The week of our nation’s birth, severe flooding swept through Central Texas, devastating multiple communities and leaving countless people dead and many more still missing. While the full scale of destruction is still being assessed, the recovery effort has brought debates regarding disaster response.
Uneven Distribution of Aid and Visibility
Kerrville, one of the better-known and wealthier towns in the flood zone, quickly became the focal point of media coverage and donation drives. Kerrville received over $30 million in private aid, in-kind donations, and grants within the first week. Meanwhile, smaller towns in the same region struggled to fund basic recovery operations. Volunteers in rural areas report purchasing gas, equipment, and food out-of-pocket to maintain emergency response efforts.
This uneven aid distribution is unfortunately part of a larger pattern of classicism that is at the heart of this country. Specific examples I want to point out include the fact that visibility plays an outsized role in determining which communities receive support. It’s important to also note that too often wealthier regions with stronger media connections and economic infrastructure tend to draw more donor attention, even when neighboring communities experience comparable levels of devastation. This leads to poor communities lacking resources to even recover in the same way as their wealthier counterparts.
Mutual Aid Networks Fill the Gap
It’s in the this absence of “official” aid, where mutual aid groups mobilize rapidly. This exact scenario was seen in Texas just a few weeks ago. Organizations and volunteers from across Texas, including street medics, veterans, firefighters, and community organizers, responded to calls for help in under-resourced areas. Many of these volunteers were already active in local organizing work and redirected their efforts toward disaster relief.
The Central Texas Flood Support network, which formed in the immediate aftermath of the flooding, has coordinated a decentralized response operation. CTX Flood Support Network is a great example of mutual aid organized through community rather than an official agency. Volunteers organized under one banner to assist with search and recovery efforts, distribute supplies, and provide medical assistance. All of this has been often in coordination with residents who were directly affected by the storm.
This idea of Community-led response is not a new concept. One of the most notable examples in modern American history comes from the Black Panther Party. They were able to develop a network of programs in the late 1960s and 1970s to meet urgent needs in underserved Black communities. The Panthers ran over 60 programs across the country. These included programs such as free breakfast for children, mobile health clinics, transportation for the elderly, and community schools. Their efforts were rooted in the belief that the government was failing to meet the basic needs of poor and working-class people, particularly Black Americans, and that communities had the power to care for their own in the face of neglect.The Panthers viewed these programs not as charity, but as necessity. Mutual aid, in this framework, was both a survival tactic and a demand for structural change.
What their work made clear was that state neglect is structural, and often class-based. The government did not fail Black communities only because of race; it failed them because they were poor and politically disenfranchised. The Panthers responded not just with critique, but with tangible support, understanding that addressing racial inequity required acknowledging the class systems that reinforced it. We saw this more recently with the wildfires that hit California.
In Los Angeles County, racial disparities were clear during the 2020 wildfires. Low-income and BIPOC communities often live in morie fire-prone zones, face longer response times, and have fewer options for evacuation or temporary shelter. In wealthier regions, such as Napa and Sonoma Counties, evacuation orders were typically more efficient, resources more plentiful, and recovery faster. Private firefighting crews protected multimillion-dollar homes while public crews were stretched thin. Some insurance companies even dispatched their own fire teams to defend the homes of high-value clients, leaving poorer communities dependent on overextended state or federal responders.
In the current disaster unfolding across Central Texas, many community organizers and volunteers, whether knowingly or unknowingly, are drawing from this same lineage. Without consistent state or federal support, mutual aid networks have again stepped in to provide medical care, distribute supplies, and even organize search and recovery efforts. These responses have made one thing clear: just as with any natural disaster, class and race often determine whose loss becomes a headline, whose grief receives assistance, and whose rebuilding is prioritized.
This same lens applies today when looking at the Texas response effort. One moment that drew attention involved an impromptu press conference featuring a local woman identified with conservative politics. Some critics questioned the choice to amplify her voice, citing political disagreements. Such responses largely ignore the urgency of her community’s needs and distract from the larger issue of unequal resource distribution. This dynamic mirrors historical patterns in disaster and crisis response. Across American history, class has often dictated which communities receive timely aid and which are left to fend for themselves. The Black Panther Party’s survival programs offer a stark example. The Panthers launched their network of mutual aid precisely because low-income Black communities were systematically excluded from state services.
When a working-class white woman’s desperation is dismissed because of her political identity, the response risks reinforcing the very logic that historically excluded poor Black and Brown communities: the belief that help must be earned through alignment, polish, or perceived moral worth. In reality, both her experience and the neglect of marginalized communities during this flood stem from the same structural issue
Dan Weber, a volunteer and former Hays County Sheriff’s deputy, spoke to the broader implications: “These are people. Every single one of them is missing, dead, or traumatized by what’s happened in this community. Every single one of them is a tragedy.”
It’s time for a broader approach to empathy. Disaster relief should not be subject to political litmus tests or perceptions of moral worth. I point to the diversity of those impacted in surrounding communities, many of which include undocumented residents, people with disabilities, children, and working-class families across the political spectrum. If anything this needs to serve as evidence of the need for universal compassion and support.
Moving Forward
As recovery continues, mutual aid groups are urging greater visibility, donations, and logistical support. Policy advocates are demanding changes to FEMA’s funding authorization process and investment in early-warning systems for flood-prone counties. Others are asking for greater attention to be paid to the way class and race shape disaster outcomes.
The Central Texas Flood Support team continues to organize volunteers and distribute supplies through their Instagram page and LinkTree hub. Their toolkit for donors, media, and volunteers emphasizes the importance of inclusive support for all affected individuals.
These deaths were an avoidable disaster, unfortunately, they are the result of delayed aid and systemic neglect. In the coming weeks, how these challenges are addressed may shape not only the recovery in Central Texas but the national conversation about who gets help, how fast it comes, and who is left behind.
Disasters do not discriminate, but, much to our chagrin, the systems that respond to them often do. What we’ve witnessed in Central Texas is not just the fault of natural forces. We are now clearly seeing where access to help, visibility, and recovery is shaped by class, race, and political power.
Yet amid the yellow tape, something else became visible: the strength of people who chose to show up for one another anyway. Volunteers who crossed party lines, organizers who centered the most vulnerable, and neighbors who acted not because they’re told to but because it was the right thing to do.
The truth is, there is no such thing as a perfect victim. Survivors are undocumented, working-class, queer, disabled, MAGA-aligned, liberal, conservative, apolitical. Some have resources, many do not. All of them are human. All of them are grieving. All of them deserve to be seen, supported, and given the tools to rebuild.
When we allow politics or prejudice to define who is “worthy” of help, we not only fail them, we inadvertently weaken our collective capacity to respond at all. Mutual aid reminds us of something deeper: support grounded in dignity, not judgment, builds stronger communities and saves more lives.
For Donations, Volunteer Opportunities, or Media Resources:
• Trauma-Informed Reporting Guide
