We were in Hunt for the flood
I’m writing a week after the tragic flooding of the Guadalupe River disaster that took multiple lives. I’ve made a couple of comments to the press and my wife Hilary wrote an excellent piece recapping our experience for the Big Bend Sentinel.
You can read that article here
I’ll try to tell the story in the shortest form I remember it, and then I’ll reflect a bit on what I think I can learn, as a public official, from being near something so intense and disturbing.
My wife’s family has a house directly on the North Fork of the Guadalupe River headwaters about 8 miles up the river from Hunt. TX. Hunt is west of Ingram and Kerrville and is at the junction of the North and South forks of the river. The area is idyllic and is a popular place for relaxed tourism, fishing and camping. The family house was built in 2012-2013 and is designed a lot like a beach house; the house is up on stilts and the AC, water pumps and everything except for a chimney base and elevator shaft is around 15 feet off the highest point of the ground below. Under the house near the river is a deck for outdoor furniture and a porch swing, closer to the roadway (N of the river uphill) is room for two cars to park beneath a couple of bedrooms. This July 4th weekend my wife, myself and our daughter Mirela were staying at the house and on the night of my 54th birthday, July 3rd, our friends and their three year old son joined us for a planned couple of days enjoying the river and the quiet.
We went to bed a little late (not usual for us these days with a toddler) and it had begun to rain. Earlier in the evening we had checked the weather to see about the forecast for swimming the next day. What I remember was seeing that 2-3 inches of rain was expected; another forecast in my cell phone said that 5-7 inches could occur. Either way, the river was not high and we’ve been through storms like that in the past over there. Mostly the river rises for a short bit of time and then before you know it everything looks as it did before the rains came through. Anyway, what did finally occur was not at all what I fathomed would happen. I truly believed that a true river flooding event was in no way in the cards for that night.
I no longer sleep with my cell phone in the same room, a luxury that I appreciate now that I’m no longer on call 24/7 as I was in my two terms as Justice of the Peace. That being said, we received no emergency alerts other than a “flash flood watch” on my weather app. I see a “flash flood watch” on my phone at least several times per month, so I’m not going to give that alert the credit some may say it could deserve. Hilary’s phone was in the room, and we did not get an audible alert.
As I slept, I woke up once or twice to the sound of very loud rain on the roof and dramatic lighting and thunder. Once again, I didn’t think much of it other than it being a very hard rain.
Sometime around 3:30 AM or so I was awakened by the sound of our friends saying things were getting serious. The power was still on, things seemed pretty raucous, but I was thinking that not only was it just a big rain, but also we were high up in the house, with the river about 35 feet below the floor. After a bit of waking up Hilary and I were checking out the water and our friends were right- the water was up and flowing like a river (or in hindsight, as part of the river) downstairs where the cars were. It was spooky dark- the only time I could see the water level and the turmoil going on outside with the wind, trees and water rushing everywhere was when lightning was striking. It was crazy.
So now I was thinking, still half-asleep but waking up more quickly, that there are multiple low water crossings on FM 1340 (the River Road) on either side of the house and that moving away from the area was not safe and would not work. We were still up higher than the higher points of the road. Thinking again, nearly directly across FM 1340 is a very long and steep uphill dead end road that leads to other houses and a lot of vacant land. The quick decision was made to get everything necessary to function overnight and load our families into our two cars. We went downstairs, water up above our ankles, and got into our cars, child safety seats, some food, phones, basic supplies but thrown together, not packed, and fortunately were able to get out of the house compound through the electric gate (power was still on, lucky lucky) and drove about 1/4 mile up the hill, to about an elevation of around 150 feet or so above where we had been. We pulled over in the deluge, visibility essentially zero, and camped out in our running cars. In retrospect it was extremely fortunate that we knew that road (Bear Creek Road) existed and also that it would take us to safe, high ground. I believe that a first-time AirBnB renter couldn’t have known how to escape to safety where we were. Cell service in the area, usually spotty at best, was not working for us after leaving the house WiFi.
I felt confident at that point that we were safe; it was almost four in the morning, as far as I knew the power was still on, and we were up on a high road with no cars coming or going at all. I settled in to go back to sleep in my passenger seat.
About 45 minutes later and after reassuring our friends that we considered ourselves to be all in a safe place, pickup truck headlights came from up the hill towards us. The gentleman asked if we were OK, and we said yes. He asked us if we needed anything or a place to go and declined. Our friends, though, wisely said yes and he told us that they were wanting to follow him up to a ranch he managed. At that time he made the connection that we were staying at the Scruggs’ house down at the end of the hill on the river and that he knew Hilary’s mother from that. Both cars followed Paul, a volunteer firefighter with the Hunt V.F.D., up the hill to a ranch bunkhouse where we settled in under dry shelter. The power had been out for a while, he said. Later, we found out that the power at our place had gone out four minutes after we evacuated, as recorded by the ADT monitor.
Daylight came after we got to beds, and it was still raining. Paul came to see us in the morning and we got an idea of the depth of the problems. We would be there for at least another night, that was clear, and thankfully it was offered to us. We unpacked food we had brought (there were groceries bound for Marfa in the car as well- also lucky) and Paul’s wife and their son Nathan brought a big box of great old school toys for the two kids to play with. The day seemed short; it was still pretty dark, we were trying to process how and when we were going to be able to go back to the house to check on the rest of our things, and then also realistically, when we might be able to leave the area.
Over the course of the day we got some updated information from Paul about the roads, and the big problems in Hunt and Ingram. The rain was lessening, but it would be a while until things were going to be drying out. The nearby Bear Creek was running wildly and loudly behind the house. Late in the afternoon Hilary went down to the river house to survey the damage and also to retrieve food from the refrigerator for us to cook for dinner. Our hosts provided us with a propane stove and we cooked a good bit of the food that would have begun to go bad.
It’s hard to overstate our good fortune. Writing this I have to keep myself from feeling guilty about having it so easy compared to the destruction we already knew must have happened along the river, especially between Hunt and Ingram where there are numerous RV parks of permanent riverside dwellers, tons of camp houses, and low spots along the river at nearly every turn. Our cell service was so spotty and the situation was still developing; we heard the first vague reports about the missing Camp Mystic girls. The main thing we were hoping for at this point was a good break in the rain that would be possible the next morning (July 5th).
As it happened, we did catch a good break in the rain the next morning and after preparing a hearty breakfast we all decided, based on the information Paul had, that we would try to leave and get out of the area. Initially we had been told that we could probably get out by heading either direction on FM 1340, but more accurate reports informed us that we would need to head east through Hunt, Ingram and Kerrville in order to safely get up to the Interstate.
Another stroke of luck was that Hilary and I were able to have enough time to go back to the river house to grab the rest of our stuff and throw out the rest of the food in the fridge that would spoil in case the power was out for a few more days. The house showed that the water had risen probably an extra two or more feet from when we left. Nobody could have known that we would have been safe in that house. Our cars would have been destroyed by floodwaters; we would have been stranded. Another hour of that rain and we could have drowned inside. As it stands, we are healthy and alive, barely worse for the wear other than our memories of the devastation we saw leaving out through Hunt and Ingram.
The pictures on television and the internet are horrific, but seeing stuff like this for the first time, in real time, is truly jarring. By this time we knew we would be seeing some really bad stuff, but we were grateful to have an opportunity to leave right then. It was still uncertain whether the rains were going to pick up to the level where we could possibly experience getting stranded again. It was time to go.
We left the area by heading eastward on FM 1340 to Hunt, where it meets Hwy 39. The destruction was apocalyptic; collapsed walls, buildings missing large pieces, debris everywhere. The emergency crews had done an amazing job of clearing the roads so cars and trucks could pass. Basically everything we saw was damaged in at least some fashion. I can’t describe the feeling I had while passing where once hundreds of RVs had been two days before.
Because Hilary’s family has this house in Hunt, we subscribe to the local newspaper there by mail, the West Kerr Current. It’s a small paper, covers local Ingram and Hunt news as well as Kerr County Commissioners Court meetings. Thus, I’ve been familiar with the actions and tenor of Kerr County politics and policy for about the last four years. It’s highly interesting to me; the area is very much loud and proud MAGA, and very small town Texas, although the population is growing very rapidly. I will venture to say that it’s grown in population faster than the County has been able to move to keep up with. There’s a lot of good old boy type stuff, but I will say that I believe the elected officials do a good job representing the sentiments of their voters.
As an elected official I often have to weigh costs versus benefits in nearly everything Presidio County has to do. Texas County budgets tend to be stretched to the limit in areas without oil and gas revenue, so I know the feeling of leaving some things unfinished or lacking due to funding or resource issues. The on the ground response by the local officials in Kerr County after the storm was admirable. The outreach by other agencies, particularly other nearby local and quite a few State outfits, was impressive and should be lauded. Second guessing the preparedness for this type of disaster is natural and, by all accounts, not enough was done. Nobody anywhere wanted deaths to occur; but unfortunately the ease of inaction over the years ultimately led to that. A search for “Kerr County Commissioners refuse money for floods” will lead you down a rabbit hole of years of talking about possibilities but no significant action. It’s a reminder to me that bad things can occur out of the blue at any time and, as a leader, I need to be ready to respond. That also means that I need to look a bit harder for opportunities to make good decisions that may matter later.
Ironically, thanks to some friendly prodding from Rob D’Amico at the Big Bend Sentinel about the subpar condition of the Presidio County website, I had put an agenda item on for Commissioners Court the following Wednesday (7/9) to discuss expanding the website authorized user base and also to introduce the concept of appointing a Public Information Officer (PIO) to post to the website and be a conduit for official, reliable information in the case of an emergency. A few years ago I had attempted to start a conversation about having a PIO, but Judge Guevara was insistent that she and only she was and would be the official voice of the County in an emergency.
Technically, she’s correct, since in Texas Counties the County Judge is the statutory Emergency Management Coordinator. I noticed that the Kerr County Judge, Rob Kelly, was interviewed hours after the flood had struck and was clearly frazzled, having surely been on the front lines of disaster for the last half day or longer. He misstated right off the bat that Kerr County had no system in place to prepare for a flood like this. That clip has now been replayed over and over again on the national new stories about this event. I feel bad for Judge Kelly.
My point to Judge Guevara then was that, during an emergency, she (and I) would be far too busy dealing with the actual emergency to take time to write a press release, post up to the website or sit for a radio or TV interview. That would be the job for a PIO; to take the Judge’s words and direction and refine both for public consumption and questions from the media.
So now we at Presidio County are working towards improving our website and also towards exploring appointing an elected official as a volunteer PIO. This is a small step we can take to improve our response to an emergency, I believe.
I won’t go into detail about my disappointment with the Governor’s press conference the next day or the rudeness of the head of the Texas National Guard to the press corps, but watching the State’s verbal (not to be confused with the actual on the ground action, which was good) response reminded me that as a local leader the buck stops with me and my colleagues. Kudos to the Kerrville police chief Chris McCall and to Sheriff Larry Leitha for making cogent statements that actually informed the public.
Lastly, my heart goes out to all the victims. It’s an incredible tragedy. And to all the local leaders who will be rebuilding and reminded of this tragedy every day. It’s a very heavy lift, very very sad. Hunt and Ingram are bits of paradise; we’ll go back and enjoy the beautiful river again. We’ve made a donation to the Hunt Volunteer Fire Dept and will probably make and annual one from here on out. The headline of this week’s West Kerr Current reads, “West Kerr Nightmare”. The area will never be the same; God bless everyone who helps and cares.
Sincerely,
David