Lower than a yr in the past, the Guadalupe River swallowed every part in its path. Homes. Roadways. Lives. For a lot of Texans, time now splits cleanly right into a earlier than and an after, and for Aaron Parsley, senior editor at Texas Month-to-month, that divide is deeply, irreversibly private. After profitable a 2026 Pulitzer Prize for his firsthand account of the flood, he is increasing the narrative in The place the River Took Us, a seven-episode restricted narrative podcast out now.
On July 4, Parsley’s household was spending the vacation weekend collectively at their river home on the Guadalupe: Aaron and his husband Patrick; Aaron’s father, Clint, and sister, Alissa; and Alissa’s husband, Lance, and their two youngsters, Clay and Rosemary. Within the early, nonetheless darkish hours of the morning, flood waters tore by the Texas Hill Nation in what rapidly grew to become one of many deadliest pure disasters in current historical past.
Aaron escaped. Patrick escaped. Lance escaped. Clint escaped. Alissa escaped, saving her daughter’s life. However Alissa’s 20-month-old son, Clay, didn’t.
Telling the storyIn the times that adopted, Parsley did what writers do: he wrote. Feverishly, at 1, or 3, or 4 within the morning, he wrote. His first-person account of the flood, which began out as an e mail to his boss, was the duvet story for Texas Month-to-month final August. The story grew to become an on the spot landmark piece — intimate and devastating in a manner solely somebody who had lived it might make it. At first of Might, 2026, the story gained Parsley his Pulitzer for function writing.
Following up on the unique story, Parsley has additionally written a brand new function for Texas Month-to-month, a quiet reflection on life for his household because the flood, grief’s persistence, and the unusual, ongoing work of being modified by one thing.
In dialog with CultureMap, Parsley — talking from his dwelling workplace in Lockhart, the place he and Patrick moved in December — was candid in regards to the choice to maintain his work centered on one thing so private and traumatic.
“I’ll say that this expertise itself, after which the story, and the response that I bought to the story, was so overwhelming in all completely different sorts of how,” Parsley says. “It might have been on my thoughts it doesn’t matter what. I used to be pondering and asking questions and exploring what this expertise means. So, to have the ability to make that a part of my job, I feel, is an actual privilege and an actual alternative.”
The podcast options voices past Parsley’s personal. Listeners will hear from his sister, Alissa. From a father who misplaced his daughter at Camp Mystic. From the individuals who took Aaron and Patrick in after they crawled out of the river that morning. From neighbors who’re nonetheless on the market, nonetheless rebuilding.
Sitting all the way down to formally interview his circle of relatives, together with his husband and Alissa, was one thing else fully.
“It was extraordinarily unusual,” he says. “It was emotional. It made me really feel actually happy with them. Each single particular person confirmed up in the easiest way attainable for one thing like this… And finally, these conversations are unforgettable to me, and I actually respect that I used to be ready to do this. I assume it form of supplied this second for us to take a while, and sit face-to-face, and ask one another questions, and discover our expertise and our lives since.”
Being within the podcast studio helped, he says. “It is darkish, it is quiet, we’re proper in entrance of one another. It is peaceable in there. It’s an intimate setting, and I feel it serves the aim that we had been searching for, which is to open up and share.”
Transferring forwardWhat Parsley is describing feels past journalism, although it’s, in fact, that too. It is a reckoning together with his personal private grief, his religion, his relationship with these he loves, and his priorities in life.
“I used to be going to be this expertise it doesn’t matter what,” he says. “It felt proper to have the ability to try this exploration about what it means to be a survivor of one thing like this.”
The flood has reshaped practically every part in his life. The transfer out to a smaller, quieter, and fewer hectic group than Austin occurred quicker than it may need in any other case. Patrick, a proficient painter, is now pursuing his artwork full-time. Parsley describes a brand new relationship with spirituality, a modified household dynamic, and a readability about priorities that comes from concurrently shedding a lot, however not every part.
“It has been life-changing,” says Parsley. “I’ve embraced that. I’ve needed to delay the expertise of being modified by one thing. Persevering with to jot down about it, and find out about it, and share about it has been a manner that I can be sure that this factor that occurred continues to form my life.”
Parsley additionally provides that the podcast is an immersive expertise. Listeners do not simply see the occasion that modified lives; they get entry to the emotions and the sudden particulars that come later.
“It is a depiction of what it feels prefer to survive one thing, and all this stuff that include that,” says Parsley. ‘You do not simply get again to regular life. There’s all these things you carry with you, and I am grateful to have the chance to discover that and current what we discover in a manner that I feel is heartfelt and finally lovely.”
The place the River Took Us is written and hosted by Aaron Parsley and government produced by Melissa Reese. Further manufacturing and modifying are by Patrick Michels and Sara Kinney. It’s produced, engineered, and scored by Brian Standefer, with story modifying by J. Ok. Nickell, fact-checking by Doyin Oyeniyi, and art work by Emily Kimbro and Victoria Millner. Studio musicians are Jeff Queen and Peter Shults.
The podcast launched Might 26 with the primary two episodes instantly accessible on Apple Podcasts and different main podcasting platforms. All seven episodes will drop by June 30.
