Texas A&M Public Works Response Team

23/07/2025

✅ The final PWRT team members returned home safely today after 18 days supporting flood response and recovery efforts in the Texas Hill Country. We’re grateful for their dedication and proud of the impact they made💪. A heartfelt thank you to our 🤝 Partnering Agencies 🤝 for their continued support and willingness to send personnel to serve communities across Texas ❤️.

Thank you to the responders from 26 states who answered the call from Texas to assist with flood response and recovery efforts.

is thankful for the support.

More from Governor Greg Abbott: https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-thanks-fellow-governors-for-support-following-texas-flooding

12/07/2025

11/07/2025

09/07/2025

🚨 Our PWRT teams remain on the ground in Kerr County, continuing critical work to support local water systems. From assessing infrastructure to coordinating with local and state partners, we’re committed to helping this community recover and restore essential services. 💧

𝗙𝗢𝗖𝗨𝗦𝗘𝗗
All efforts -- from local to state to federal to volunteer -- are currently focused on search and recovery to reunite people missing from the July 4 flood with their families.

The Kerr County Emergency Management Plan is in full effect, as various official agencies are united under one roof at the Hill Country Youth Event Center in Kerrville.

While there are thousands of "boots on the ground" working the scene out on the Guadalupe River, their leaders are working together as one team to coordinate those efforts, problem solve and execute plans for next steps.

Here, Kerr County Commissioner (Pct. 4) Don Harris (in the cowboy hat) kneels for a quick planning discussion with other agency representatives in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC).

Harris' precinct represents a majority of Kerr County, and its positioning in the western part of the county took the brunt of the flood.

08/07/2025

🐾 Our friends at Texas A&M Task Force 1 (TX-TF1) and Texas Task Force 2 (TX-TF2) have 12 incredible search canines hard at work in the Texas Hill Country.

We’re proud to stand beside the local officials and our search partners in these response efforts. Thank you, TX-TF1 and TX-TF2, for the vital work you do—especially your four-legged teammates making a big impact! 💪🐶

08/07/2025

Governor Greg Abbott today provided an update on additional state emergency response resources that have been activated in response to the ongoing heavy rainfall and flooding that have impacted Texas communities.   “The State of Texas is working around the clock to support emergency management pe...

07/07/2025

06/07/2025

🚨 PWRT Update 🚨
This morning, seven PWRT team members are deployed in three groups along the Guadalupe River, surveying critical infrastructure. So far, they’ve assessed raw water intake sites and water treatment plants, and will be evaluating lift stations and wastewater facilities.

PWRT is working closely with local, state, and federal partners to provide aerial reconnaissance and deliver real-time intel to Incident Command.

02/05/2025

This was a KTP site visit to WCID17 serving Lakeway, TX. Susie Blake and I looked at two different wastewater treatment plants that day and offered them our assistance and opinions on a few treatment issues. Susie can be seen in several shots, evaluating activated sludge microorganisms for their settling capability in the round jar. She also examined them using a microscope.

29/04/2025

These were from the Cumby, TX wastewater plant PWRT response. (Feb 11-15, 2024) The treatment process at the plant had halted because most of the microorganisms were dead. You can see that the aging plant needed many repairs and had gone derelict. The overflowing manhole can be seen in a few of the pictures. This manhole was on the main sewer line coming to the plant from the town of Cumby. We added a dogfood slurry to the oval treatment basin to give the few microorganisms some food to spur their growth. Aerating the basin, amidst a LOT of settled sludge on the floor of the oval tank, provided oxygen to the microorganisms (the “bugs” as we call them) and stirred up the sludge so it could work its way through.

When the bugs in a wastewater plant encounter a large surplus of food to eat, they generate fatty acids and organic acids as they start to eat and metabolize the abundant food, the dog food we fed them. These fatty acids created the foam layer that we saw the day after we fed them.

We cleared the clogged sewer main from town using chemical treatment we got from a tractor and implement store in Commerce.

23/04/2025

This was the Marlin, TX response. The guys are using the ultrasonic leak detector we have to precisely locate a leak in State Hwy 77 on the west side of Marlin. Instead of digging up a lot of the roadway looking for the source of the leak, the device helped them to find the exact point of the leak, minimize damage to the roadway, and repair the leak while allowing traffic to pass by in the other lane.

The ponds with all the weeds are at the Marlin WWTP. Pictures show washout and berm collapse from the spring flood events. Pond systems require grass growth be maintained at mowing level 20 feet from any water’s edge. The headworks, where the sewer from town comes into the plant, is seen where the guy is standing next to a broken auger that is supposed to remove grit and other solid matter. The cables and lines you see extending into the first holding pond are aeration lines to provide oxygen to the microorganisms.

The pics of mechanical and electrical components are from the drinking water treatment plant. They were out of service. This prevented the plant from delivering enough water to the town.