KERR COUNTY, Texas – Authorities said Friday’s Fourth of July flooding in the Hill Country is already considered a deadly weather event.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly told reporters during a late Friday morning news conference that he will not provide further details on those killed. Multiple children’s camps are in the area, and some kids are missing, Kelly said.
One Kerr County resident, Bill Washam, spoke to TheTXLoop 12 News. He shared what he saw and experienced from his vantage point, approximately two miles west of Ingram.
Washam said the weather rattled his windows and home overnight.
“The thunder was just, like, sledgehammers hitting the roof. It was unreal,” Washam said. “It was rocking us out of bed, and the rain was just relentless.”
Washam assumed that Friday’s weather event would include some flooding, but he said he didn’t expect what he later experienced.
Washam said he lived in the area during another tragic event: the flash flood that killed 10 children who attempted to flee the rising Guadalupe River in July 1987.
“Now that (July 1987 event) was the largest flood ever. (It) washed away those kids in Comfort and the buses and they had helicopter rescues and all that,” Washam said. “So, I was here for that one, and this (Friday’s flooding) is worse.”
Washam told TheTXLoop that he wasn’t able to get an assessment of what happened until the rain let up some and there was enough light outside.
“I could see right over the roof of my cousin’s house, which is at the base of the hill, and all I saw was water moving at unbelievable speed,” Washam said. “Floating trees, kayaks, all kinds of stuff going down the river. It’s just a horrifying scene.”
Washam said he is not aware of anyone whose life has not been accounted for. He did share that a relative’s home was not as fortunate as his.
“I know one of my other cousins lives out near Camp Stewart, right on the river,” Washam said. “It washed away his RV bus. His neighbor came over and knocked on the door and got him out. A little while after he got out, it washed it away, and it’s wrapped around a tree. Thank God he got out of there.”
Washam also said other residents a few miles away from him were rescued before those homes were lost.
What startled Washam the most about the severe weather is the timing: Fourth of July weekend.
“The fact that it was the Fourth of July, when most people are camping and putting things down by the water — and closest to the water,” Washam said. “The most dangerous possible scenario just happens the night before the Fourth, when the most people are here.”
‘Holy s—’: Kerrville husband, wife share their story of survival
Scott Weldon, a homeowner who lives along the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, survived the flooding by clinging to a bush after the water started rising.
“I had no idea that something like this could happen, and then, holy s—,” Weldon said. “Stuff started to hit the walls, and my wife jumped up, looked out the back porch and saw it was the river.”
Weldon said the water rose so rapidly that, in the moments he went to grab his keys to move his truck, his belongings were already underwater.
“My truck, my Jeep, my four motorcycles, my kayak, golf cart all pretty much like, ‘Who knows where?’” Weldon said.
He said his friend told him that his flood insurance had been removed from the policy a few weeks ago without reason.
The insurance company “canceled us for no apparent good reason. Just randomly did it.”
Weldon said he and his wife escaped by jumping out of their home and ended up three houses down. They cling onto a bush in a hedge row to save themselves.
Eventually, rescue crews showed up to help the couple and get them to safety.
“We, just, we survived,” Weldon said.
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