SAN ANTONIO – A year’s time has done little to quiet the sounds and images in Angel Richards’ mind from the day which she says changed her life forever.
It was June 12, 2025, when Richards learned that her husband of 15 years had died in floodwaters on the city’s Northeast Side.
Stevie Richards, 42, was among 11 people whose cars were swept up by a sudden wall of water near Loop 410 and Perrin Beitel.
Most ended up in Beitel Creek nearby.
“It’s very challenging for me because it still seems like just yesterday it happened,” Richards said. “But with my faith and my belief, I just hold onto that to try to make it through the day.”
Memories of the day she lost her husband play on repeat in her mind.
Richards said the morning began with a phone call from her husband, initially saying he had a change of heart about going to work and was heading home.
While she was on the phone with him, she said Stevie suddenly described being caught up in flooding.
She could hear the situation grow more and more dire over the phone, eventually ending with the call disconnecting.
“My husband was my life. Literally. And with him being gone, things are just different, totally different. It’s never going to the be the same,” she said.
What began with grief eventually led to anger for Richards.
A native of Houston, she said flooded roads were nothing new to her or her husband.
The type of deluge that ended his life, though, was something she said she had never seen.
“I feel like nothing was done to prevent something like this from happening, so it makes me angry,” she said.
Although it appears some repairs have been made in the area, a bridge near Perrin Beitel and Vicar Street that was damaged by the careening cars remains in ruins.
Richards, who still lives in the area, has to pass by that sight almost every day.
“I can’t close my eyes because I’m driving,” she said. “I’ll turn away.”
With her faith, she said she has slowly been working through her anger and feels she now is taking steps toward living in peace.
“I had to actually take a road to get to this point because that life-changing morning, yeah, it just does not go away,” she said.
Another thing that Richards said has helped with her healing is holding onto the good memories she has of her husband.
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