When Waters Rise, Who Do We Become?

When families woke to rising waters in the darkness, they didn't pause to assign blame. When counselors tied ropes around frightened children and guided them through flood-soaked cabins, they didn't think about politics. They thought about getting everyone to safety. In those moments, nothing else existed. No arguments about warning systems or government agencies. No debates about who should have done what differently. Just people doing everything they could to save the lives in front of them.

Twenty-seven children went missing that morning along the Guadalupe River. Families lost everything they'd built over decades. Communities watched their safe spaces disappear under twenty-six feet of water that rose faster than anyone could have imagined. But within hours of the tragedy, something else began rising just as quickly. And it revealed everything about who we choose to be when a crisis hits.

While Children Were Still Missing

The blame started before the bodies were found.

While search and rescue teams were still pulling people from trees, while helicopters were still flying through storms to reach stranded families, while parents were still frantically calling camps trying to locate their children, the arguments began. NOAA's fault. The governor's fault. Republicans' fault. Democrats' fault. The county's fault for not having warning systems. The camp's fault for not evacuating. The weather service's fault for not predicting twenty-six feet of water in forty-five minutes. Twenty-seven children were missing and people were already deciding who to crucify.

This programming runs deep in us. We've been taught to find differences first, to react with blame before we react with help. Someone posts about corporate donations and immediately it becomes a scorecard. Walmart gives half a million and someone has to point out what HEB is doing better. HEB steps up and someone has to criticize what the government doesn't do. Everything becomes about sides. Everything becomes about who's right and who's wrong and who deserves credit and who deserves blame. Meanwhile, eight-year-olds who loved hunting for dinosaur fossils in that same river are gone forever.

Here's what gets me about our obsession with fault-finding. Even if there is someone to blame, even if there's a clear path of responsibility, it doesn't help the solution. The present demands action, and that's where our hearts belong. We can't change the past by focusing on it. The water already rose. The children are already missing. Saving the people still trapped brings hope. Comforting the families who lost everything brings healing. Making everything political doesn't.

But saving people does. Helping does. Showing up does. 

We're so programmed for division that even the helping gets turned into competition. People can't just say thank you to companies stepping up. They have to rank them, compare them, and use them as weapons against other companies or politicians they don't like. A child is dead and we're keeping score about who donated more money. The children who died in those waters were daughters and granddaughters, camp friends and beloved students. They were excited about swimming and crafts and campfire songs. They trusted the adults around them to keep them safe. The counselors who stayed with them were young women who chose to spend their summers caring for other people's children. They sang them to sleep and tied their shoes and probably dried their tears when they missed home.

Some of those counselors died trying to save the children in their care. Heroes who made the choice to stay when they could have run. They were people with favorite foods and inside jokes and dreams about what they wanted to be when they grew up. They were daughters and granddaughters, camp friends and beloved students. They were excited about swimming and crafts and campfire songs. They trusted the adults around them to keep them safe. They weren't statistics waiting to become talking points. They died in a flood that happened faster than anyone could predict or prevent. They died because sometimes terrible things happen to good people and the world is more complex and unpredictable than our need for simple explanations.

What Actually Happened While Some of Us Argued

While people were busy finding fault online, Coast Guard pilots were flying through storms. While social media debates raged about warning systems, volunteers were driving for hours to search riverbanks they'd never seen. While comment sections filled with political talking points, local businesses were opening their doors as shelters. The helpers didn't wait for permission or perfect conditions or someone else to take the blame. They just helped.

Walmart and the Walmart Foundation stepped up with half a million dollars. HEB matched their commitment. The Home Depot Foundation added another quarter million. Every major Texas sports team contributed hundreds of thousands. The Houston Astros and Texas Rangers sent a million each. The American Red Cross mobilized. Salvation Army kitchens started cooking. World Central Kitchen chefs drove through the night. Operation BBQ Relief fired up grills to feed rescue workers. Local businesses across Texas sent supplies without asking for recognition. That's over six and three-quarter million dollars in confirmed donations alone, plus services, supplies, and countless hours from people who simply saw other people in need and responded. The helpers outnumbered the arguers by thousands. The helpers worked quietly while the arguers dominated the noise online.

Every helicopter pilot who flew through storms to save strangers. Every volunteer who spent days searching riverbanks. Every business owner who opened their doors to evacuees. Every person who donated money or supplies or time without asking for credit. Some of these helpers didn't make it home. Good people who died trying to save neighbors they'd never met, who ran toward danger instead of away from it.

These people understand something the arguers don't. When people are hurting, you help first and ask questions later. When children are missing, you search for them instead of searching for scapegoats. When families have lost everything, you give them shelter instead of giving them your opinion about who's to blame. Caring people fill this world. People who run toward crisis, who see suffering and immediately want to help, who drop everything to serve strangers in need. They outnumber the arguers, they outnumber the blamers, they outnumber those who turn away. We have the power to amplify the helpers and give microphones to the people who care. The blamers and dividers have been loud enough.

What We Owe Our Children

We all feel it when humanity falls short of what we know we're capable of, and everything becomes political. When every tragedy gets fed into the same machine of blame, division, and point-scoring. That weight in your chest watching it unfold is the part of you that knows we're meant for more. When we choose unity over division, we become the people we need to be for each other.

To the families who lost children in those waters, who will never again hear their laughter echo through the house or tuck them into bed or watch them grow into the amazing people they were meant to become, our hearts break with yours. Your children were treasures, each one unique and irreplaceable, each one carrying dreams and joy that made the world brighter. They deserved so much more time.  

To the families of the counselors and heroes who died trying to save others, your loved ones showed us what courage looks like. They remind us that there are still people who choose others over themselves, who run toward danger instead of away from it. Their sacrifice means something. Their love lives on in every person they tried to save.

To every family that lost homes and belongings and the place where their memories lived, we see you. We know that behind every statistic is a lifetime of birthday parties and quiet mornings and all the ordinary magic that makes a house a home.

What we owe these victims is better than our blame games. We owe them the recognition that their lives mattered more than our need to be right. We owe them the understanding that their deaths don't become meaningful by turning them into weapons against our political enemies. We owe them the promise that when tragedy strikes our communities, we'll be the people who show up to help instead of the people who show up to argue. We owe them a world where children can go to camp without their deaths becoming fodder for the same tired debates we've been having for years. Most of all, we owe them the commitment to see each other as people first. To remember that behind every disaster are real families with real pain that can't be healed by finding someone to blame. Their memory asks us to do better. To be the helpers. To amplify the people who care instead of the people who complain. To understand that when waters rise, the only response that matters is reaching for each other instead of reaching for weapons.

In a world that profits from our division, choosing unity becomes a radical act. In a culture that feeds on blame, choosing help becomes revolutionary. In a society that turns everything into sides, choosing to see every person's pain as our pain reminds us that we are one people sharing one story told in many voices, learning that our belonging to each other runs deeper than our disagreements, and in that recognition, we are—

One people. One story. Many voices. 

We belong. ❤️‍🩹