For decades, wide skies, fresh air and scattered livestock sightings have greeted visitors to Crystal City, a South Texas town of around 6,000 where no one is a stranger.
Today, furniture, tires and other destroyed possessions are piled next to gutted houses. The sound of construction equipment drowns out the area’s usual soundtrack of birds, crickets and cicadas. Empty lots have become makeshift landfills.
In mid July, historic flooding hit the town. The Nueces River, which lies just to the east of Crystal City, rose more than 30 feet in some areas, spilling over its banks and sending walls of water rushing through its many creeks and tributaries.
Water covered roads and filled residential streets along the waterways. More than a hundred homes were damaged, shocking a community where few residents have ever experienced flooding.
The disaster hit just after Texas marked the one year anniversary of 2025’s catastrophic flooding. More than 130 people died, mostly along the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country.
But this year’s storm spread across a wider geographic area, filling even more of the state’s iconic rivers. Crystal City was one of dozens of tiny South Texas towns to be inundated with floodwaters.
While camaraderie is rich in this rural community, resources are limited. Crystal City is the seat of Zavala County, which has one of the highest poverty rates in the state. Now, many residents who were already struggling financially, are picking up the pieces as they wait for aid.
Also limited in Crystal City: rainfall. Drought isn’t uncommon.
These factors all made last month’s flooding even more devastating and surprising.
Neighbors and volunteers band together for recovery
The town, long ago nicknamed “the spinach capital of the world,” counts ranching, farming and Mexican American culture as key elements of its identity. A Popeye statue has guarded Crystal City’s municipal buildings since the 1930s.
That area, including the historic town square and courthouse were spared in last month’s flooding.
The Sagebrush Motel has become one of several community hubs for Crystal City residents who’ve lost everything.
“We've had an influx of people,” said Darien Thompson, the 50-room hotel’s manager. “When it first started we had pretty much the whole hotel full.”
Right now, she estimates five or six rooms are still occupied by displaced residents. According to the Zavala County Sheriff’s Office, some 180 structures saw damage from floodwaters, ranging from minimal to severe.
Thompson’s own home was flooded and her family lost some livestock. But she feels lucky that part of the house is still livable.
“We have a couple people who were told that their houses are gonna be bulldozed,” said Thompson, whose family owns the hotel. “So they're going to be with us until they can find housing. We've been trying to help them find housing.”
For the last several weeks, volunteers and residents have streamed through the hotel’s lobby, where essentials are free for the taking.
Piled in the corner are much-needed cleaning supplies, like buckets, rags and paper towels. There’s also food and water.
“We love our small little community, everyone's tight-knit,” said Martha Segura, a volunteer who’s lived in Crystal City her whole life.
Like most residents, Segura told KERA had never seen anything like this happen before. As soon as she heard about residents being displaced, she knew she had to do something.
“I asked my husband and I said ‘Babe, where are all these people going? Like, who's feeding them, where are they eating, where are they staying?’ I mean, we as neighbors should be concerned,” she said.
Since then, she said she’s been working with residents to clean and gut their houses, including moving some family’s “whole entire life, in boxes, into a storage room.”
Segura has been going door to door in the Chula Vista and Mexico Chico neighborhoods where the flooding hit the hardest, making sure residents have what they need, be it canned goods and a mop or help filling out forms for assistance. That includes a Google form being shared by Zavala County, which is working to connect residents with case managers and other resources.
“It's something very near and dear to my heart — that when something happens, I want to make sure that everybody gets the help that they need,” Segura said.
Volunteers have also come from outside the community, including Jane Smith, who’s staying at the Sagebrush Hotel.
Smith, who had never visited Crystal City before July’s flooding, has teamed up with Segura and Thompson to help displaced residents.
“I called Uvalde first, and then I called Hondo, called Kerrville. And the big cities usually get help first,” Smith said. Finally, she looked on Facebook, where she found a post mentioning the need in Crystal City.
Since then, she’s made two trips to help from her home four hours away in El Campo, Texas. On a recent Saturday morning, Smith drove around hard-hit neighborhoods to distribute goods and check in on people.
At one stop, Smith met lifelong Crystal City resident Diana Bustamante, who she gave a bag of food and supplies.
“I'm overwhelmed because I've never been through something like this,” said Bustamante, whose home filled with several feet of water.
The scars left by the river are easily visible both inside and out.
Bustamante said her husband helped remove waterlogged siding on her home's exterior walls. It's now covered in plywood. Inside, the house is almost empty. The family had to throw away all their appliances and furniture had to be thrown away.
The loss is especially hard because Bustamante said her family saved for years, paycheck by paycheck, to buy the property.
But overall, she’s just thankful to be alive.
“I have it bad, but I don't have it as bad as other people,” Bustamante said. “We have a lot of elderly people that — they lost it all. So I’m one of the blessed ones. Even though I lost a lot, I’m one of the blessed ones.”
For now, she lives next door with her son in his trailer home, which, amazingly, made it through the flood relatively unscathed.
Waiting on aid while navigating an uncertain future
A few blocks away, volunteers have been out in the neighborhood since the early morning, working in 100 degree temperatures clearing debris.
Nearby, Luisa Martinez sweeps her front porch and takes inventory of her remaining belongings. Her daughter’s ivory quinceañera dress with gold trim is laid out on top of a pile of her belongings.
“The stuff that you see here on the front porch, that's what I have left,” Martinez said. “Other than that, I don't have nothing else.”
Inside are just a few items that survived the storm, including the family’s pet axolotl, still in its tank.
“I came to clean up and get some stuff,” she said, before a company comes to help her load everything and “put it there on the front to be taken away.”
Martinez is now dealing with the unexpected expense of renting an apartment and filling the temporary space, all while figuring out what comes next for her home.
“We're just waiting. Hopefully, FEMA helps us or any agency the Red cross, we're waiting. All we could do is just wait.”
How long that wait will be is in the hands of the federal government, mainly President Donald Trump. In order to unlock several streams of federal assistance, the president needs to approve a Major Disaster Declaration. Local leaders across South Central Texas have expressed frustration that one still hasn’t been approved.
In Zavala County, spokesperson Marcial Garza told KERA he’s “hopeful” this will happen soon.
In the meantime, many residents have been confused about why more assistance isn't available.
“You see the questions on Facebook, That ‘Where's FEMA?’ Where's the help?” said local business owner Andralin Marquez.
Marquez and her family own the Campestre Convention Center, located by the Espantosa Slough, one of the waterways that flooded last month. For a couple of days, she said Crystal City “looked like an island” and it was challenging to leave or enter the town. Luckily, her business was spared.
Now that the dust has settled and people are assessing damages, Marquez said she understands the confusion and uncertainty residents have regarding receiving federal assistance.
“A lot of that comes from not necessarily knowing the process of things,” she said.
Overall, Marquez said the recovery process could be a long one.
“Nobody built their house in one day and it's not going to be repaired in one day,” she said. “This is gonna be anywhere from a three month to a year plan for Crystal City.”
But, for Marquez, there is one silver lining: The disaster has shown a spotlight on the town's resilience and unity. She knows the people of Crystal City won’t let anyone go without food, water or housing — and that everyone will get through this together.
