Lt. Gov. Patrick criticizes Kerr County judge’s absence during flood aftermath

Local officials involved in the deadly Kerr County flood response testified to lawmakers in a special legislative session on Thursday about issues and operations during the disaster.

At the end of the hearing, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick turned his attention to the top senior elected official in the county, Judge Rob Kelly, and his absence in the aftermath of the flood.

“Judge Kelly, I never saw you on day one,” Patrick said. “In this room, I talked to the sheriff multiple times. I talked to the mayor multiple times. We had a meeting when we got here. Everyone was here, and you were not.”

As county judge, Kelly serves as the head of emergency management and is responsible for directing the emergency response.

Patrick said that when there was a multi-agency press conference on the night of July 4, Kelly was not there. That night, Patrick and Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha went down the list of every camp, a total of 15, to find out who was accounted for.

“We had accounted for every camp except Mystic. You weren’t in that meeting. I don’t know where you were on July 4, but you should have been here,” Patrick said. “That’s your responsibility.”

On the day of the flood, Kelly said he was at a vacation home in Lake Travis and didn’t wake up until approximately 5 a.m., after getting calls and texts from Kerr County and state law enforcement officials.

“We received no alerts suggesting an extreme weather event was imminent,” Kelly said in his testimony on Thursday.

He was at an initial press conference in response to the flooding at 11 a.m. on July 4 at the Hill Country Youth Event Center, saying that the response was being led locally and at the state level, and that he had been advised not to give numbers on the total of deceased and missing persons.

During the conference Kelly's statements focused on the destruction of his property along Texas Highway 39 in Ingram. "I'm happy to say that the water did not get in the house.  It got into my office and outbuildings," he said. “When you look out your front door and you see the Guadalupe River running, it’ll wake you up. Let me tell you."

Kelly also said that he could not confirm whether all of the youth summer camps along the Guadalupe River in West Kerr County had been accounted for.

When pressed for answers about how parents could find out the status of their children, Kelly said, “call the camp.”

Kelly appeared at another press conference at 2 p.m. on July 4, but was not seen at another until the afternoon of July 5. 

“This is about as bad a day as you can have because we didn’t just lose people, we didn’t know where people were," Patrick said. "Everyone was here that day working their ass off, and you were nowhere to be found,”

The July 4 flooding of the Guadalupe River caused 108 deaths in Kerr County alone, including 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic in Hunt.

This article was originally published in the Aug. 2, 2025 edition of the Kerrville Daily Times.