FINALLY: Some GOOD News With Those July 4th Floods In Texas
So much better than the news we were bracing ourselves to hear
All of America had a collective gasp when we started to hear the numbers of dead and missing after the Guadaloupe washed so many lives away… we were never expecting this.
After any major tragedy, the harsh truth is that more than a day or two after the lists of missing persons go out, hopes grow fainter and fainter with each passing hour. At some point, even the most optimistic holdouts will acknowledge a pivot from rescue operations to the sad and somber work of what is euphemistically called ‘recovery’ operations, perhaps out of respect for those grappling with the still-fresh loss of their loved ones.
From around the country and around the world, onlookers would be confronted by headlines and subheads like this, from almost a week after the incident, and be left to fear the worst.
And then, as often happens, the news cycle turned our heads in other directions, following this political win or loss, this or that viral moment, scandal, or tragedy.
Most of the world doesn’t even look back. But we went looking to find out what happened to those missing people. Oddly, at about the same time, others seemed to be asking the same question.
And the answer we found was a VERY pleasant surprise, especially for those of us who have given thought to what those numbers would mean in terms of familial devastation.
Nearly 100 people who had still been listed as missing after deadly flash flooding swept across central Texas on July 4 have been found safe, with only three individuals still missing, Kerr County officials said Saturday.
The updated missing list comes as the search entered its third week, marking a sharp decline from the more than 160 people initially unaccounted for in Kerr County alone.
“This remarkable progress reflects countless hours of coordinated search and rescue operations, careful investigative work, and an unwavering commitment to bringing clarity and hope to families during an unimaginably difficult time,” Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said in a statement the city shared on social media Saturday night. —FoxNews
The tentative combined death toll both for Kerr County and beyond, now stands at 135 people, while a handful remain missing.
You can call it ‘lucky’, if you like. Or ‘fortunate’.
But for many among us who were compelled to pray for everyone caught up in that flood, there’s another possible explanation. And for them, we tell this story so that they can direct their gratitude (and praise) to where they would say it rightly belongs.
It doesn’t make the bitter pill of the tragedy any easier to swallow. But it could also have been SO much worse.