlantic season

Bertha is the second tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. Tropical Storm Arthur in June brought heavy rainfall to the southeastern U.S.

Bertha could dump heavy rain on coastal areas of Mississippi that are still recovering from flooding brought by Arthur that destroyed and damaged homes.
Hurricane Fausto in the Pacific is far from land

In the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Fausto churned far from land Wednesday. The hurricane was hundreds of miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph).

It was forecast to gradually strengthen and the hurricane center said that ocean swells generated by Fausto were spreading along the Baja California coast and likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip tides.

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Associated Press journalists Julie Walker in New York, Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, and Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

NACOGDOCHES (KETK)– A motion was passed during the Nacogdoches City Council meeting on Tuesday evening that will allow the city to change its current water conservation and drought contingency plan.

The revised plan was agreed on after the city council found that making these modifications will better promote efficient use of the city’s water supplies while also supporting long?term reliability of its municipal water service.

The modifications approved by the city council will now be submitted to the Texas Water Development Board and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for approval

City staff will also continue annual reporting based on the plan and efforts to maintain compliance with state regulations.

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday honored the lives of four U.S. service members who were killed in the Middle East and returned to their families at an air force base in Delaware.

The president saluted as four transfer cases were escorted off an airplane during the dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base. The ritual is one of the most somber duties of a commander-in-chief. It was the third Trump has attended since he launched the war in Iran in February.

Trump was scheduled to meet privately with the grieving families. Speaking to reporters on his way to Dover, Trump called the ritual “one of the hardest things to do as a president.” His message to the families, he said, was, “We love you. We love your child.”

“There’s no games, there’s no nothing — that’s their child,” Trump said. “And all you can do is throw out your heart.”

Trump was accompanied by administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Also present were Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.

During the ritual, transfer cases draped with the American flag and holding the remains of the fallen soldiers are carried from the military aircraft that transported them to awaiting vehicles to take them to the mortuary facility at the base. There, the service members are prepared for their final resting place.
Fallen troops came from Hawaii, Texas, New York and North Carolina

Two U.S. Army soldiers killed in Iranian missile and drone attacks in Jordan were returned during the dignified transfer. The remains of a third service member who is believed to be the soldier missing after the Jordan attacks was also returned, as well as the remains of a soldier killed in Iraq during a detonation of an Iranian drone.

The soldiers killed in Jordan were identified by the Defense Department as Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii; and Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. The soldier who disappeared after the Jordan attacks is Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York, the Defense Department said.

The soldier killed in Iraq was identified as Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, who lived in Spring Lake, North Carolina.

The White House said Feehan’s family would be joining on Air Force One later on Wednesday as Trump travels to Georgia for an event promoting his administration’s investment accounts for children.

Trump previously said the soldiers died while protecting America and other nations from Iran.

“We feel very badly, but you know, those great people, those great patriots were out there fighting so that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. He added that the U.S. was striking Iran “in honor” of the fallen troops.

Trump vows to retaliate for each US death

The U.S. has launched multiple retaliatory strikes against Iran as an interim agreement to end the war falls apart. Trump on Monday said that every time Iran kills an American soldier, “they will pay for that killing many times over!”

Since the war began on Feb. 28, 18 U.S. service members have been killed.

Trump on Tuesday said that while almost all the incoming fire in Jordan was stopped, some made it through.

“They did slip something through in Jordan,” he said. “If we had other operators, you know, it would have not happened, unfortunately.”

He went on: “We’ve stopped almost everything, but when you let other people do your job with the United States — we let other people do the job — and sometimes it doesn’t work out so well.”

Trump did not elaborate on his comments, and it was not immediately clear who he was saying was responsible for protecting U.S. forces in Jordan.

Trump attended two previous dignified transfers since the outset of the war, most recently in March.
Soldier had planned to marry fiance and attend law school

Feehan, a first lieutenant who was killed Saturday, will be posthumously promoted to the rank of captain and awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge. He was assigned out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command.

Feehan’s family said in a statement that their hearts were shattered by his loss. They remembered Feehan, who went by “Tivo,” as someone who “packed in more living” in his 25 years than most do in a lifetime.

“He chased adventure relentlessly,” the statement said. “He believed deeply in the power of military service, especially what it builds in a person: discipline, leadership, character.”

He planned to marry his fiance and attend law school after his deployment. The family said they’re starting a scholarship in his name.

Gonzales, who was killed Friday, was a private with the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany. She graduated last year from Hebron High School in Carrollton, near Dallas, school officials said.

Rampersad, a sergeant who was believed to have been killed in Friday’s attacks, was assigned to the 57th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 52nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany.

Swinton, a sergeant who was killed Sunday, will receive a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Action Badge, and will be promoted to staff sergeant. He enlisted in the Army in 2017 and was assigned to the 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

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