NBC News National Correspondent Morgan Chesky covered the horrific flooding in Kerr County, Texas, with a heart-wrenching intimacy that no other reporter could. Born and raised in Kerrville, Morgan’s journey to chronicle the tragedy, demand accountability and stand with his community in its darkest moment formed the backbone of this riveting report.
On the morning of July 4 in Kerr County, Texas, historic flash floods killed more than 100 people, including dozens of young campers at an all-girls summer camp. A deep-rooted community was torn from its bedrock. Entire homes were washed downriver. Cars hung in trees. Human survivors and bodies alike were strewn for miles, buried in debris.
NBC News National Correspondent Morgan Chesky was born two blocks from the Guadalupe River, which ripped through his hometown in a once-in-a-lifetime tragedy. NBC News’ digital docs team and the investigative unit collaborated with Morgan as he returned home to chronicle the catastrophe, share the stories of resilient residents and demand accountability so this never happens again.
As a child, Morgan’s dad would take him to the overflowing Guadalupe every time flash floods inevitably struck. The river was a jewel of the Hill Country, but Morgan knew that when it erupted things could get incredibly bad, and fast. When Morgan arrived on scene he discovered his mother’s mobile home on the banks of the Guadalupe had been inundated. He found himself sitting on its front porch as sweat-soaked rescue workers scraped methodically through an endless expanse of debris, preparing for a TV interview with the mother of 3 young Camp Mystic survivors.
Morgan was emotionally and physically exhausted from his community’s suffering but was steadfastly determined to document their collective pain and ask questions of key officials. He filed a dozen stories each day for TODAY, NBC News NOW and NBC News’ “Here’s the Scoop” podcast. Between live broadcasts, he fielded calls from childhood friends looking for reliable information about the safety or whereabouts of loved ones. It was a 24/7 job with fast-moving developments, from the search for survivors to the climbing death count. Questions emerged about local flood warning systems. The public began to ask why so many vulnerable campers were sleeping in cabins so dangerously close to a river prone to flooding, and why they hadn’t been evacuated sooner. They deserved answers.
July’s Hill Country floods now stand among the deadliest in U.S. history. Morgan had to strike a balance between reporting the story and living it. His heart-wrenching reporting journey, and encounter with the people and place that made him, culminated in the NBC News digital doc “This Hit Home: Reporting on the Texas Hill Country Floods.”
In the wake of a mass public tragedy, journalists and documentarians often strive to dig deep beneath the headlines, to grasp its intimate human impact. “This Hit Home” embodies that very pursuit; it is a living document of an entire community’s collective loss and the media’s struggle to honor both the story and its subjects.
NBC News’ impact was clear in the response we received from the community on the ground. As we filmed, residents constantly approached Morgan to say they felt seen, understood and reflected in his coverage. These behind-the-scenes encounters are the type of moments journalists always wish we could capture but rarely can. This time, it was exactly the story we told.
“My biggest prayer for the people that have lost somebody,” Kerrville resident Mariah Irvin told Morgan at a candlelight vigil, “is that they know...that they're not walking it alone.”
“This Hit Home” is our attempt to honor those impacted by this tragedy—including our own Morgan Chesky—by allowing the truth and force of their story to guide our own.
