"Guadalupe River Goes Full Godzilla: Officials Shocked, Experts Not So Much"

In a shocking turn of events that absolutely no one could have predicted—except maybe anyone who’s ever looked at a map—the Guadalupe River decided to throw a tantrum and swell 20 feet in under two hours. That’s right, folks. While you were sleeping, the river was busy turning into Godzilla, proving once again that Mother Nature has a dark sense of humor and zero regard for human infrastructure.

Local officials, armed with their trusty 19th-century flood monitoring system (which consists of four gauges and a guy named Earl squinting at the water), were caught completely off guard. One of the gauges even had the audacity to fail mid-flood, probably because it couldn’t handle the sheer drama of the situation. "You cannot engineer yourself around the Guadalupe," said Phil Bedient, a flood expert who has apparently been screaming into the void about this for decades. But hey, why listen to the experts when you can just hope for the best?

The river’s rapid rise was so fast, it could’ve given Bitcoin a run for its money. At 2 a.m., the water was a modest two feet deep. By 3 a.m., it was seven feet. By 5 a.m., it hit 19.5 feet, which is roughly the height of a two-story building. And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, the gauge stopped reporting altogether, like a teenager ignoring their parents’ texts. Classic.

Kerr County Judge Robert Kelly called the Guadalupe "the most dangerous river valley in the United States," which is quite the title considering we also have Florida. But Bedient agreed, citing the river’s trifecta of doom: intense storms, steep slopes, and a complete lack of regard for human life. "It just rips," he said, perfectly summarizing the river’s attitude toward anyone dumb enough to camp near it.

Speaking of camping, let’s talk about the victims—because nothing says "fun family vacation" like being swept away in a raging torrent. The Guadalupe has a long history of turning recreational activities into survival horror games. In 1987, 10 campers learned this the hard way when their bus got stuck and they tried to form a human chain. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. Helicopters had to pluck kids from trees like some kind of dystopian piñata party.

And what’s being done to prevent this from happening again? Well, after the 2015 Blanco River flood, officials considered a fancy new warning system. But then Hurricane Harvey happened, and all the money went there instead. Because why fix a problem when you can just wait for a bigger disaster to distract everyone?

So here we are, with the Guadalupe River still laughing in the face of human ingenuity, and officials still scratching their heads like they’ve never seen water before. But don’t worry, folks. I’m sure they’ll get around to fixing it—right after the next catastrophe.