PRESIDIO, Texas—If this were a normal fall, winter Texans and other snowbirds would be driving their motor homes to this West Texas border town and the nearby Big Bend region.

Riverside camp sites in the Big Bend Ranch State Park would be filling up and a golf course in Presidio would be bustling. Instead, the start of the peak tourism season in this remote corner of West Texas is all but idle.

Blame Texas’ other September disaster.

As Hurricane Ike quickly dismantled the South Texas tourism hotspot of Galveston in mid-September, a massive flood along the Rio Grande threatened to swamp at least a third of Presidio, a dusty border town of about 5,000 people about 250 miles southeast of El Paso. The aftermath—a still flooded golf course and a closed riverfront highway connecting the town with the massive state park to the east—has all but halted area tourism.

“Everyone’s going around Presidio, nobody’s coming to Presidio,” said Elizabeth Bustamante, who works in the Presidio city administrator’s office. “It will take a good three to six months to get back to normal.”

Usually at this time of year, Bustamante said, residents in the small town routinely spot out-of-town license plates in downtown, motor homes crowding into a small RV park just across from the golf course, and brisk business in local shops.

“Normally the local campground is full and the golf course is crowded,” Bustamante said. “It’s not right to say, but sometimes we can’t go to the stores and find what we want. Now they shelves aren’t empty.”

The Rio Grande breached its channel and started creeping up a pair of earthen levees protecting Presidio and its Mexican neighbor, Ojinaga, in early September. Within days, the water was so high that thousands of people on both sides of the border were ordered out of their homes.

Populated areas of Presidio were saved, but only because several river levee breaks in Mexico caused widespread damage in Ojinaga. But a levee break on the eastern edge of Presidio has left the town’s 18-hole golf course under water—distance markers on the driving range barely poke above the water nearly a month after the worst of the flooding subsided—and parts of the only paved road connecting the town with the southernmost chunk of the Big Bend state park have been washed out.

Mike Hill, a regional director for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said portions of the park’s six riverside camp sites were washed away. Crews won’t start cleanup on the sites until river levels drop even further and thick mud that washed over the sites dries out.

“I expect to have it back by Christmas, if not sooner,” Hill said.

In the mean time, workers have made “band aid” repairs to several boat and raft launch spots along the muddy river.

Rod Trevizo, a park manager at the Big Bend state park, said the closed road, camp sites and muddy boat launches likely kept about 1,400 people off the river in that area in September and into October.

Lost picnic tables and other campground gear will cost the agency about $10,000 to replace and repair, Hill said.

The lost traffic in the park could be disastrous for Presidio, a city where monthly sales tax revenues about $30,000 combine to make up nearly three-quarters of the annual budget.

Bustamante said city officials won’t know exactly what the flood cost them in lost business until later this month, but it’s clear that there’s been a dramatic dip in out of town visitors, including routine shoppers from Mexico. And she guesses sales in town were probably cut in half in September and October.