Living along the river can be beautiful. It can also be hazardous, as one longtime resident knows all too well.
KERRVILLE, Texas — Residents and property owners across the Hill Country are still assessing the destruction caused by the flood. The catastrophe has left behind damage with varying degrees of severity.
A home at the intersection of Memorial Boulevard and Richardson Street is where Olivia Chappins and her husband raised a daughter and two boys, including Rick.
“We used to swim right down here,” Rick Chappins said. “Fish, put trout lines out.”
“I didn’t have to worry about my boys because in the summer all his friends, their friends, came down and fished and camped and it was a very, very happy time for them,” Olivia Chappins said.
Until a few years ago, the Chappins family’s homestead comprised two and a half acres of riverfront real estate, from the grassy open lots to the commercial building along the street and the little house in the back that overlooks the Guadalupe River.
But in 1978, life for the Chappins changed.
“At three o’clock in the morning, the guy next door came knocking on our door and said, ‘You’d better move out.’ He said, ‘We’re expecting another flood.’”
Luckily, Olivia and her husband made it out in time, but their washateria business never recovered.
In 1987, their home was hit again.
“Nightmares,” Rick said. “Every little amount of rain, she was paranoid. She wouldn’t sleep.”
“It was a beautiful place, but I’m thankful to God for giving me the opportunity to sell,” Olivia said. “My husband died in ’22 and we sold it. And thank God, Thank god for that. Because that was my fear all the time, as much as I loved the place.”
Olivia and Rick have returned to their old home to see the damage left behind from the Fourth of July.
“In ‘78 and ‘87 and all these little floods, never devastation like today,” Olivia said.
The hundred-year-old cypress trees on the riverbank that Rick climbed as a kid are now twisted and toppled.
“Probably had about six feet of water in that house,” he said. “Above the window, you can see the line right across there.”
In some place deep in her soul, Olivia says she knew this day would come.
“I feel for all these people who have lost their lives,” Olivia said.
And now, she leaves words of warning for those who may still think it could never happen to us.
“The Guadalupe River is beautiful,” she said. “But it’s also hazardous.”