The toll of the Hill Country floods is unimaginable.

More than 100 people are dead, and many dozens more are still missing. 

There have been nearly a thousand rescue operations by boat and helicopter. People have been rescued from rooftops or pulled through holes broken into attics, while others were found clinging to trees as brownish-gray water rushed just feet below them.  

Hundreds of first responders from dozens of agencies worked double or triple or quadruple shifts to search hundreds of square miles of river valleys and creek beds in an area of Texas that is roughly the size of South Carolina.  

Tens of thousands of residential structures were damaged or destroyed, while others disappeared entirely overnight.  

The economic loss is in the tens of billions of dollars. The total personal loss in unknowable.

This is the story of that loss: what led up to it, how people faced the flood that night, how first responders sacrificed to prevent and mitigate it, how politicians and officials responded to it, and how the victims will try to live and rebuild through their tragedies.  

By the time the flood alerts went out, the worst had already happened.

As families slept in cabins and RVs across the Texas Hill Country in the early morning hours of July 4, an unforgiving wall of water surged through rivers and creeks, sweeping away lives, homes and entire communities. More than 130 people are confirmed dead, with more than 100 still missing in what is being called one of the deadliest natural disasters in recent Texas history.

“This came at night, when people were asleep,” said Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr., echoing the fear and helplessness felt across the region.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for parts of Kerr County at 1:14 a.m. on July 4. But by 2:30 a.m., panic was already setting in. Lorena Guillen, who owns Blue Oak RV Park, called the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office. She says she was told she was safe.

“It was absolutely awful,” Guillen recalled. “And it was pitch black.”

Within the hour, RVs, vehicles and even cabins were being pulled downstream.

“You could hear honking, banging on doors, screaming,” she said. “The screaming—it was awful.”

Delays in emergency alerts

At 4:22 a.m., a first responder requested an emergency alert to be pushed to residents in Hunt.

“Is there any way we can send a CodeRED out to our Hunt residents, asking them to find higher ground or stay home?” the responder asked.

The dispatcher responded: “Stand by, we have to get that approved with our supervisor.”

Records indicated a 90-minute delay in sending that cell phone alert.

By 5:31 a.m., a social media post from Kerr County declared it “a very dangerous and life-threatening flood event” and urged residents to move to higher ground. But for more than 100 people, the warning came far too late.

“We’re praying for all of those missing to be found alive,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said during a news briefing.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said: “We didn’t know this flood was coming. Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming.”

In a matter of 45 minutes, the Guadalupe River surged more than 26 feet, peaking at 23.4 feet before the flood gauge went silent.

Timelapse footage of the Llano River shows just how fast the water rose.

Parents of campers at Camp Mystic received a gut-wrenching email in the aftermath:

“We have sustained catastrophic level floods. We have no power, water, or Wi-Fi. If your daughter is not accounted for, you have been notified… Please continue to pray and send any help if you have contacts to do so.”

Inside those cabins—some of which had water reaching near the ceiling —27 young girls drowned or were swept away. Camp Director Dick Eastland died trying to save them.

Nearby at Heart O’ the Hills Camp, Jane Ragsdale called her brother at 3:30 a.m., trapped inside her home.

“I told her, ‘Just get out of the house,'” said her brother, Jeeper Ragsdale. “She said, ‘It’s already at the bed. I can’t get out.’ I told her to break a window… but she didn’t.”

Jane Ragsdale was among the dead.

A community forever changed

By the end of the week, the death toll reached 134. Some bodies were found 20 miles downstream.

“No parent should ever have to bury their child,” one grieving Kerr County resident said.

Still, amid the heartbreak, hope was alive.

Volunteers arrived by the hundreds. Rescuers and searchers came from nearby states and even from across the border in Mexico. State and federal officials have promised to search until everyone is found.

What began as a wall of water turned into a flood of compassion that is still spreading across Central Texas.

A deadly combination of geography, weather patterns and recent drought conditions contributed to the rapid and dangerous rise of the Guadalupe River the night of July 3 into the early hours of Independence Day.

Kerr County, like much of the Texas Hill Country, sits in “Flash Flood Alley” — one of the most flood-prone regions in North America. The area’s steep terrain and rocky soil prevent water from absorbing into the ground, increasing runoff during heavy rainfall. On top of that, the region had been experiencing a prolonged drought, which further reduced the ground’s ability to soak up water. 

That night, the atmosphere was primed for extreme rainfall. Tropical moisture from two distant storms — the remnants of Hurricane Flossie in the Pacific and remnants of Tropical Storm Barry in the Atlantic — combined with the usual summer humidity from the Gulf of Mexico.

A slow-moving area of low pressure developed, tapping into all of that moisture and dumping torrential rain over the Hill Country.

By the end of the night, 12 inches of rain had fallen over Kerr County. In just 45 minutes, the Guadalupe River rose 27 feet — a staggering and dangerous surge.

Many described the river’s rise as a “wall of water.” But to understand just how much water fell, it’s helpful to put the numbers in perspective.

Twelve inches of rain comes out to approximately 120 billion gallons of water that fell on Kerr County during that 6 to 8-hour window.

Let’s compare that to something more familiar: Niagara Falls.

• 45 million gallons of water flow over Niagara Falls every minute
• That adds up to 2.7 billion gallons per hour
• And 65 billion gallons per day

In less than eight hours, Kerr County saw nearly double the volume of water that flows over Niagara Falls in an entire day.

The Guadalupe River’s rise wasn’t just dramatic — it was the result of a rare but dangerous convergence of natural factors. It’s a sobering reminder of how quickly flash flooding can develop in this part of the country.

by Brianna Perez, Bob Garcia-Buckalew and Jessica Cha

As construction is underway to replace the flood-damaged Cow Creek Bridge on FM 1431 between Lago Vista and Marble Falls, neighbors recall the sweeping flood waters that ravaged the area following torrential rain on July 5.

Early that morning, water from the heavy rainstorm caused the normally placid creek to rise up suddenly as a family was driving to a summer camp.

According to friends of the Hammond family from Marble Falls, the rain was so heavy that they didn’t see that the bridge had been ripped apart. Their van was washed into the raging creek.

The parents and two children were able to get to safety, but 17-year-old Malaya Hammond was swept away by the strong current. Her body was recovered several days later.

Across Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties, Malaya’s death would be among the tragic stories of lives lost and families uprooted during the weekend of July 5-6.

After flooding at Leander, Brandon Dunn spent days searching for his father, who lived along Brushy Creek in Williamson County. After a six-day search, his body was found. It’s believed that Brandon’s dad had been near the creek when the water levels rose suddenly.

The floods of July 5 also caused devastating property losses in Georgetown.

Jordan Anderson and his family of four had called the Shady River RV Resort home for the last five years. Their home was wiped out by the flood.

“We all got out with a set of clothes each and some things, but not everything,” Anderson said. “Even when I went back, I wasn’t really thinking of grabbing things. I was trying to get us out, so now everything’s gone.”

The Snyder family, whose ranch in Williamson County has served as a gathering place for family and friends for more than 20 years, lost nearly everything when heavy rains came July 5. Christi Hartman and her family were in a mobile home on her parents’ property.

On July 4, as the family watched the news coverage on TV of flooding in Kerrville, they had no idea their own home would soon be at risk.

“We were out of the flood zone, so we weren’t even worried,” Jeanie Snyder, Hartman’s mother, said.

That changed overnight, when Hartman was awakened by a phone call from a relative who was concerned about the heavy rains early Saturday morning.

“As she (Hartman) looked out the window, the water was already up to the bottom of the window,” Snyder said. “By the time we opened the door, the waters rushed in. And so, we ran up the stairs.”

Six adults and five children took shelter in an upstairs room, as floodwater washed away everything below. The house itself was pushed three feet forward before it was stopped by three trees in the front yard.

“It’s a miracle that we’re alive. We can deal with all of this. It doesn’t matter, We have each other.”

The Snyders have demolished what remains of their home. Despite the loss, the family said the outpouring of support from the community has been overwhelming. Volunteers helped them clean up the debris and pack up what was salvaged from the home.

Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties are within the so-called “Flash Flood Alley” of Texas. It’s where rolling hills, hundreds of creeks and unpredictable weather combine every now and then to create destructive floods like the ones that occurred on Fourth of July weekend.

Four Coast Guard officers performed what officials are calling miraculous rescues in the Fourth of July floods, saving nearly 200 people in dangerous conditions that required rappelling through rushing water and rain. Aviation Survival Technician Scott Ruskan, Aviation Maintenance Technician Seth Reeves, Lt. Blair Ogujiofor and Lt. Ian Hopper conducted the majority of their rescues at Camp Mystic.

The crew spent the holiday swooping into valleys and carrying “the most defenseless and helpless to safety” during what became an intensive rescue operation. One week later, the experience still feels fresh for the four officers, who are being hailed as heroes for their actions.

For each crew member, specific moments from the rescues have stayed with them. Ruskan recalled a young girl who asked if she could bring her stuffed animal in the helicopter. 

“There was one little girl I don’t remember her name, but she asked me if she could bring her stuffed animal, if there was space in the helicopter. And the obvious answer was yes,” Ruskan said.

Reeves found meaning in small gestures, remembering how he gave Jolly Ranchers to those being rescued. Ogujiofor was struck by the practical details, noting over the radio, “Hey why are these girls coming on without any shoes on?”

For Hopper, the rescue that haunts him most involved a frightened girl who reminded him of his role as a father. 

“She’s got tears running down her face, and she’s scared, clearly she may have just lost her sisters, she may have her friends and I turn around and I give her a thumbs up, and she looks back at me and she gives me a thumbs up back, and musters a very scared but trying to be brave kind of smile,” he said.

The emotional impact of the rescues has continued beyond the immediate operation. The crew recently received a phone call from one of the children they saved. 

“We received a phone call and we talked to one of those little girls who sat on the phone and thanked them for being here,” Reeves said.

However, the gratitude from the young victims has proven difficult for the rescuers to process. 

“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was not only listening to a small child who shouldn’t have to know the tragedies of this, but to thank us for something they really don’t understand,” Reeves said.

The rescue operation required the crew to work in challenging conditions, rappelling on ropes through rushing water during rainy weather as they worked to reach those in need of assistance.

The floodwaters that surged through the Texas Hill Country revealed gaps in preparation, communication and oversight that left so many in harm’s way.

Questions are mounting about what local officials and camp leaders knew, when they knew it, and what steps — if any — they took to protect lives. KHOU 11 Investigates discovered breakdowns, shortcomings and missed opportunities to keep people safe, including one a decade before the raging river barreled through.  

Despite the menacing nickname of “Flash Flood Alley,” the level of preparedness in these parts has been a mixed bag.

The morning of July 4, the Boerne Star newspaper captured audio of blaring sirens in the town of Comfort, warning folks to get to higher ground. At least four counties along the river have outdoor warning sirens in place, but not in Kerr County, which was the hardest hit.

“We do not have an early warning system,” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said.

“It just hit me, why didn’t we have that?” questioned parent Nicole Wilson.

It prompted Wilson to start an online petition for a Kerr County early warning system.

“If they had five minutes warning, if these kids had five minutes warning, they would have seen what was going on and I guarantee you, they would have took those kids and ran for higher ground,” Wilson said.

But when Kerr County officials debated sirens years earlier, it did not go over well.   

In 2016, then-commissioner Buster Baldwin said: “The thought of our beautiful Kerr County having these damn sirens going off in the middle of the night, I’m going to have to start drinking again to put up with y’all.”

The following year, another commissioner, Tom Moser, said: “Too many people said they did not want sirens.”

And so Moser and county leaders never pursued them.

“In hindsight, could we have done more? Perhaps, so should we, you know, perhaps so,” Moser said after the July 4 flooding.  “But it’s a matter of, you know, the money that you have and the revenue that you have coming in”

Accountability also rests where so many young campers and counselors died. Headlines show Camp Mystic flooded many times since opening nearly a century ago.

“It was a ticking time bomb, Camp Mystic,” retired National Weather Service meteorologist Jeff Evans said.

Evans spent more than a decade forecasting Texas storms in his 34-year National Weather Service career.

“The terrain and the way those creeks converged, it was just a matter of time to what happened on the Fourth of July.”

Even with the known danger, records show Camp Mystic tried to get excluded from FEMA’s special flood hazard maps, requesting the removal of 15 camp buildings in 2013. And years later, 15 more.

“Spending time and resources fighting the maps rather than really focusing on safety,” Syracuse University associate professor Sarah Pralle said.

Pralle doesn’t know why Camp Mystic challenged FEMA’s maps, and the camp did not respond to requests for comment. But her years of research revealed property owners often do so to avoid costly flood insurance and stricter building codes.

“You would think that, at a camp for young people, they would be particularly cautious, certainly about the risk of flooding,” Pralle said.

In the end, FEMA approved both requests, putting much of Camp Mystic on paper just out of the blue-shaded 100-year flood plain. But in reality, Pralle said it was still in the thick of it.

“The lowest point in those areas was sometimes a foot above the base flood elevation,” she said. “That’s not a lot of room for error.”

There was no room for error when the torrential floodwaters rolled through. Real-time scanner recordings captured by John David Trolinger offer a glimpse at the gaps in alerting those in harm’s way, like this firefighter’s urgent plea on July 4 at 4:22 a.m.:

“Is there any way we can send a Code Red out to our Hunt residents asking them to find higher ground or stay home?”

“Standby, we have to get that approved with our supervisor,” was the response.

Code Red is Kerr County’s emergency notification system that can push alerts to residents’ phones. Trolinger, who helped install the system as the county’s former IT director, says he didn’t receive a Code Red alert until after 10 a.m. July 4.

“Someone needs to be on the phone to authorize it immediately and get these alerts out,” Trolinger said.

“That is a point of failure,” said Jeannette Sutton, PhD. She’s the founder of The Warn Room, a training tool for agencies to improve warnings and alerts.

“For whatever reason, they weren’t available to get in touch with that supervisor in the middle of the night,” she said. “That does need to be addressed. That’s where people’s lives are on the line.”

But officials have repeatedly said their priority is on recovering the lives lost, not a timeline of the emergency response.

”We’re not running. We’re not going to hide from anybody,” Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference. “That’s going to be checked into at a later time.”

The time for accountability, they say, will start at the state capital with the upcoming special session.

“Our City of Kerrville and Kerr County leadership are committed to a transparent and full review of processes and protocols,” said Jonathan Lamb with the Kerrville Police Department.

In “Flash Flood Alley,” it’s a review that is perhaps long overdue.

Over the coming days, Texas lawmakers will start formally proposing ideas on how to prevent future flood disasters – not just in Central Texas – but across the state.

Gov. Abbott had already called a special 30-day legislative session on July 21 to address a number of political issues, but now, a focus on the flash floods and loss of life is suddenly paramount for legislators.

“My idea was to use old tech sirens and combine them with what everybody is getting overloaded with, which are these cell phone [alerts],” said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston. “A blue alert, an Amber alert, a silver alert, a security alert. Your bank will call you whatever and people are now turning these alerts off. In fact, in Texas, we turn off these alerts five times as fast as Vermonters do.”

Turning off emergency alerts is only part of the problem. Poor cell phone service along parts of the Guadalupe River is another issue.

“We think a technology package – and that’s the bill I’m working on with the Lower Colorado River Authority – that will look at sirens with Starlink towers and 5G, so we’ve got redundancy, you know multiple messages, etc.,” Bettencourt explained. “Really, what you’re trying to do is layer on. You want to get people’s attention. The real problem is that in the middle of the night, with [phones] turned off, you have to get people’s attention and there’s nothing like an old-school siren to get that attention. But you have to make sure it’s triggered correctly. We’ve got gauges that tie into it. There’s a what’s called – a supervisory computer and data acquisition that takes the input. So, there’s a lot of things we have to do with this technology package.”

Bettencourt said he’s still crafting the legislation and does not yet know how many sirens are needed to protect watersheds across the state, but the cost would be in the “tens of millions of dollars.”

Still, it’s just one early idea that lawmakers will consider.

The Houston Republican is one of nine senators who Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick appointed to the Senate Select Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding.

But why not also prohibit companies and organizations from having sleeping quarters in floodways – like cabins, campgrounds and RV parks?

“That’s going to be stuff we’ll discuss with the local elected officials, property owners and all the people involved in this, the people that survived it as well,” Bettencourt added.

Earlier this year, the state legislature considered a bill that would have enhanced disaster response, including better alert systems, a grant for counties to buy new communications equipment, and more. 

But lawmakers rejected the proposal because of its huge price tag.

Bettencourt defended that saying it was not a mistake to kill it, suggesting that legislation was not the right bill for what the state needs.

“The bill was also much more about wildfires up in the Panhandle,” he said. “A solution that works in the Panhandle about a wildfire may be much more focused on communication and responders and government all being on the same radio frequency and in the river authority areas, when we’re looking at rural flash floods, it may be more about sirens and voice announcements and additional layering on cell phones.”

But with the recovery still underway in Kerrville and flash flooding happening in the past week in Del Rio and nearby border communities, some lawmakers said real solutions cannot be implemented until there’s a complete accounting of what failed.

“We’re going to have to learn facts, we’re going to have to learn how we could have avoided this awful tragedy and work with local governments to see how best we can avoid it in the future but there’s a lot of questions that need to be answered,” said state Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas. 

Lawmakers are also asking for input from those directly affected, victims’ families and emergency responders.

That Senate Select Committee is holding two hearings; the first is Wednesday, July 23 at the Capitol, the second is in Kerrville on July 31.

State leaders said whatever solutions that lawmakers approve over the next 30 days, they want it deployed and in place within a year.

Camp Mystic is more than a place. It is a legacy.

For almost a century, Texas girls have spent summers on the banks of the Guadalupe River. The daughters of former governors and the daughters of President Lyndon B. Johnson attended. Former first lady Laura Bush was once a counselor. Generations have been to the non-denominational Christian camp where character, confidence and sisterhood are shaped.

“They almost feel like more than family because of the bonds you make,” said a former Mystic camper of the lifelong friendships she made.

Camp Mystic’s website features archived photos – some from as far back as the first time in 1926. Faith and fun are ever present in pictures and videos through the years.

And the backdrop was always the river.

The same river that on the morning of July 4 took almost 30 lives – campers as young as 8 years old, counselors in their late teens, and longtime camp director Dick Eastland.

“Dick Eastland died trying to save the campers he loved, and there’s no other place on earth I’d want my little girl to be – where she’s loved so much that somebody else would die trying to save her,” said one former camper.

In the immediate days after the tragedy, vigils brought together hundreds of alumni across the state. In Dallas, they gathered at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas at a private event. Some attendees flew in for 24 hours just to attend the service. Others held hands and prayed at a service in Houston, singing soothing camp songs.

Those vigils are now giving way to funerals. Victims, so many victims, are being honored and remembered.

This flood has shown the world the Texas Hill Country is not just a region on a map. And a camp on Guadalupe is not just a place for summer fun. It is a spirit. Something carried inside. Something carried on.

Special contribution from Karyna McGlynn

I was a “Mystic Girl” for seven years, between 1987 and 1993. Camp Mystic is a very wholesome place, where kindness and friendship are just constantly reiterated.

The Guadalupe River is Camp Mystic. The river runs through my dreams, and it haunts my poetry. I write about Camp Mystic all the time. And I am now a camp director. I run seven creative writing camps for middle schoolers and high schoolers during the summer at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, in Interlochen, Michigan.

Camp Mystic imprinted on me. It was a place kind of outside of real life, where you were free to be yourself and to discover who you wanted to be and try out different versions of yourself in a supportive environment.

I have gone back there often in my mind as a sort of place of safety, which is why it’s just so tragic that the flood happened. Because for so many people, that was their imaginative, safe space.

I think that girls the age of the campers often feel so awkward and are so self-conscious when they’re in the regular school year. But at a place like Mystic, they really are in with their bodies and in the world, just feeling the full joy of youth and discovery. And it’s just beautiful.

Karyna McGlynn is a relative of a staff member at KVUE TV in Austin. She is currently the director of the creative writing program at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan.

In the heart of Ingram, you’ll find the banks of the Guadalupe River. Wildlife made its way through piles of branches while the race to recover victims continued.

“Yesterday and today we had to stop because of the rain. When it rains, the river is coming up,” Manolo Acevedo with Protección Civil said.

Acevedo’s team is armed with ATVs, divers, boats, maps and search dogs. They only take breaks when officials tell them it’s too dangerous to search. The team is one of several seen walking the river and searching for evidence of those swept away in the floods.

“We have been talking with some of them. It’s difficult what they show us and what we find in the river too,” Acevedo said.

About four miles downriver from Acevedo’s team in Kerrville, Roberto Marquez was found working on a memorial.

“I’ve made 148. But I believe we need to make another 18,” Marquez said.

The artist is making crosses by hand to honor those lost across Texas.

“You can see the lumber has been broken. The river pushed it — must have been a wall, fence,” Marquez said.

The crosses now line Guadalupe Park. There’s also a wall for people to leave messages nearby.

“I can’t help but notice this one that says blessings and prayers from Uvalde, Texas,” Henderson said.

“See what I mean. There’s been a lot of people here from Uvalde,” Marquez said.

Marquez reads the notes already written out loud.

“United in love for the Texas Hill Country,” Marquez said.

Marquez hopes this area will bring a sense of peace for those who visit.

“This becomes a sacred place for everyone to come and unite so we can all get together and comfort each other,” Marquez said. “I think that’s what we have to do. Especially in this moment,” 

Marquez said people have been donating wood for the crosses, which includes some he has been told is from Camp Mystic. He and his wife plan to add candles, flowers and items found along the Guadalupe River to build the growing memorial.

RickRay Robertson says when the Guadalupe River started to rise early Friday morning, he didn’t have time to think. He sprang into action to save his brother who was at a home along the river.

“I was banging on that door. He couldn’t hear me, so I had to kick in that door,” Robertson said.

When he first crossed the street, it was dry. But in less than a minute, the waters had risen.

“When I got him and we went back across, it was a little bit above my waist,” Robertson recalls.

Robertson stays at a cabin behind the home, which has since been swept away in the destruction. The cabin is behind the house where his brother lives. But on that night, he was watching the Astros game across the street, having decided not to go home when the rains began to fall.

“The Astros and Jesus Christ saved my life,” he said.

As Robertson scrambled to save what he could amid the deluge, he heard screams from the river that he says will haunt him forever.

“What I heard on the river that night was just more mind-blowingly chilling.”

As the waters have receded, Robertson says several bodies have been recovered near his home. They have also left behind a trail of destruction.

“This green shed came from next door. The car came from nine miles away, and the barn and the trailer moved about 30 feet,” he said. “We lost another trailer and two cabins.”

Reflecting on the power of the river in the aftermath of all the chaos, Robertson said he isn’t lucky to be alive—he’s blessed.

A symbol of that still stands: A cross erected 14 years ago after his stepfather passed was rooted just 10 inches into the ground, but it withstood the raging waters.

“This is eternal, and what it means to me is my faith is stronger than that river,” Robertson said.

That faith reminds him to stand strong. And by sharing his story, it’s allowing him to heal.

“For the first time I just broke down,” he said. “I mean, my mom cried in my arms yesterday.” 

“I needed to cry. I needed to break down a little bit, let some of this out. You have to breathe, and you have to realize that you are human.” 

Robertson also echoed a sentiment that many in the community feel, that no one is to blame for this tragedy.  Robertson says when you live along the river, things like rising river levels happen. He calls it a natural disaster.

The small town of Hunt has emerged as ground zero of the devastating flood disaster, with search crews continuing to find bodies as the community reels from what residents are calling a “500-year flood.”

Twelve residents were killed in the flooding, with 13 people rescued from the hardest-hit areas. The Casa Bonita development was particularly devastated, where half of its riverfront cabins were completely flattened by the rushing waters.

Louise Parsley, a Houston resident whose family has owned property in Hunt along the Guadalupe River for 100 years, described the disaster. 

“This is completely unprecedented. I mean this is like a 500-year flood,” Parsley said. “I have friends who have bought properties up here and they will build houses like 20 years above the 100-year-floodplain and they’re gone.”

The flooding has transformed Hunt into what observers are describing as a war zone, with the town bustling with search crews, first responders, and volunteers working around the clock. DPS checkpoints have been established to keep out those who don’t live in the area as recovery efforts continue.

Search crews on horseback have been combing through properties along the North Fork of the Guadalupe River, where water continues to move quickly but safely following the initial flooding. The ongoing search for missing persons represents what officials describe as difficult and painstaking work.

The tragedy has hit particularly hard in a community that Parsley says is “like a Houston annex” due to the many local families who have properties there. She will attend the first of several funerals for friends lost in the disaster Friday.

The recovery effort continues as Hunt struggles to come to terms with the scope of the catastrophe that has left the small riverside community devastated and searching for answers in the aftermath of the historic flooding.

For days, Doug Fuller and Libby Evans-Fuller weren’t ready to return to what was left of their home. But early on the morning of July 9, the couple changed their minds. They wanted to see it as part of their grieving process.

Five days after deadly floods ripped through Kerr County, Doug and Libby drove toward what used to be their apartment across the street from the Ingram Dam. They didn’t know what they’d find.

“I’m scared,” Libby admitted. “I need to see with my own eyes, because if I don’t, I’ll speculate.”

When they arrived, Libby quietly stepped out of the car and shut the door behind her. It was the first time either of them had returned.

It was just before 4 a.m. on July 4 when Doug woke Libby. Water had started seeping under the front door. They recall that within five minutes, the water rose five feet in their first-floor apartment.

“We were on the mattress of the bed floating,” Doug recalled. 

“The ceiling fan was in my stomach,” said Libby.

The refrigerator drifted across the room. Furniture turned into debris. Doug managed to swim toward the front door, clinging to the door frame. Libby eventually got off the mattress and grabbed onto the door too. At one point, the waves slammed the door into Doug’s head and shut on Libby’s hand.

“Luckily, it just burst a blood vessel,” she said. “But he had already floated off and grabbed a pillar.”

Libby remembers steering all her weight toward Doug and the pillar. Her husband caught her.

“He grabbed my hand and grabbed my pants, and grabbed me to the pillar,” she said. “And we just held on until the water finally started to go down and we could touch the ground again.”

They said they held on for hours, surviving the flood, while so many others didn’t.

Doug and Libby can’t help but think of the young girls who died just a few miles away at Camp Mystic in the neighboring town of Hunt.

“I can’t even imagine what those girls were going through… or what they went through,” Libby said in tears.  

“The families, too,” Doug said. “If you had asked me to trade places, I’d do it in a heartbeat with those kids.”

They’ve asked themselves the same question over and over: “Why us?”

On Wednesday, they looked into an apartment that was unrecognizable. Water damage is everywhere. Piles of broken belongings sit in front of the building. But amid the loss, a few miracles: Their wedding rings were both found.

“Having things that already have memories attached to them,” Libby trailed off. “I didn’t have anything.”

Standing among the rubble, Doug and Libby are grateful to be alive.

This TV station and dozens of others across the country have joined to raise money to support those affected by these floods.

Our parent company, TEGNA, has created the TEGNA Texas Flood Relief Fund, which is accepting donations now to support several non-profit organizations that are working around the clock to provide support to first responders, residents and families affected by the floods.

Donations to the TEGNA Texas Flood Relief fund can be made by clicking here. All donations are tax-deductible. Funds raised will be granted to eligible local non-profit organizations providing direct support in areas affected by the floods.

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• WUSA – Washington, D.C.
• WCNC – Charlotte
• WVEC – Norfolk
• WATN – Memphis
• WLTX – Columbia
• WZDX – Huntsville
• WXIA – Atlanta
• WTSP – Tampa-St. Petersburg
• WTLV/WJXX – Jacksonville
• WWL – New Orleans
• WBIR – Knoxville
• WMAZ – Macon
• WKYC – Cleveland
• WGRZ – Buffalo
• WCSH/WLBZ – Portland-Bangor
• KARE – Minneapolis
• WTHR – Indianapolis
• WZZM – Grand Rapids
• WHAS – Louisville
• WOI – Des Moines
• WQAD – Quad Cities
• KPNX – Phoenix
• KUSA – Denver
• KX TV – Sacramento
• KFMB – San Diego
• KTVB – Boise-Twin Falls

At the time of publication of this article, the TEGNA Texas Flood Relief Fund had raised more than $500,000. 

For more information, please contact Ryan Wood, director of community impact at WFAA, by emailing rwood@wfaa.com.

For a list of additional ways that you can support those affected by the floods, click here.