Doug Fuller and Libby Evans-Fuller floated on a mattress, then clung to a door and pillar as floodwaters rose in Ingram. They returned home for the first time.
KERR COUNTY, Texas — For days, Doug Fuller and Libby Evans-Fuller weren’t ready to return to what was left of their home. But early this morning, 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 to 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.