KERRVILLE — A crowd gathered at Antler Stadium on Wednesday night, but they were not there to see the Tivy Antler football team run drills or host rival teams.

Instead, the parents, teachers, students and others who filled the bleachers solemnly looked ahead at the Kerrville Independent School District’s football field. They grappled with a grief caused by a devastating flood that swept away people young and old in the early hours of July Fourth.

As hundreds trickled in for a vigil for the flood’s victims that night, people hugged. Some smiled when they spotted a friend, striking up a conversation. Many cried for the Texas Hill Country, which was struck last Friday by the state’s second-deadliest flood. Among the victims lost to the deadly currents of the Guadalupe River was Reese Zunker, who had coached soccer for 12 years at Tivy High School, home to about 4,700 students.

“Our community was struck with tragedy literally in the darkness,” one speaker said. “But as the sun rose, the light came.”

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the deeply religious Kerr County community turned to gospel Wednesday night. Residents channeled their grief through prayer for the more than 100 lives lost and 161 victims from the region who remain missing.

Questions remain about whether residents were given enough time to evacuate the areas that flooded, including Camp Mystic, the all-girls summer camp and a beloved tradition at the epicenter of the catastrophe. Twenty-seven girls, the camp confirmed, died, as did its director, Richard “Dick” Eastland.

This act of remembrance, residents said, was their way of coming to terms with the senseless destruction the flood left behind.

“I think it’s a way of moving on,” said Leah Westra, a coalition coordinator for the Hill Country Council of Alcohol and Drug Abuse and mother of three, two of whom attend Tivy. “We move on, not because we forget our grief or forget the tragedy, but because we have to. We get to move on and rebuild.”

Pete Calderón, who sits on the school district’s board of trustees, said he tells his students about what God promises — and what he doesn’t — to quell their grief.

“(God) doesn’t promise that we’re not going to have injury or death or sickness,” he said. “What he does promise is that he’s going to be there for us … and you’ve got to lean on that.”

Scenes of the community’s faith presented themselves repeatedly Wednesday evening. Turning bleachers into pews, mourners sang in worship, with one verse saying: “It’s your breath in our lungs.”

A high schooler had his arm outstretched, his palms up.

Two friends embraced each other, their arms interlocked across different rows of the stadium. Another woman held her toddler tighter. Her son is so young that he can’t quite grasp the magnitude of the death.

“Peace, peace,” one man whispered to himself.

One girl adjusted her red glasses to wipe away her tears. Every time she did, her cheeks just got damp again.

Many wore blue, the high school’s colors, while others pinned green ribbons to their shirts, the color for Camp Mystic.

For over an hour, through song and Bible verses, Dan Beazley, who stands at about 5’7” tall, held up a wooden cross nearly twice his size. Abigail Smithson, a student at the high school, joined him.

Beazley had driven 24 hours from Michigan with the cross in the bed of his truck. Earlier in the week, he had held the cross up at the site of Camp Mystic while first responders dug through debris looking for survivors.

He brought the cross “to make a little bit of difference, to help them grieve, to bring a little bit of hope,” said Beazley, who added he can’t stop thinking about what victims went through before they passed away.

The night ended with footballs and frisbees tossed around, an effort for the community to find some joy. Lively music, laughter and conversation filled the stadium.

“We set an hour to play. There is healing in play and laughter,” said Josh Smithson, the father of Abigail Smithson and a minister with YoungLife. “They were able to let go of some of the heaviness.”

This article originally appeared in is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Now? Rising average temperatures and extreme heat waves, ferocious storms, droughts, floods and increasingly prolonged smoke seasons that bring respiratory issues and airborne diseases mean the gift of outdoor play can no longer be taken for granted. 

To get a picture of how these extreme weather events are affecting parents of young children, researchers from the asked California parents with children under 6 about their family’s economic resources, their stress levels, and other aspects of well-being, including their experiences with extreme weather. The project, based in the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, summarized the responses in its , which complements a national RAPID on parents’ and child care providers’ experiences with extreme weather. 

Together, the two reports paint a clear portrait of families profoundly affected physically, emotionally and financially by increasingly concerning weather. Rising temperatures and extreme weather events are disrupting access to clean water, food and safe living conditions, affecting children’s health and development and putting stress on parents and providers alike, the surveys report. 

“This is not tomorrow’s issue,” says Joan Lombardi, who chairs RAPID’s National Advisory Council. “This is today’s. I work both domestically and internationally, and these results are for children around the world. They’ve experienced flooding. It’s hot. They live in cities with poor air quality; urbanization is increasing around the world.” 

One of the most striking findings from the national survey is that more than three in five parents had experienced at least one extreme weather event in the past two years. An even higher percentage of parents surveyed (69%) say they worry about the possibility of extreme weather events and how they might affect their children. More than half of child care providers reported experiencing at least one extreme weather event. 

The net effect is that three-quarters of parents and more than half of child care providers say they now spend less time outdoors with children due to extreme temperatures and weather. A significant percentage of parents (84%) say extreme weather negatively affects their physical health and well-being, and more than half report that their children’s physical health or emotional well-being is negatively affected.   

In both the California and the national survey, abnormally warm weather was the top concern of parents and providers alike. They have reason to worry. According to , children are more vulnerable to the effects of heat stress. They perspire less than adults and have a higher metabolism, so they overheat more quickly. They spend more time outdoors for play and other activities, which puts them at greater risk for heat exposure. Children are less likely to take a break and rehydrate, which can be dangerous and even fatal in excessive heat. 

Heat hits some children harder than others: Children who have asthma, which disproportionately affects , or who are overweight are especially sensitive to heat. According to , a map of tree cover in the U.S. is often a map of income and race; low-income populations are more at risk because they have less access to shade and to climate-controlled housing. 

In some of the largest U.S. cities, temperatures in the urban core can climb to a scorching 20 or more degrees higher than neighborhoods with trees and green spaces. found as much as a 10-degree difference between the shaded and unshaded parts of playgrounds. On a 90-degree day, that’s the difference between “extreme caution” and “danger” levels for risks of heat illness, according to the . 

In addition to the health effects and safety worries, extreme weather stresses parents and providers financially. More time indoors — at home or in care — means higher utility bills for already-struggling individuals to try to mitigate the heat or cold, or filter air polluted by smoke or airborne particulates. 

“We find again and again that the rates of hardship among families and the early education workforce are higher than most people are aware of,” says RAPID founder Philip Fisher, faculty director of the Stanford Center on Early Education. “In our recent surveys, we found that 40% of families around the country are having difficulty in any month paying for basic needs like food and housing. Upwards of 70% of people who are providing care for other people’s children are struggling to make ends meet each month.”

Lombardi says providers need resources to mitigate challenges that go beyond increased utility costs. Some need to renovate their facilities to allow for increased indoor play time, to add air conditioning, heat pumps or air filters, or to increase shade in their outdoor areas. Some are dealing with damage to their facilities from weather events, but are challenged to find money for repairs. 

“The child care workforce is already stretched beyond the limit,” Lombardi says. “They’re not able to take care of their own family needs and when you add these increasing utility and facility costs, it’s an untenable situation. 

“There’s a lot of interest in the early childhood field in dealing with the issue, but no resources to do it — and what was available is shrinking.” 

The first step in addressing these issues is to face them, the researchers say. The RAPID survey results make it clear that the effects of climate change and a warming planet aren’t just an issue for future generations: It’s here, it’s now and it’s not going away. Frederica Perera, author of “,” writes that children born after 2020 will experience up to seven times more extreme heatwaves in their lifetimes on average than people born in 1960. 

The focused action needed from national, state and local entities to address the changing climate may seem out of reach for parents and providers trying to do the best for their children in the here and now, but these caregivers do have an important role in helping young children cope. Their most important contribution, Lombardi says, is nurturing care, which, according to the , comprises: good health, adequate nutrition, responsive caregiving, security and safety, and opportunities for early learning. 

Additionally, families, providers and communities must prepare ahead for emergencies, which are becoming unfortunately commonplace.

“Decades of high-quality research shows that the thing that can help children most … is their buffering and nurturing relationships with adults,” Fisher says. “When we think about climate, we need to be thinking about not just the well-being of children but the well-being of the adults around them. If the adults are OK, they’re going to be in a better position when we have these kinds of [extreme weather] events.”