Our Sincerest Apologies.
A post was made yesterday that we deeply regret and many found to be very insensitive. I can assure you that the person who made the post had the best of intentions, but it all came out completely wrong. They were not trying to offend anyone or make light of the terrible floods which occurred here in Texas.
Of course, our hearts and prayers with all those affected by this utterly tragic event. It is all so terribly heartbreaking. We can’t imagine the pain and loss people are going through now. We truly apologize for this post, it was insensitive given the timing and the last thing we want to do right now is cause any more pain for anyone. It will not happen again. We are not a perfect company, mistakes will be made, all we can do is apologize, correct them to the best of our ability and move forward.
Please know, we have done everything in our power to help those affected, we have put together a donation drive, staff members plan to help on the ground next week in clean-up efforts (this week we have been rebuilding our own property devastated by the Guadalupe flood), we have offered cabins for those affected to sleep in, the owner even offered his own personal house for people to stay at as well as donating his time and money. Believe me, we care deeply, as we know firsthand how devastating floods are as we unfortunately have to deal with them at least yearly having multiple properties on different bodies of water here in Texas.
Please understand we have all been under a tremendous amount of stress and sleep deprivation for a good while now. Thousands of people visit our properties each weekend and 99% of the people who already made reservations still came 4th of July Weekend and continue to do so even now. We have been dealing with floods for over 3 weeks now, the first when Schertz got 9.5” of rain and Cibolo Creek rose 16’ in a short amount of time. When a flood occurs, it is extremely hard on us, I know this is nothing in comparison to losing a loved one, but I do want you to understand the pressure our company and staff has ben under now for many weeks in a row. Again, this is not an excuse, just a little background so you can understand where the post was coming from. In their hearts they simply want to move forward and begin to heal as we have all been very close to our breaking point lately.
When it rains, we don’t sleep. We have too many people that we have to evacuate and too much stuff to move should it flood. Instead, of getting rest (typically much needed after a hard days work running campgrounds in 100 degree weather), we stay up and watch the radar intensely. When a flood does happen, which more often than not is in the middle of the night, our staff is notified, we meet on property, we assess if we need to wake up and notify the guests to move and then we begin the back breaking work of moving everything up. It’s typically pouring down rain, muddy and cold. We have to move as fast as we can for each minute that goes by more stuff will be washed away and it’s extremely hard to replace quickly and can add up very quickly in a short amount of time. The process usually takes many hours. The first flood, several weeks ago it took us from 4:00 AM in the morning until 12:00 noon or straight 8 hours of back breaking work. Those who can typically go home afterwards, do so and sleep as they are utterly exhausted but many have to continue to work their normal shift for that day.
The next day, we just as quickly have to put everything back, though it typically takes us twice as long as there always huge amounts of mud, debris, logs etc. to clean up. The flood 3 weeks ago it took us 1.5 days with about 25 staff members working as hard as humanly possible. The flood this week, is taking us a full week to recover and clean up from. We also had to move everything up at multiple properties, multiple times. Thank God we didn’t get hit at every location but it’s still about the same amount of work moving everything up and back down again even when we just have the threat of rain.
Back breaking work for several weeks in a row is extremely hard, especially since, at the same time we have been short-handed as many of our own staff were flooded at their personal homes. On top of it all, it seems like we are getting attacked from every direction simply because we have a business on the water. If we post something letting our guests, who have reservations, know we are still open and it’s ok to come we get attacked by people who say we are trying to profit from the terrible situation. If we don’t post anything, our guests are angry and upset that we have not been very communicative. It has not been a good situation, again I know this is nothing compared to losing a loved one but it extremely hard none the less.
The sentiment the person yesterday was trying to communicate and did a very poor job at, was that they were ready to move on as it has just all been too much to handle, they are ready for healing and things getting back to normal as they have been dealing with all of this for several weeks now in a row. The timing wasn’t the best and came across as being very unsensitive as most people have only been dealing with the floods for 5 days now.
We love Texas, we love our community and we love our staff and guests. We have supported this area countless times in so many ways and continue to do so now. Please don’t let one mistake, by one person, paint this picture that we are a heartless company because we are far from it. We are really trying to do our best in every way, each day and will continue to do so, but we are truly sorry this time we fell well short.
I hope you can accept our apology as no one meant any harm, we are all just ready to heal because for everyone here it’s simply been too many demanding and stressful weeks in a row.
We offer everyone our most sincere prayers of healing in the devastatingly, hard times.
