"July 4-5, 2025 Flood Coverage"
Recipient of the STAR BREAKING NEWS REPORT award in The Charles E. Green Awards (2025)
Staff reporters
The Dallas Morning News
Judge’s Comments:
In the early morning of July 4, 2025, just before 7 a.m., the publisher and editor of The Kerr County Lead, an independent news outlet, woke to a text warning of a deadly flash flood. It urged those who lived near the Guadalupe River in Texas to evacuate immediately.
Louis Amestoy galvanized into action: he dropped The Kerr County Lead’s paywall allowing free access to information on www.kerrcountylead.com and a few minutes after the alert he was streaming live and posting details.
For the next 18 hours, Amestoy and Jennifer Dean, photographer at The Kerr County Lead, teamed up to compile the who, what, where, when, why and how of the disaster as it unfolded in real time. They provided “minute-by-minute emergency updates: evacuation orders, road closures, reunification center locations, missing persons information, casualty count updates.”
They reported live from several sites on a disaster that eventually encompassed nine counties. The confirmed deaths started at six, climbed to 13 and kept going to more than 100, including dozens of children. The nuggets of news, photos and video crafted by The Kerr County Lead were urgent. This was straight forward, impactful, no frills journalism. Amestoy and Dean were aware of their audience and who needed the information they collected the moat: their neighbors and friends. They never lost sight of that. Their “newsroom” became a place for residents to learn about resources and share their stories.
Under tremendous pressure and with limited resources, The Kerr County Lead’s commitment to produce useful, quick and compelling news on a developing story demonstrates the value of community news.
Not every news outlet gets the chance to prove themselves valuable to their community. The Kerr County Lead stepped up to meet the challenge. As Amestoy noted: “This is what breaking news coverage looks like when you’re not covering a disaster — you’re living through it…’’
For these reasons, the content produced by the staff of The Kerr County Lead of the July 2025 historic Texas flooding disaster earns recognition as the Star Breaking News Report of the Year.
Marilyn Garateix
Judge’s Bio:
Marilyn Garateix is a freelance journalist based in Tampa, Fl. Her journalism career has included reporting and editing stints at the Miami Herald, the Boston Globe and the Tampa Bay Times. She has covered a number of major breaking news stories over the years including 911 and helped launch education teams at the Globe and the Times. She freelanced for aldianews.com, a Philadelphia-based bilingual publication covering community and local news. She is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and served on the national board as Vice President of Print and Financial Officer. She has a Bachelor’s of Science in Journalism from the University of Miami and an MBA as well from UM.
To watch the award-winning coverage from The Kerr County Lead, click the links below:
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