When the Waters Rise: Collective Grief in the Wake of the Texas Floods

Alexandra Pflaumer

July 13th, 2025

When the Waters Rise: Collective Grief in the Wake of the Texas Floods

The world heard how the sudden, relentless rainfall caused enormous surges on the Guadalupe River this month, swallowing homes and summer camps overnight.   With over 120 lives lost and 170 still missing, communities along the river are left heartbroken amidst cleanup and relief efforts.  The cherished summer camp, Camp Mystic, tragically lost counselors, girls, and the owner to the flood.   The articles and images that followed – scattered belongings, mud-soaked stuffies… have swelled the hearts far beyond the area as the world watches in shock and sadness.

For many, this grief isn’t just a private collapse, t’s a communal rupture.  This communal, emotional experience is collective grief.

The Fog of Shared Loss

Collective grief emerges when an entire community’s sense of normal dissolves and a dense fog of sorrow sets in.  That fog rolls in as neighbors try to understand the devastation, might even question their spirituality, and experience the shared pain in the magnitude of the loss together.  It shows up in candlelight vigils, memorial quilts, conversations in passing and at work, and the quiet hush in church pews.

This is familiar terrain: I wrote about it after Hurricane Helene - how public grief feels disorienting, like waking up to a world that’s moved on too quickly while our hearts remain stalled in tragedy. 

There’s no ‘rules’ to what ‘community’ means in collective grief.   In Texas, the immediate community is still mourning and will continue to do so for some time.   Even families untouched by physical loss feel the weight, bound by empathy to those who cannot move on.   As others outside of Texas read and watch new stories about the devastation, that community also expands to individuals beyond the geographical area.   

A Tapestry of Grief: One Pattern, Many Threads

In a flood’s aftermath, grief is as communal as rain, but how each person processes it varies.  At Camp Mystic, families gathered on riverbanks, searching the mud for a daughter’s shoe or a token of a life unfulfilled.  Others retreated into silence, overwhelmed by disbelief or exhaustion, feeling frozen.  Some channeled pain into action as they organized relief drives, created Facebook groups to reunite lost items, or helping with the Lost Stuffy Project, giving beloved stuffed animals to children in need of comfort.   Others are angry as they feel these deaths could have been prevented, demanding for flood sirens along the Guadalupe River.

That divergence isn’t fragmented.   This is the individual soul work within a shared suffering.   One parent might break in public, another might numb out their sorrow until it hits like a wave later, a sibling might be holed up in their room, and another family member might be out volunteering.  All responses are valid.  All are grief.

Collective Mourning as a Lifeline

When grief is witnessed, whether by neighbors, volunteers, or friends, it becomes grounding.  It tells us we are not alone in our collapse.. and that it’s ok to collapse.  It reminds us that to feel this much is not a flaw, but a form of love.   An NPR tribute that honors each flood victim by name has offered that national-scale witnessing.   I can imagine that the family members of each person lost appreciates this moment where their loved one isn’t a number, isn’t ‘one of the victims’, but a person..a child.. with a whole personality and dreams that deserve to be remembered.

That kind of witnessing is a form of medicine.  Without it, grief turns in on itself, quiet, corrosive, and often misread as weakness or anger.   With it, we are able to emotionally process, which sets us on a path of healing- eventually figuring out how to live while carrying and honoring our loss.

We’ve seen this need for shared mourning play out globally in ways that transcend geography or cause.  After the Hamas terror attacks in Israel last fall, Israeli communities were left to grieve not only lost lives but the psychological rupture of safety.  And in Gaza, mourning continues under the weight of unimaginable conditions—prolonged bombardment, displacement, and collective trauma that has no clear end and has forever changed their landscape and livelihood.

Grief doesn’t wait for consensus.  It doesn’t require agreement.  It only asks to be honored.  Even in spaces of deep division, grief can become a rare thread of shared humanity—a glimpse of connection in places torn apart.

Healing in Community

Grief doesn’t end, but it can evolve.  In past disasters, I’ve seen rituals help untangle what feels impossible to hold.  Support and healing can take many forms:

• Holding space together: Vigils, memory quilts, shared silence.   Remember that grief affects our energy, moods and emotions, and this can change day-to-day.

• Honoring individual threads: Scholarships in victims’ names, written tributes, symbolic markers.

• Turning pain into pressure: Demands for early warning systems and policy reform are already emerging.

• Making room for difference: Some will act, some will retreat.  All of it belongs.

• Withold judgement: There is no one right way to grieve.   For those driven to action, you may feel frustrated by those who are frozen.   Try to remember that your journey through grief is uniquely yours as theirs is uniquely theirs. 

• Avoid insensitive remarks: In an effort to show support or brighten someone’s mood, people often say things that come off as insensitive or dismissive.   Imagine telling a parent who lost a child at Camp Mystic, “God must have needed them sooner, “ or, “there’s a reason for everything.”  These comments often do not land and send a message that the person’s grief isn’t acceptable.   To learn more about what NOT to say, I recommend watching this short video from David Kessler. 

Parting Thoughts

The collective mourning that communities experience is detrimental to our humanity.   These moments of devastation are critical times for people to recognize that we are more alike than we are different.   The lives we try to build together can be upturned overnight and it’s the witnessing and embrace we can show each other that helps us stitch ourselves and our communities back together. 

Are you a leader and unsure how to support co-workers or direct reports in individual or collective grief?  Reference my other article on collective grief for recommendations or Email us at info@wholepersonconsulting.com.