Newly released 911 audio recordings have laid bare the sheer terror and desperation that gripped residents of Texas Hill Country as catastrophic floods swept through the region on the July 4 holiday, claiming at least 136 lives. The heart-wrenching calls, made public by the Kerrville police, document the disaster minute by minute, from the first uneasy warnings to the final, panic-stricken pleas for rescue.
The Night the River Rose: A Timeline of Terror
In the early hours of July 4, exceptional rainfall caused the Guadalupe River to overflow its banks without warning, inundating Kerr County. More than 400 emergency calls flooded the county's telecommunications centre that night, overwhelming the two dispatchers on duty. The recordings show how a handful of calm, almost prophetic calls quickly erupted into sheer chaos.
Frantic voices captured residents trapped in cabins, clinging to trees, and scrambling onto rooftops. A camp counsellor at Camp La Junta reported in a desperate tone, "There’s water filling up super fast, we can’t get out of our cabin. We can’t get out of our cabin, so how do we get to the boats?" Fortunately, all occupants of that camp were later rescued.
However, the scene was far grimmer at the century-old Camp Mystic. Among the dead were 25 campers and two teenage counsellors from the all-girls summer camp. One caller from the camp told dispatchers, "There is water everywhere, we cannot move. We are upstairs in a room and the water is rising." The caller later asked how to reach the roof, pleading for boats to be sent immediately.
Voices from the Flood: Stories of Survival and Loss
The 911 tapes feature harrowing accounts from camp counsellors, residents, and even first responders caught in the deluge. In one of the most chilling calls, firefighter Bradley Perry remained calm despite his dire situation. "The tree I’m in is starting to lean and it’s going to fall. Is there a helicopter close?" he asked, adding, "I’ve probably got maybe five minutes left." Tragically, Perry did not survive, though his wife Tina was later found alive, also clinging to a tree.
Other calls recorded families making desperate bids for survival. A woman in a riverside cabin community reported, "We are flooding, and we have people in cabins we can’t get to. We are flooding almost all the way to the top." In the background of some calls, the faint voices of terrified children can be heard.
As daylight approached, the call volume surged. Dispatchers, overwhelmed but struggling to maintain composure, consistently advised callers to seek refuge on rooftops or move to higher ground. The scale of the overnight Guadalupe River flooding prompted chaotic rescue efforts by first responders and volunteers using boats and emergency vehicles.
Aftermath and Accountability Questions
The final death toll from the holiday weekend floods reached at least 136 people statewide, with 117 of those fatalities occurring in Kerr County. Most victims were Texas residents, though the county list also included people from Alabama, California, and Florida.
In the wake of the disaster, serious questions have been raised about the adequacy of early warnings. Residents and officials have questioned whether sufficient alerts were issued before the floods struck. Revelations that two county officials were asleep during the initial hours of the crisis and a third was out of town have added to the scrutiny.
Kerrville Police Chief Chris McCall warned that some of the released audio is deeply unsettling, as it includes calls from individuals who ultimately did not survive. The public release of these 911 recordings serves as a sombre, minute-by-minute testament to a community's fight for survival against a sudden and merciless natural disaster.
