911 calls capture minute-by-minute desperation of deadly Texas floods as callers beg for rescue
By Alaa Elassar, Amanda Jackson, CNN
Kerrville, Texas (CNN) — Heartbreaking pleas for help poured into the Kerrville, Texas, police department’s Telecommunications Center as the deadly catastrophic floods swept across Texas Hill Country in the early hours of July 4.
The recordings, released by the Kerrville Police Department on Friday, are uploaded in the order the calls came in, tracing the flood emergency minute by minute and the rising terror of people trapped as water climbed first by the inch, then by the foot through homes and cabins.
The earliest calls feel almost like premonitions, fragile voices that foreshadow the terror that would soon sweep across the Hill Country. They begin with an eerie calm — soft-spoken warnings from residents who sensed the rising water but could not yet see the catastrophe gathering in the dark.
Scott Towery, general manager of the River Inn Resort, called at 2:52 a.m. CT to warn that more than 100 guests were at the property as the water surged at an alarming pace.
His follow-up call came moments later, his voice taut with urgency, comparing the rising flood to one of the region’s worst on record.
“We’ve got about 130 people out on site and a big flood coming. We’re waking them up now,” he tells the dispatcher. “Our dam went underwater two and a half hours ago … It’s really high, like the 1998-flood-type high.”
Then the shift became unmistakable.
The next call was barely a call at all — a faint, almost indecipherable voice tangled in the sound of rushing water. The dispatcher, listening to nothing but that open line and the relentless sloshing beneath it.
What began as a cautious warning quickly escalated into panic, as callers pleaded for rescue while dispatchers, repeating the same urgent directive to get to higher floors, struggled to keep their voices steady.
“We cannot,” one frightened caller replies. “There’s water everywhere. We cannot move. We are right upstairs in a room and the water level’s rising.”
Together, the recordings form a harrowing portrait of a night when the water rose faster than help could reach.
Overwhelmed dispatchers race to keep up as waters rise
Police have warned the calls are unredacted and “highly distressing,” especially for families who were impacted.
“Some callers did not survive. We ask that you keep them and their family members, loved ones and friends in your thoughts and prayers,” Kerrville Police Chief Chris McCall said in a video statement Thursday.
The devastating flash flooding in the early hours of the Fourth of July killed 136 people, including young children at summer camp, across the region as parts of the Guadalupe River rose from about 3 feet to almost 30 feet in just 45 minutes.
Just two people were on staff at the Kerrville Police Department Telecommunications Center when 911 calls started coming in at 2:52 a.m. on July 4, according to the chief. Callers quickly overwhelmed dispatchers as the tragedy escalated.
With every new call, the dispatchers repeatedly urged terrified callers to climb to higher ground as deputies tried to make their way to them. The uncertain reassurance hangs in the recordings like a held breath, a testament to both the limits of the system and the unbearable human cost of that night.
“We just needed somebody to know that we were here,” one caller told a dispatcher.
The dispatchers answered a total of 435 calls over the next six hours, the police chief said, including more than 100 between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. The 911 calls are being released to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests, McCall said.
Some of the calls were transferred to a nearby dispatch center to help relieve the call load, as is protocol in high call volume situations, McCall added.
After dispatchers got “the basic critical information” and could no longer help over the phone, they faced “a difficult decision to disconnect and move on to the next call,” McCall said.
Callers plead for children’s lives as camp cabins flood
In the midst of the raging floodwaters and the haunting calls from screaming victims struggling to survive, two children’s camps became epicenters of terror.
By the end of the tragedy, the flooding deaths included 25 girls and two counselors who were swept away from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian camp situated along the banks of the Guadalupe River.
The first call from Camp Mystic came at 3:57 a.m., an astonishingly calm voice reporting that some campers were stranded on a hill while cabins across the bridge were already filling with water.
Another caller, this one confused and frantic, explained that their cabins were flooding while terrified voices and screams echoed in the background. The dispatcher, unable to do anything else, simply urged her to go as high as they could.
A resident a mile downriver from the camp called and reported finding two young campers who had been swept from the camp.
“We’ve already got two little girls who have come down the river, and we’ve gotten to them,” a woman told a dispatcher. “But I’m not sure how many else are out there.”
And then a Camp Mystic director’s voice broke through the line, telling the dispatcher that as many as 20 to 40 people were missing – faces, names, lives suddenly reduced to numbers in a river.
At Camp La Junta, a boys’ camp along the South Fork of the Guadalupe River, the desperation was just as immediate. One caller’s voice rushed through the line: “We need desperate help. We’ve got kids trapped in cabins that we cannot get to…Now, now, now … we’ve got tons of small children … Please, please, please.”
The cabins were beginning to cave in, the caller said. With the floodwaters pressing in, there was no time to wait.
Another caller, clinging to the rafters of a cabin rooftop, pleaded for the children beneath him. “We are 100% trapped,” he said. “I’m not worried about myself. I’m worried about these kids right here, because we cannot have one of these kids falling under the water.”
In every call, the helplessness was palpable and the heartbreak immediate. It was a flood that spared no one, not even children, taken in the dark before anyone could reach them.
The families of more than a dozen Camp Mystic victims filed lawsuits against the camp and its owners last month.
Attorney Mark Lanier, who represents some of the families, said the release of the 911 calls may shed light on the tragic events of July 4, though it will likely deepen the parents’ grief.
“Our clients continue to suffer unimaginable heartbreak and grief from the loss of their babies,” Lanier told CNN on Friday, emphasizing that the families remain determined to uncover every factor that led to the deaths of their daughters and to hold those responsible accountable.
Dispatchers “did their best”
The City of Kerrville issued a statement acknowledging that the 911 calls’ release “will bring up strong emotions,” but that it “presents another moment to affirm who we are: a united, resilient community determined to recover and rebuild.”
“I’m immensely proud of our telecommunications operators,” McCall, the police chief, said. “These public safety team members showed incredible perseverance as they faced high call volumes and did their best to provide assistance and comfort to every caller.”
The chief also encouraged those who have struggled with the tragedy to get support, saying all members of the police department have participated in peer support meetings.
The local emergency response to the July Fourth flooding was heavily scrutinized by the community, who alleged local officials were unprepared for the weather event that ripped the rolling countryside to shreds.
In September, Texas lawmakers enacted new camp safety laws aimed at addressing gaps in disaster preparedness by strengthening requirements and streamlining the emergency response. The owners of Camp Mystic said this week they plan to exceed those requirements when a portion of the camp reopens next summer, according to The Associated Press.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN’s Taylor Romine, Stephanie Matarazzo, Graham Hurley, Sarah Moon, Julia Vargas Jones, Sarah Dewberry, Andy Rose, Toni Odejimi, Rebekah Riess, Isa Mudannayake, Ellen Rittiner and Christina Zdanowicz contributed to this report.
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