Cries for help came from the pitch-black woods, from rooftops and from attics that shifted unsteadily as the water rose. Firefighters and police raced to help, having little guidance on where or how. Top emergency leaders were asleep or out of town.
Using recordings of first responder communications, weather service warnings, survivor videos and official testimony, The Associated Press has assembled a chronology of the chaotic rescue effort as a flash flood barreled east through the Hill Country of Central Texas before dawn on July 4.
The flooding killed at least 136 people — including more than two dozen children and counselors at Camp Mystic, a century-old summer camp for girls that was among the first areas inundated.
Here are some of the harrowing moments:
In a Slack chat, a National Weather Service forecaster tells emergency managers, meteorologists and news media that the agency is monitoring Kerr County, but so far there has been little rain. Within 40 minutes, two weather cells combine, creating a dramatically more dangerous situation. A flash flood warning goes out at 1:14 a.m.
With the storm making already spotty cellphone service worse, some people report receiving the first National Weather Service notification on their phones, while others say they never received it.
The water rises quickly at Camp Mystic. A spokesperson for the camp would later say staff began evacuating campers and counselors between 2 and 2:30 a.m. The girls leave their cabins and try to wade to safety. None of the emergency communications between midnight and 6 a.m. reviewed by the AP were about responses to the camp.
Kerr County emergency dispatchers request the first water rescue at 3:35 a.m. Emergency calls come in for homes flooding along Highway 39.
“Caller’s house flooded,” a dispatcher radios. “All the residents are on their house.”
A later call from Camp La Junta staff reports dozens of boys are in the water after a cabin flooded.
Several volunteer fire departments and other law enforcement officers respond to areas around the Guadalupe River after realizing the severity of the situation. Frantic calls would come from people on rooftops and in attic rafters who say they felt the cabins moving under them. Calls would also come from people who scrambled up trees after it was too late to leave by car.
A U.S. Geological Survey river gauge about a half mile (0.8 km) east of Hunt is already recording almost 24 feet (7.3 meters) of water – considered major flood stage for the Guadalupe River. As the water rises in a home near the river, Jane Towler captured video on her phone of the muddy water in the kitchen.
“Everything in our yard has floated away,” she told her son and a family friend. “I want us to be prepared to go up in the attic.” They wound up surviving the night on the roof.
Kerr County’s “CodeRed” alert system, which allows the county to send cellphone alerts, would become a point of contention after the flood. Residents and others ask why county officials didn’t use the alerts at the height of the emergency. Fire rescuers had asked for a “CodeRed” alert as early as 4:22 a.m.
East of Hunt, the swell of water overtakes an area full of out-of-town campers.
A fire rescuer calls out that there are children trapped in the water at the RV parks behind Howdy’s restaurant on the western edge of Kerrville.
“We’re trying to keep people out of the water but they’re trying to go in on their own to get those children,” she reports. “We need some law enforcement down here, now!”
Rescuers work to evacuate the RV parks as several of the vehicles are swept away, some with families still inside. Interviews with family members and others would later reveal that more than 40 people staying in the area died.
A crew of rescuers from San Antonio arrive to help, but with no command center established, they wait for instructions in a fast food parking lot — less than 2 river miles (3.2 km) from the RV park. The rising water overtakes their trucks and strands their boats for hours.
Radio traffic shows that an official command center wouldn’t be set up until after 6 a.m.
Other out-of-town crews rely on word of mouth to determine where and how to help. Many rescuers on the banks can’t reach people in the swollen river.
A firefighter runs along the river trying to find people he can hear in the water but cannot see.
Volunteer firefighters are forced to think on their feet in a scenario many have never experienced before. They move teams to bridges and river crossings, trying to find places they can pull people from the water without boats.
“If you could, see if Kerrville’s got a crew that they could set up at Bear Creek off Arcadia and see if they could pick up any of the people that are washing by us,” one asks a dispatcher.
Screams sound in the distance as waters rise at an RV park along the Guadalupe River in Kerrville.
Testimony from Kerr County leaders at a legislative hearing at the end of July would confirm that the county’s top official was out of town, the sheriff was asleep and the emergency management coordinator was sick in bed when the floods and the emergency response began.
Additional rescuers from state task forces and neighboring counties continue to rely on others in the field for direction.
“Sir, we don’t have an incident command right now,” a dispatcher tells one crew.
“Received,” the responder says. “Please advise when you have an assignment for us.”
As daylight breaks, emergency personnel are able to see the catastrophic scope of the flooding from the air, but rescuers keep struggling to find and reach survivors. They scan the water from bridges and crossings.
“I have multiple people in backyards hanging onto trees yelling at us, but we can’t see them,” a rescuer tells dispatch.
As the morning stretches on, dispatchers start getting calls from people spotting possible survivors.
“We’ve been contacted by a passerby,” a Kerr County dispatcher tells rescuers. “There’s a person flashing a signal light in the trees in the vicinity of Tranquility Island. I believe they’re summoning rescue.”
Rescues, including by helicopter, continue into the afternoon. Crews also begin recovering bodies. For many families holding out hope of having their loved ones returned, it would take days or weeks due to the massive amount of debris and the widespread search area along the Guadalupe River.
The death toll would grow to at least 136; three people remain missing.
Residents along the Guadalupe River and the families of victims have questioned why they had no notice of the impending flood. The waters rose quickly in the middle of the night, and hard-hit Kerr County lacked an updated flood warning system; state and local agencies had missed opportunities to finance one.
Local officials told Texas lawmakers who visited the area weeks later that they also need better communications systems and broadband. Questions have also been raised about why top emergency officials weren’t involved sooner. Lawmakers say they are intent on learning lessons from the catastrophe.
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Associated Press reporters Sean Murphy, Seth Borenstein, Nadia Lathan, Christopher L. Keller and Stephen Smith contributed to this report.
