KENS 5 reporter Sue Calberg examines a Hill Country area hit hard by the rising flood waters.
KERRVILLE, Texas — Among the countless Hill Country residents picking through what’s left of their belongings after catastrophic July Fourth floods is Pearl, who was hauling some personal treasures out of her wrecked home on Monday.
A red sign posted on the door by emergency management officials indicated it was unsafe. Most houses in the area carried similar signs.
Pearl’s home was in one of the hardest-hit Hill Country areas, and the flood knocked her house off its foundation. She lived roughly 100 yards or more from the Guadalupe River, which rose to historic levels in some parts of the Hill Country the morning of July Fourth.
Around 4:30 a.m. on Friday morning, when the Guadalupe River was beginning to rise during torrential rains, residents nearby started getting notifications from their neighbors that the situation was serious.
Three days later, we found a car sitting alongside a house with a red “X” painted on it–an indication that it was checked and declared free of people or bodies.
There were cars all over this neighborhood that obviously were not there before the flooding began, having washed downstream.
There are Xs on houses, too, where first responders have gone in. An orange-colored X on a difference residence means it’s been cleared.
Next to it was a yellow house that slammed into a neighboring one. Also nearby was a door bearing evidence of just how high the water got on Friday. Personal property and tools littered the yards nearby.
One of the women said her neighbor called her around 4:30 a.m. and said, “Get your kids and get out.” She had three kids and her mother, and she said when they came out the door, they were scared because she had never seen anything like this.
The water was rising intensely by this point, starting to knock houses off their foundations. Three days later, on Monday, the scene was still unsafe with debris, nails and other hazards.
The people who have come to help were all wearing sturdy boots and arriving to do some significant work here, given how much was unsalvageable.
Nearby, another empty foundation where a house once stood, only metal remaining in its place.