- Coming up on "Austin InSight:" Lake Travis is the highest it's been in years after heavy rain and a flash flood emergency.

Plus we'll hear from boots on the ground in Kerr County and from a group on a mission to make summer camp safer.

"Austin InSight" starts now.

- [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Daniel L. Skret.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Hi there and thanks for joining us.

I'm Laura Laughead.

The Texas Hill Country is once again cleaning up after significant flooding following rounds of heavy rain.

While many of the scenes were reminiscent of the deadly and catastrophic flooding last summer, there was thankfully far less loss of life, though many areas have a significant repair and recovery effort ahead.

Moderate to major flooding hit the Guadalupe, the Nueces, and the Rio Grande.

Also west of San Antonio, the Frio, the Medina, and the Sabinal.

And closer to Austin, the Pedernales and the Llano.

Staff at Pedernales Falls State Park captured the moment a wave of flood water rushed through the park from farther upstream.

The Llano River remained swollen for days as water from the Hill Country pushed toward Lake LBJ.

However, for us here in the Austin Metro, the impact was actually in some ways a positive one, replenishing our main source of water.

The Lower Colorado River Authority opened floodgates along the Highland Lakes chain, including here at Starcke Dam near Marble Falls to pass the flood water through to Lake Travis.

As a result, Lake Travis reached 100% full for the first time since July of 2019, and even rose past full pool level.

Still, for many people in the Texas Hill Country, especially along the Guadalupe River, the flooding couldn't help but bring painful flashbacks to last 4th of July.

A few weeks ago in our one-year flood special, we first introduced you to Ryan Logue.

In the immediate aftermath last summer, he searched the river as a volunteer with the Cajun Navy.

Ever since, he's been helping clean up the river and searching for the remaining two flood victims still missing.

We're checking back in with Ryan now from Kerr County.

Ryan, I know this is a conversation you never expected to be having.

Thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you for having me, Laura.

It's good to see you.

- So Ryan, first I want to ask before we dive into anything else, how are you doing and how is the community feeling right now?

It feels like people were just starting to truly heal and move on when this happened.

- I'm doing all right.

You know, I'm doing as well as I can be.

It's hot out here, it's humid.

You know, we're jumping around from property to property, making sure that the rivers and the creeks and the tributaries around here get cleared out in case we do get more flooding soon so we don't get anything backed up.

There are crews throughout town, throughout Comfort, Center Point, Kerrville, Hunt, bucking out houses and there are volunteers locally, there are volunteers from around the state.

You know, the volunteer situation looks a lot different than last year.

And so this time around, because there's no missing people, there's not as much of an emotional reaction, if you will, from a lot of the, you know, volunteer people around the state.

However, our community's really standing up for itself.

You know, if your neighbor was flooded out, you're walking across the street and saying, "Hey, hand me a squeegee.

I'm going to get this water out of here for you."

It's, you know, we relied on so many volunteers from out of state because we were so in shock after that first flood.

As a community, we were very shocked.

And this time around, we were prepared.

We knew it was, you know, we knew potential catastrophe, catastrophic conditions were, you know, are possible.

And you know, we made sure... You know, neighbors were making sure they had they're neighbor's phone numbers.

They made sure they knew who to check on.

We had a plan this time.

- Overall though, talking about the damage, how would you compare last week to what happened last year in terms of the magnitude and the scope of the damage?

- When it comes to the cleanup aspect of what happened last year, because of the trees, because of how it manifested, there was probably more debris that will have been moved out in last year's flood.

This year though, when it comes to the magnitude of the housing that it's affected, the amount of people that it affected in their daily lives when it came to our road systems, not just along the river, but throughout the whole county, we are seeing a much greater devastation.

You're seeing all the creeks back that were feed into the Guadalupe.

They were so full and these were not, you know, they flooded last year, but they were not affected in a catastrophic way.

These creeks now look like the Guadalupe River.

They were cleared out so much.

Town Creek that runs right through the middle of Kerrville.

I live half a mile from it.

The water came up about 50 yards from my house.

Houses that were in no form of a floodplain by any means were getting flooded.

It's not something you can prepare for.

You know, you have to be diligent, you have to be ready, but you also can't prepare for a house that's never flooded and you've lived in for 50 years.

You can't prepare for it to flood because it just doesn't seem realistic in a way.

So it's, as a community, we've got a lot more... We have a long way to go as a community.

Our businesses that support us in, you know, they support us with air conditioning needs, with, you know, our shopping needs.

Those places have been wiped out for the most part, or they had three feet of water in there.

But within hours, we had hundreds of volunteers at these places just cleaning out in these, you couldn't have gotten here from Dallas in that amount of time.

These were locals just driving around going, "Oh crap, they need help.

Let's go help them."

So it's heartbreaking, but it also lifts your heart a little bit to kind of see that response, to see a community come together.

I'm about to cry.

To see a community come together like that.

We've been through so much, but it just shows that we're not broken at all.

I hope my community sees that.

But I hope nobody feels broken because this response that we've done for each other shows the exact opposite of that.

- And Ryan, that is so, so clear to everyone on our end and everyone we met out there.

It cannot be stated enough the resilience and the kindness and the empathy in their community.

And it is amazing to see that people were ready to come out in droves to volunteer and help last year.

And that same spirit of people at the ready to help, whether it was people from Kerr County or in the neighboring counties, people were once again ready to help.

And speaking of help, Ryan, to wrap things up, what is the best way people, maybe people at home watching or just anyone who's concerned can help y'all right now?

- Right, you know, when it comes to helping, if the people can come out and volunteer, you know, they can find me on Facebook and I can guide them to properties.

I can guide them, you know, to whatever skill sets they have, equipment they have, whatever it is that they're able to do, I can help guide them to places to do that.

We're not going to stop.

We're not going to give up and we're just going to keep doing what we know to do as a community.

And you know, we do hope that people don't... You know, there's so much devastation so many places, but if we can show them anything after what we've been through for the last year, I hope all these communities see that there's always light at the end of the tunnel and a little detour like this, a little bump in the road, it's never going to stop anybody.

- It certainly won't.

Well, Ryan Logue, volunteer with the Cajun Navy and a leader with the recovery and cleanup effort in Kerr County.

Thank you so much for the work that you continue to do and for giving us this update.

- Okay, thank you, Laura.

I really do appreciate it.

Talk to you soon.

- Talk to you soon.

A focal point of last year's flooding tragedy was of course Camp Mystic, where 25 campers and two counselors lost their lives.

The camp has since closed and announced its bankruptcy, sparking a national conversation not only on flood safety plans, but also on the overall safety of where we send our kids to camp.

Charlee Johnson is from Houston and her daughter Anna was at Camp Mystic and evacuated during the floods.

She thankfully made it out safely, but her friend didn't.

This inspired Johnson to leave a successful career in oil, gas, and mining to start the Safety Navigator, a national nonprofit to help camps keep kids safe.

- We're here today because this tragedy is now part of our story.

And like so many of you said yesterday, we can't bring lives back, but we can and we will do everything in our power to make sure something like this never happens again.

- According to the American Camp Association, around 30 million kids attend summer camps across the country every year.

Charlee Johnson joins us now along with co-founder Marley Palin.

They're currently on the road visiting camps around the nation.

Charlee and Marley, thank you so much for being with us.

- Thank you, Laura.

- [Laura] And your names work so well together.

It's almost like you were destined to be in this endeavor together.

(Marley laughing) - Yeah.

- So Charlee and Marley, first, can you tell us where you are now and what you're doing out there?

- Yeah, so right now we are in the middle of Wisconsin and we've been making our way up here over the last couple weeks, making camp stops along the way.

This is the first time we're doing what we call the Connection Tour for the Safety Navigator and it's all about us getting out to camps, seeing them live in action and meeting the wonderful people that are caring for the kids in their campgrounds.

- Well, you left, Charlee, I want to highlight this, you left a successful career to start the Safety Navigator.

And for you, it all goes back to Camp Mystic and your daughter Anna.

Can you tell us in a few words what happened and how that led you to today?

- Yes, so my daughter, Anna, was at Camp Mystic on the 4th of July last year.

She was safely rescued, but her friend and 27 of her camp sisters were, did not make it that night.

That personal experience along with the courageous and heroic efforts of the Heavens 27 families to drive new safety requirements for youth camps in Texas is what really inspired this work.

What we saw was an opportunity to bring corporate experience and our backgrounds and our networks to an industry that is looking to lift the bar in safety.

And that's what we've done with the Safety Navigator.

We've gotten a tremendous response from camps, from families alike, and we see the work making a real difference this summer.

- And can you explain how the Safety Navigator works now and what need does it fill that didn't exist before?

- Yeah, so the Safety Navigator is an online platform completely free for camps across the country.

And what it's really designed to be is a one-stop shop for camp safety.

Camp directors have often, you know, given their lives to supporting and creating amazing summer camp experiences for kids.

They innately care about safety, but they didn't necessarily have the resources to implement best practice safety principles at their camp.

So that's what we've built in the Safety Navigator.

There's a whole bunch of training, tools, templates, resources that camps can access completely for free to make sure that they're creating both, you know, a magical and fun, but also safe summer for the kids that they're supporting.

- And we've been talking a lot about flood risks specifically, but people may not realize there are all sorts of severe danger risks to camps like, you know, where you are now in the Midwest, there's tornadoes, there's wildfires, things that we might not necessarily think of at first, but need to be talking about.

I know you're in Wisconsin right now and you're headed to Michigan next.

You were in Mo Ranch last week, correct?

You got to look at some of the Hill Country camps already?

- Yes, we started the Connection Tour in the Hill Country and that was a very meaningful place for us to begin.

It's where our story began as a Safety Navigator.

And we were able to go out and meet with a community that has rebuilt and is continuing to look for ways to improve what safety looks like on their camps.

So we were stationed at Mo Ranch for several days and got to visit several of the camps in the Hill Country community, which was amazing.

- Here in Texas, we have some new safety legislation for camps in play.

How does the Safety Navigator fit into that?

Are you working directly with lawmakers?

- We pick up from where the law takes off.

And so once legislation has been implemented in any state, obviously, you know, having just been rolled out in Texas but is now slowly moving to other states across the U.S.

And then we help camps translate what that means for them.

So we help them understand the legislation, understand what that means that they might need to put in place, and then we give them a whole range of resources to help them actually action that at their camps.

And so it's designed to be an implementation tool for camps nationally with or without legislation.

- What's next for the Safety Navigator?

- For us, the future is spreading awareness of our platform and the resources that we've built across the country.

And that's a lot of the reason why we're out here making a cross-the-country road trip this summer is to start meeting camp leaders beyond Texas and sharing the resource, spreading awareness of what it is and how it can support and continuing to get it in as many directors' hands as possible.

- Hmm!

- Well, Charlee Johnson and Marley Palin, the co-founders of the Safety Navigator, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us and the important work that you're doing to help keep kids safe.

- Thanks for having us.

- Thank you!

(upbeat music) - Meanwhile, Austin leaders are entering the early stages of budget conversations.

We told you last week a little about the proposed budget for the next year, but we're going to drill down even more.

City council members got their first chance to hear from city staff and the public about what the city manager has proposed.

One of the consistent themes from the community is concerns about cuts to social services grants.

The city manager has proposed cutting a little over $5 million.

The community concerns resonated with District 7 council member Mike Siegel.

- I'm not happy to see the continued cuts to our social service contracts, and especially these across-the-board cuts to whole programmatic areas.

What I hear is it's demoralizing to a lot of our social service providers who are on the front lines every day helping people.

- Council Member Mark Duchin from District 10 voiced his concerns about property taxes.

The city manager's budget draft proposed a 3.5% increase in tax revenue.

It's the maximum allowed under state law without asking voters for approval.

- Sometimes it feels like we're cultivating two Austins here, one that can just shrug off the tax increase, it's a rounding error for them, and one that's gonna be disproportionately impacted by them.

And this is where it feels like the response is really puzzling 'cause we talk about the 3.5% state-imposed spending limit.

But when I look back for the last four years at the 3.5% that we approved, it sure looks like the state gave us a ceiling and we treat it as a floor.

- Mayor Kirk Watson keyed on this as well, asking city staff to come back with additional examples, including a 2% revenue increase so council can see what a lower tier of tax increase would look like.

Police Chief Lisa Davis also answered some questions from council members about a proposed half a million dollar increase to her budget, dedicated to recruiting.

The department has been running more than 300 officers short of authorized staffing levels for years.

- We want good quality applicants, not just seats to come and take a test.

We want good quality applicants and we want Austinites.

We want people that are from this city that know this city to come here.

So that's, you know- - Council will meet several more times over the next month to discuss and make changes to the budget.

If you want to get involved or give your feedback, you can go to publicinput.com/budgetfy2026.

Across Texas, U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is facing new scrutiny over a fatal shooting in Houston.

An agent shot and killed 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo earlier this month, setting off community protests, investigations, and reports of ICE making policy changes.

"The Texas Tribune's" Alex Nguyen has been covering the shooting and the fallout, and she joins us now.

Alex, thanks so much for being here.

- Thanks for having me.

- Alex, could you give us an overview of what happened on July 7th and how an ICE agent came to shoot and kill Lorenzo Salgado Araujo?

- Yeah, so on the early morning of July 7, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was heading out in Houston in his white van.

He was a construction worker.

So he went on his way to pick up his brother and two other men to go build a house in the Houston Northern area.

And then based on video footage that my colleagues gathered and analyzed, so these would be like cameras in a neighborhood or cameras from local businesses that they have gathered.

And from those footage, we were able to see that there were two black unmarked vehicles that started trailing his van, and then they sped up and caught up to him.

And so there were no emergency light, no kind of sign that these were police vehicles.

And then we know that they eventually stopped the van and an ICE agent fatally shot him before 7:00 AM that morning.

- And we do have accounts from people in the van when the shooting happened, and they are different from the accounts from the government of what happened.

What are some of those core differences and points of contention?

- Yeah, so of course, the first account that we got about the shooting came from ICE.

They released a statement hours after the shooting saying that, you know, Lorenzo had weaponized his vehicle to try to ram an ICE agent vehicle and did not follow verbal commands and then tried to run over an ICE agent.

And that's why this agent fatally shot him in self-defense.

So that was the account we got on that first day.

And then quickly after, once we learned and heard from the attorneys of these men who were also in the vehicle at the time was that they dispute his narrative and said that, you know, Lorenzo was never trying to run any agents over.

They were on the side of the vehicles.

And they said that, you know, there was a fear that this was, you know, a robbery because he has tools in the van and there's a lot of fear around that.

Of course, the vehicle were not marked.

And so if he had known that this was law enforcement operation, he wouldn't have, like never run away from the vehicle and would never disrespect law enforcement.

We also learned later from U.S.

Rep Sylvia Garcia, who represents this area, is that Lorenzo was never the intended target of this immigration enforcement operation in the first place.

He also had no criminal records and he was also in the process of obtaining legal status through his children who are American citizens.

- Hmm, and that brings us to now the multiple different investigations underway.

You mentioned the FBI, the federal investigation, there's one in Harris County, and there are now there's one by the Texas Rangers as announced by Governor Abbott.

Can you walk us through those?

- Yeah, so at the federal level, we have the FBI Houston office handling that investigation.

Separately, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General is the office that is investigating the shooting itself.

And then, you know, amidst all of these announcement of investigations, there have been a lot of local scrutiny on the ground saying that we do not trust the federal law enforcement agency to properly investigate this.

You know, there's a lot of distrust on the ground and there have been, you know, since the shooting, really quickly, a lot of mounting calls for independent investigation as well.

And so after a few days of that, we heard from the Harris County District Attorney's Office who launched their own investigation.

And then at the same time, we have the Texas Rangers also doing an investigation.

There were a lot of call from state democratic lawmakers for the Department of Public Safety to launch one.

They have, you know, investigated ICE shooting, fatal ICE shooting like this before.

So those are all of the ongoing investigation at this point.

And I think we're still early based on the timeline that, you know, the DA has said.

- Well, Alex Nguyen with "The Texas Tribune," thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us.

- Thanks for having me.

(upbeat music) - There's a lot riding on midterm elections in Texas coming up this November.

And like usual, one of the key groups candidates will be pursuing is Hispanic voters.

In the run-up to the election, Latino leaders and policymakers will meet here in Austin next week for the UnidosUS Conference to talk about solutions to strengthen Latino communities.

Carmen Feliciano, the organization's vice president of policy and advocacy, tells us why Austin and Texas are such a focal point for them.

- This is not just about the conference.

We've been involved in Texas for a long time working with our community.

Like I said, we have over 33 affiliates, community organization throughout the state.

We've been in Uvalde supporting an organization.

We've been working at the Rio Grande Valley, and we're following very closely very contested, important congressional and local races that are coming up on the midterm elections.

- You've also done some polling here in Texas.

What are the big takeaways from that?

And what would you say are the most important issues to the community here right now?

- I would say it's very interesting.

And what we're seeing in our most recent poll for Latino voters reflects not only Texas, but it's across the nation.

And it's important that you mentioned that Texas has such a big Latino community.

It's 40% of the population of Texas, that's like 11 millions are Latinos.

And of this, what we saw in most recent polling is that affordability, the economy, cost of living.

Those are the issues that are most important to the Latino voters in Texas.

15% of the Latino voters that we survey said that the only 50% can leave affordably.

The rest and up to 83% are saying that they cannot afford housing, that they are concerned about what they're seeing right now happening not only in Texas, but across the nation with regard to civil rights, economic mobility, housing cost, and fear, living in fear.

So those are some of the issues that we looked at addressing and have this very empowering conversations during our conference.

(upbeat music) - The challenging economics of running a restaurant in Austin continue to take a toll on the industry.

And it's not just your humble old Austin classics having a tough time.

One of Austin's most decorated and acclaimed restaurant of the past decade has called it quits.

Olamaie, the Southern fine dining restaurant, closed on July 19th.

It was one of the first restaurants in Texas recognized with the Michelin star in 2024.

It was also a James Beard finalist multiple times.

Despite that success, owner Michael Fojtasek told the Austin American-Statesman sluggish sales along with increasing rent and labor costs made it too hard to continue.

In an Instagram post announcing the closing, Fojtasek wrote, quote, "It's impossible to find the words to convey the sentiments related to closing a restaurant that has meant so much.

Gratitude is the feeling that comes forward overwhelmingly."

Before we go, the University of Texas always says what starts here changes the world.

Well, a UT alum hit the world stage at the World Cup soccer tournament that just wrapped up, but not as a player, as a referee.

The head ref for the semi-final between England and Argentina was Ismael Elfath.

Elfath is a 2006 graduate of UT's Cockrell School of Engineering.

He also played club soccer at UT and got a start as a referee working recreational and youth leagues around central Texas.

And honestly, it takes an engineering degree to navigate some of those controversial calls.

Well, that's our show this week.

You can catch up on all our stories on the Austin PBS YouTube channel, and you can find full episodes of "Austin InSight" in the PBS app anytime for free.

Thanks again for watching.

We'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Daniel L. Skret.

(upbeat music)