“They Will Laugh Again. And That River Will Be Redeemed.”

David Carpenter knows every piece of the Guadalupe River; his family’s roots in the Hill Country town of Ingram predate Texas. He grew up learning the currents, finding the holes for catfish, jumping from rope swings with his friends and, later, his children. But his time at the river is different now.Since July 4, Carpenter has greeted each dawn by reading his daily devotional and praying. Then he makes the twelve-mile drive and approaches the banks of the river alone. With a four-foot saw in hand, the sawmill owner hacks his way through dense cypress trees and hundred-foot tall debris piles in the most dangerous areas of flood destruction. He spent the first days on the river shouting into heaps of brush, tears falling freely,…

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