The Memorial Day weekend floods caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage and destroyed at least 321 homes in Hays County, according to county estimates. Many of those who have been displaced are struggling to find intermediate housing, which includes apartments and hotels.

“The issue is that the apartment availability in Hays County and in San Marcos is not there, so we have [flood victims] in hotels,” said Kharley Smith, Hays County emergency management coordinator. “Making sure we have the funding available for them to continue to stay in those facilities is what we’re seeking assistance with from [the Federal Emergency Management Agency].”

Ken Bell, San Marcos emergency management coordinator, said the city was working with FEMA to determine how to address the housing needs in the city and throughout Hays County, where more than 1,200 homes sustained some level of damage, according to county estimates.

“Yes, we have an intermediate housing problem in the city and the county of Hays,” Bell said at the town hall meeting. “Absolutely.”

For now, FEMA is providing monthly rent allotments for some residents to stay in apartments. Others have come to monthly “lease agreements” with local hotels, which they are paying for out of pocket.

Some are moving to apartments, of which San Marcos has 6,369 units. But apartments can be hard to come by in the city—only Cedar Park, Bastrop and North Austin had higher occupancy rates in the 16 regions comprising the Austin metropolitan statistical area, according to real estate data firm Apartment Trends.

Housing assistance

In the early morning of May 25, Janice Jaslowski sat with her daughter and two grandchildren on the couch of their River Road home near San Marcos’ Blanco Gardens neighborhood. The rain had not let up in hours, and many of their possessions were floating in the ankle-deep water pooling throughout the home, she said.

Across the street a helicopter descended and came up with a person hanging from its rescue line. Minutes later another helicopter flew overhead and performed the same maneuver, but when it ascended, no one was clutching the line, Jaslowski said.

The family went to the nearby La Quinta hotel where they booked a room for the day. When Jaslowski returned to her home the next day, she said she was shocked at the amount of damage that had been done.

“It was so bad we didn’t know where to start,” Janice said. “[The dirt] was everywhere in the house.”

Catholic Charities of Central Texas stepped in to pay for the Jaslowskis to stay in a hotel for about two weeks. The nonprofit helped 100 families to stay in hotels after the floods, said Christina Vehar, marketing and events coordinator with CCCT.

“We have gotten some really wonderful support from the different hotels,” Vehar said. “They have been very generous in the rates they gave us. At the same time they have a business to run and have limitations on what they are even allowed to do.”

Jaslowski said the assistance from organizations such as CCCT and Billy Graham Ministries has been welcome. She said she remains unsure of what additional assistance she will be eligible for from FEMA. She did not have flood insurance for her home.

“I’m throwing everything on my credit card hoping FEMA will come through,” Jaslowski said in June. “The only thing they’ve given us is $2,100, and that’s gone.”

In July, Jaslowski moved to Lubbock to live with her grandson until she figures out her housing situation in San Marcos. She said she remains unsure of if or when she will return to the city.

Barbara Hurtado, whose in-laws’ Blanco Gardens home was damaged during the flood, said in the weeks after the flooding she spent two hours each day on the phone with representatives of FEMA, the Small Business Administration and other aid organizations.

She learned that because the damaged home is in a floodplain, her in-laws would be required to purchase flood insurance if they accepted the $15,000 FEMA was offering. The neighboring homes had been quoted estimates of $10,000 annually for a flood insurance policy, an amount that could be prohibitive for a family living on a fixed income, Hurtado said.

By having a flood elevation study performed on the property she secured a policy for $357 annually, she said.

Until the house can be made livable again, Hurtado and her husband will welcome his parents at their home in Martindale. But they plan to move back to the neighborhood, she said.

“They definitely will be back,” she said. “That’s their home. It’s scary, and we talked about them maybe coming out to our place and building something. But right now they’re definitely staying.”

Moving forward

In San Marcos much of the outcry from the hard-hit Blanco Gardens neighborhood has stemmed from the effects of construction at the nearby Woods apartments, which were approved by City Council in 2013.

Laurie Moyer, director of CIP and engineering for the city, said the channel intended to convey water to the San Marcos River has not been completed because construction at the complex is ongoing. Other drainage features, including box culverts and discharge points, were complete and in place at the time of the flood.

The city must finalize its estimation of high-water marks, which will help the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority determine what the flows on the San Marcos and Blanco rivers were during the flooding, she said. That will help determine if the drainage features were functioning as intended.

Residents and council members are also concerned that dirt piles in front of the apartment complex blocked some water from entering the drainage system. The city has since forced the removal of the dirt piles from in front of the drainage system.

“When I drove in [after] the flood I just looked at [the dirt piles] and went, ‘How could that not have made it worse?’” Council Member Jane Hughson said.

For additional coverage from our media partner KVUE, watch: Volunteers needed in Hays County as residents continue to rebuild, an interview with the story's author, Brett Thorne.