A firsthand account from the Texas floods

Plus: Line Vaaben's visit to a palliative care unit, and Hua Hsu on AI's impact on college writing
Image for A firsthand account from the Texas floods
Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

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Dear Storyboard community, 

I'm going to lead off this week by sharing two of the many stories coming out of the devastating floods in Texas, where 120 people have died and at least 170 are still missing

Aaron Parsley, a senior editor at Texas Monthly, was staying with his extended family at their house on the Guadalupe River when disaster struck. He has just published a harrowing firsthand account of their struggle to survive during the early morning hours of July 4. Parsley had gathered in the kitchen with his husband, father, sister, brother-in-law, and their young children when the rushing water reached their deck, which was 20 feet above ground: 

When the sliding-glass door opened and water poured in, [Parsley's brother-in-law] Lance ran to it, shoved it closed, and held it shut. The pendant lamps began to swing wildly over the kitchen counter. The house was shifting. It lurched sharply, and we all struggled to stay on our feet. It felt like walking down the aisle of a plane during strong turbulence. 

“We’re moving. We’re moving,” [Parsley's husband] Patrick said. The realization was terrifying. The rushing, still-rising water had lifted the house off its pillars. It was afloat. 

And then it wasn’t.

I saw part of the deck rip away. I heard windows break from every corner. Cracks split the walls. We crashed into something, probably a tree. I don’t know how long it took—ten seconds, maybe fifteen—for the house to come apart. 

[Parsley's sister] Alissa managed to keep both kids on the countertop, one hand on each, still trying to reassure them. As the house came undone, she grabbed one in each arm. This is the part that will forever haunt me. If I or anyone else had been closer to them, we would have helped her. We would have grabbed one of the kids. But we didn’t know that we were about to be plunged into the water. We simply didn’t know. 

When it was over, Parsley lost his 20-month-old nephew, Clay. I worked with Aaron many years ago, and I am heartbroken for his family. There is a GoFundMe page for their family and another family. 

Also at Texas Monthly, Mimi Swartz has written about Camp Mystic, the summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died in the flooding. I first remembered reading about the camp in her feature story from 2011; she wrote again this week about what Camp Mystic meant to so many

It’s easy, in reading the news accounts of the horrific drownings of so many young campers in the Hill Country floods, to miss what Camp Mystic has meant to generations of a certain kind of Texas woman, and what the loss of it will mean going forward.

But maybe you had to see the place to really understand what the Stacy family, which has run the camp since 1939 (it was created thirteen years before that) had in mind early on. I’ve often thought that a lot of the Texas landscape is an acquired taste, but the area around Hunt, due west of Kerrville, has always been easy to love. The emerald-green Guadalupe is shaded by tall cypress trees, and the calls of wild birds compete with the rushing of small waterfalls. There are red-tailed hawks and white-tailed deer, wild turkeys and bobcats. No matter your faith, watching the early-morning mist come off the Guadalupe or wading in its cool, clear waters could guarantee some kind of peace and tranquility, at least momentarily.

More stories will be coming, and once again I'm grateful for the journalists and local news outlets who will be there to connect the community, to remember those lost, and to seek answers.

Line Vaaben of Politiken
Line Vaaben of Politiken

This week, Storyboard contributor Emilia Wisniewski speaks with journalist Line Vaaben, a 2025 Nieman Fellow who serves as the "existential editor" for the Danish news outlet Politiken. She crafts narratives about "love, hope, family secrets, fear of war, and why people lie to each other," that are really about what it means to be human. "We go deep and close — to make the abstract very concrete."

When searching for story ideas, Vaaben says the existential desk focuses on six themes — from stages of life, to relationships and life-changing events. "I think it’s more important than ever for journalism to tackle issues that feel urgent and intimately connected to our readers’ lives," Vaaben told Wisniewski. 

For Storyboard, Vaaben breaks down how she reported her 2024 Politiken feature story, in which she and photographer Jacob Ehrbohn spent 10 days at a palliative care unit for terminally ill patients. "I felt like I was bearing witness to an important human experience. I truly felt lucky and honored."

Links of note

  • “I don’t have conversations with students about ‘artisanal’ writing. But I have conversations with them about our relationship. Respect me enough to give me your authentic voice, even if you don’t think it’s that great. It’s O.K. I want to meet you where you’re at.” Hua Hsu's story for The New Yorker on how AI has upended college writing raises many important questions about the future of education, with few clear answers (save for the return of writing longhand in blue books). My own takeaway: It's easier than ever to "produce content," but just as hard as ever to write with our full humanity on the page.  
  • “There’s a new ethics baked into this in terms of how you have these conversations and what asks you’re making of guests. Setting aside how I feel in my comfort being in front of a camera, there are people who I really want to talk to who won’t share that comfort for any number of reasons — for privacy concerns; because they don’t like people looking at them.” In this Nicholas Quah story for Vulture about The New York Times' experiments with social video, Wesley Morris talks about what we gain and lose when we ask our subjects to speak for a podcast — or, now, appear on video. Each format comes with tradeoffs, and it's up to journalists to consider them when deciding the best way to tell a story. 
  • “Being here, even with legal status, is still considered a privilege, not a right. And that privilege can be taken away at any moment — just for doing our jobs.” At Nieman Reports, Maritza L. Félix of Conecta Arizona talks to Haitian Times founder Garry Pierre-Pierre about the work of media outlets that are serving immigrant communities as the Trump administration threatens mass deportations. 

Keep sharing your stories, 

Mark Armstrong
Editor
Nieman Storyboard
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