Project updates

We promised our supporters transparency, so this page exists from day one — before there is much to report. We will post progress here as it happens, including the parts that do not go to plan. Rebuilding after a flood is slow, and we would rather show you that honestly than only post good news.

September 2026 — This campaign opens

Fourteen months after the flood, we are opening the rebuilding campaign to the public. The design work is done, the professional team is assembled, and the floodplain requirements are understood. Our family has committed $500,000 of our own funds. The community and our extended family have contributed $343,000 in donations, labor, and materials. What remains is $600,000.

Construction has started. The first of three foundations is poured — the ground cleared, graded, and the slab down. Two more follow.

We will post construction progress, restoration photographs, and honest accounting as the work proceeds.

A freshly poured concrete foundation, its surface still wet and reflecting the evening sky. Timber forms run along the near edge, water lines cross the ground in front of it, and a skid-steer sits parked at the far side beneath the trees.
September 2026 — the first of three foundations poured

August 2026 — A flood warning system on Sandy Creek

A River Sentry flood warning device is now installed on the property, watching the creek that took our homes.

These are new. Weeks before ours went in, River Sentry units installed elsewhere in Texas gave warning during the 2026 floods and people got out in time. That is the whole argument for them: on July 5, 2025, the water went from nothing to chest height in thirteen minutes, and thirteen minutes of warning is the difference between losing a house and losing a family.

One device protects one stretch of creek. We are working to get them installed the length of Sandy Creek, so that the next time the water rises in the dark, every household here hears about it before it arrives.

A tall black River Sentry sensor tower standing on the bank directly above Sandy Creek, with the scoured banks and clear water behind it under a blue sky.
The device on the creek bank
Two people in River Sentry shirts standing either side of the opened device, showing the equipment inside. The younger person's face has been obscured.
River Sentry completing the installation
The sensor tower seen from across the water, standing above a rebuilt stone bank, with travel trailers and a canopy among the trees behind.
Watching the water from the rebuilt bank
The sensor tower standing in rough grass on the property, with travel trailers parked among the trees behind it.
Installed among the trailers families are still living in

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