In flooded Texas, I saw the best of America – and the parts that make you shake your head

The Age

6 days ago

Guillen takes the time to show me around and speaks at length about what she saw on that terrifying night, including a family of five clinging to a tree and being swept away by the raging torrent. She also reveals she lost one of her own employees: 27-year-old Julian Ryan, who worked at Howdy's.
'He closed the restaurant with me that night, and he went home,' she tells me. 'Water got into his house and he had to break a window to get his family to safety – and he did. But he cut himself in the process, and he bled out.' His sister Connie Salas told KHOU-11 television: 'He died a hero, and that will never go unnoticed.'
There were heroes aplenty in the aftermath of the disaster, and a great deal of southern hospitality. While I waited for Guillen, one of her staff, Jennifer Dickson, arrived carrying trays of breakfast tacos and pancakes for the team, having woken at 6am to cook. Courtney Friedrichs, who was volunteering as gatekeeper, happily gave me lunch while I waited: cajun sausage pasta and a fruit cup.
Every community comes together in a crisis. As Friedrichs says, they put their differences aside. But one can't help but wonder if those differences – the political ones, at least – might contribute to a lack of preparedness.
Lawmakers are now under fire for failing to pass a bill this year that would have set up a grant system for counties to buy new emergency communication equipment and build new infrastructure such as radio towers.
One local representative who voted 'no', first-term Republican Wes Virdell, told the Texas Tribune: 'I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now.'
On talkback radio, hosts and callers slammed Austin fire chief Joel Baker, who the firefighters' union accused of failing to dispatch vital resources in time. Austin mayor Kirk Watson said the union was politicising the tragedy amid budget negotiations. It seems nothing is immune from the political polarisation afflicting the US.
At a vigil for the victims in San Antonio, I watched speaker after speaker lead the crowd in heartfelt prayer. Some tried to wrestle with the inevitable question of how a merciful God could wreak such heartbreak on so many, and for no reason. If there was a persuasive answer, it was lost on me.
I wonder, too, whether the American deference to religious salvation creates a blind spot for real, terrestrial actions that could offer people a little more protection. When Guillen, who lost so much and witnessed such horror, says the flood was 'truly an act of God', I ask her whether the tragedy has altered her faith at all.
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'Not really,' she says. 'I am Catholic, and I believe God does things the way he does, and he's the only one who knows why. But there is a reason.
'And I truly believe that we, the people here on this beautiful earth are the ones that have to deal with it. And mother nature is powerful.'