For years, when west Montgomery County crews needed extra water, cots, blankets or other emergency supplies after a storm, the backup plan was simple but risky: go to Conroe and get it. Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley said that worked when the west side of the county was smaller and easier to navigate. But after…
By Cole Gee Cole joined Community Impact in 2025 as the general assignment reporter for the Tomball/Magnolia and Conroe/Montgomery areas. Before joining CI, Cole worked for many different news organizations, including KWBU News, The Houston Defender, and his alma mater’s student newspaper, The Baylor Lariat. When not reporting on local school board meetings and community…
Updated 12:15 p.m. April 28 The leaders of Camp Mystic said they felt they “acted reasonably” in the early hours of July 4, as rain poured and the Guadalupe River rose. “I believe, based on what we knew then, we acted reasonably,” Britt Eastland, one of the camp’s directors, told lawmakers April 28. “But now…
Updated 4:30 p.m. April 28 After about 1.5 hours of testimony from Nim Kidd, who leads the Texas Division of Emergency Management, the joint committee began hearing testimony from the families of young girls who survived the July 4 flood at Camp Mystic. Julie Sprunt Marshall, an Austin surgeon, urged lawmakers to take action to…
Updated 7:30 p.m. April 28 CiCi and Will Steward’s 8-year-old daughter, Cecilia “Cile” Steward, has been unaccounted for since July 4, 2025. In her first year at Camp Mystic, Cile was a camper in Twins, a pair of cabins that housed some of the camp’s youngest visitors. “Tomorrow will mark 10 months since I hugged…
Updated 11:15 p.m. April 28 About 11 hours into the marathon hearing, legislators began asking questions of officials with the Department of State Health Services, which is tasked with evaluating and licensing all Texas youth camps. Investigators said a day earlier that Camp Mystic did not have a written, posted disaster evacuation plan at the…
In a one-year snapshot of changing attitudes in Greater Houston, residents expressed the largest drop in confidence about regional job opportunities in more than four decades, according to survey results released April 27 from the Kinder Institute for Urban Research. Increased financial pressure, coupled with concern about extreme weather and pollutants, indicates residents across the…
Conroe City Council hit pause April 23 on a proposed stormwater utility fee that would have added a new monthly drainage charge to utility bills, opting instead to defer the item. This comes after council members raised concerns about exemptions, financial projections and how the policy would work for commercial properties. What happened Council opened…
In the early hours of July 4, 2025, an intense rainstorm pummeled communities in the Texas Hill Country, submerging low-water crossings as segments of the Guadalupe River rose more than 30 feet in 90 minutes. Twenty-seven young campers and counselors died at Camp Mystic, a private Christian girls summer camp located along the river in…
The Houston-Pasadena region rose one spot and is now ranked No. 6 out of 226 metropolitan areas for its number of high ozone days, according to the 2026 State of the Air report released by the American Lung Association on April 21. The region was ranked No. 7 in 2025, Community Impact previously reported. Between…