"We Didn’t See It Coming": Kerrville Officials Prove Water Is Wet, Bureaucracy Is Slow

In a shocking turn of events that absolutely no one could have predicted—except, you know, the National Weather Service—Kerrville officials have been caught in a scandalous web of checks notes... text messages. That’s right, folks. While the rest of us were blissfully unaware that water is, in fact, wet, Kerrville’s finest were busy exchanging urgent texts like, "Hey, uh, the river’s doing that thing where it rises and kills people. Should we maybe do something?"

City Manager Dalton Rice, heroically jogging along the river at 3:30 a.m. like some kind of flood-detecting superhero, apparently missed the memo that water was, indeed, rising. But don’t worry, he had his weather alerts turned off—because nothing says "responsible leadership" like willful ignorance. When asked why he didn’t see the flood coming, Rice reportedly shrugged and said, "I was too busy optimizing my Strava stats."

Meanwhile, Mayor Joe Herring Jr. was totally invited to a state emergency briefing but "didn’t see the email." Classic. You know how it is—one minute you’re organizing a riverside fireworks show, the next you’re drowning in unread messages. The struggle is real.

And let’s not forget the county’s response, which was apparently slower than a dial-up internet connection. Texts reveal that while Kerrville officials were scrambling to declare a disaster, the county was still trying to "get to the judge." Rumor has it they were trapped in a bureaucratic wormhole, endlessly filling out Form 27B/6 before they could legally acknowledge that, yes, flooding is bad.

But the real star of this tragicomedy? The emergency operations center, which was moved to an "ag barn"—because nothing screams "we’ve got this under control" like coordinating disaster relief next to a pile of hay. Senator John Cornyn, upon hearing the news, reportedly texted, "Wait, we’re meeting where?" before being assured that, yes, this was totally normal and not at all a sign of systemic failure.

In the end, officials patted each other on the back for a job well done, because nothing fosters camaraderie like mutual incompetence. "You were very informative and forthright," one council member told Rice, presumably with a straight face. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left wondering: if this is how they handle a flood, what’s their plan for the inevitable zombie apocalypse? Probably just turn off the alerts and hope for the best.