Some of the most mesmerizing coverage in The New York Times last year followed the deadly predawn flash floods on the Guadalupe River in Texas July 4, catching residents, campers and city and county officials unaware. The Times used videos, photos, reconstructions, computerized simulations, drone footage, weather data and much more to capture what words alone could not.
Reports from San Antonio bureau chief Edgar Sandoval were among the first on-the-ground reporting on those early hours and days. We quickly followed up with close-up accounts of the terrifying night from those who lived through it, as well as examinations of why no warning systems had been installed and why summer camp cabins had been built in known flood zones. We were live on the story, with round-the-clock coverage, for five days.
We obtained the first photo of the emergency evacuation at Camp Mystic that night, from a camp counselor we interviewed. From other survivors, we obtained videos, photos, audio recordings and data that rendered graphical and visual coverage that no other organization could match. We got the first interview with the night watchman who helped rescue survivors at Camp Mystic.
The story broke on a holiday weekend when even key emergency responders were on vacation. Accommodations were limited, roads were washed out, and officials in Kerr County, Texas, were slow to provide updates—the county emergency manager himself, it turned out, was sleeping when the worst of the flooding occurred and did not learn of it until morning. The road to Camp Mystic, a summer camp for girls where dozens died, was blocked by authorities, and state troopers blocked access to shelters.
Still, reporters found a way to access devastated areas to witness the search and recovery and also to locate witnesses, long fled, to describe the ordeal they had suffered.
Other reporters combed through archives and reached current and former public officials to report on the county’s lack of preparedness. Though the National Weather Service had issued urgent warnings through the night, no one heeded them until hours later, and residents of a hard-hit summer camp, we showed through painstaking after-the-fact reporting, were left to fend for themselves.
