Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 14, 2025


President Trump in the Texas Hill Country, Meeting w First Responders & Families who Lost Loved Ones


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

166.62857

Word count

5,588

Sentence count

462

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) returns to the Hill Country to discuss the devastating flooding that has hit the area, and talks with First Lady Michelle and President Donald Trump about their visit to the area Friday to meet with first responders and families.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.420 Senator, it's nice to be back with you in studio.
00:00:08.100 We're here in Texas.
00:00:09.600 It has been a very tough last week.
00:00:12.060 You spent a lot of time with victims, families.
00:00:15.640 You spent a lot of time with first responders.
00:00:17.860 You spent time with local elected officials.
00:00:20.140 And even with the President of the United States of America in Kerrville,
00:00:22.980 there's such sad stories that have come out of this tragedy,
00:00:25.800 but also a lot of hope for just humanity
00:00:29.360 and seeing people come together.
00:00:31.480 Well, it's been just over a week since the horrific flooding
00:00:34.060 in Kerr County and throughout the Hill Country
00:00:36.740 had a devastating impact.
00:00:40.440 We are still searching at this point for bodies.
00:00:43.960 To date, 129 people have been confirmed killed in that flooding.
00:00:49.060 Many of those were children.
00:00:50.840 There are an additional 173 people that we know of that are still missing.
00:00:56.140 Search and rescue teams are out searching right now.
00:00:58.460 Unfortunately, the Hill Country is right now, as you and I speak,
00:01:01.820 under another flash flood warning.
00:01:03.600 So they've suspended some of the searches
00:01:05.140 because there's heavy rains that are occurring there right now.
00:01:09.060 I can tell you, I just today spoke with a family whose little girl's remains
00:01:15.160 were discovered yesterday.
00:01:17.200 We're at a stage now, we're far enough away that if you have someone missing,
00:01:22.420 the odds are becoming almost unavoidable that at this point it's a search for remains
00:01:28.700 and in some instances partial remains.
00:01:31.340 The damage that was done from a massive wall of water, from trees and cars and debris
00:01:37.680 is horrific, and we're in the process of picking up and coming back together.
00:01:44.980 On Friday, I joined President Trump in going to the Hill Country.
00:01:49.700 We flew down together on Air Force One.
00:01:52.160 The president and I met with first responders, met with families.
00:01:55.360 We had a roundtable.
00:01:56.800 It was powerful.
00:01:58.080 The first lady came as well. 1.00
00:01:59.720 We're going to take you in inside what happened there,
00:02:02.820 what we learned, and what's going to happen next.
00:02:05.960 Yeah, it's a lot to cover today.
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00:03:45.420 Senator, you mentioned Friday that you flew down with the President and the First Lady.
00:03:49.680 You guys were in Washington, D.C. at that point.
00:03:51.420 You flew back into Texas.
00:03:53.220 You were there early in the week as well.
00:03:55.300 And I think one of the things that people don't see is the amount of compassion
00:03:59.280 many times that the President and the First Lady have in these types of scenarios.
00:04:03.700 Donald Trump is a guy that actually has a huge heart.
00:04:06.540 He loves helping.
00:04:09.000 He loves listening to people that are going through tough times.
00:04:11.760 We've seen that through his whole career.
00:04:13.280 What was it like being with him and telling him about what you'd seen earlier in the week in Texas?
00:04:17.340 Well, listen, I was very glad he decided to come.
00:04:19.420 And I'm glad he decided to come when he did, which was Friday a week after.
00:04:23.740 There had been some discussion about his coming earlier, say, Monday or Tuesday.
00:04:27.980 And the reason he decided not to is that when he comes in, they shut down the airspace.
00:04:31.860 And the President coming to town shuts down the roads.
00:04:35.240 It's a huge logistical nightmare.
00:04:37.780 I think the White House made the right decision that when you have active search and rescue
00:04:41.620 going a million different directions, it's not helpful to have the President come in right in the middle of it.
00:04:47.300 A week later, after much of the search and rescue has happened, that's the right time
00:04:51.480 when everyone is dealing with the grief for him to come in.
00:04:54.440 And so I met him at Andrews Air Force Base, and we took off from there.
00:04:59.860 I will say, on kind of a lighter note, there was a moment as we were getting ready to take
00:05:03.800 off of the plane that I sent you a picture.
00:05:06.300 And I appreciate that picture.
00:05:08.400 So I was in the conference room on Air Force One.
00:05:11.460 The President was boarding.
00:05:12.620 We're getting ready to take off.
00:05:13.860 And there's a TV screen right there in the conference room.
00:05:16.440 And boom, whose smiling mug was there?
00:05:19.280 But you were on Fox News that morning.
00:05:21.360 You were talking on Fox News.
00:05:23.660 And so I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of you on Air Force One.
00:05:27.700 You joined us for the morning.
00:05:28.940 I was glad of it.
00:05:29.700 We flew together.
00:05:31.080 Just you were there in real life, and I was on the screen.
00:05:33.260 I'll take whatever I can get.
00:05:34.300 I showed the picture of my kids, by the way.
00:05:35.940 And they were like, that's Air Force One.
00:05:37.480 I was like, that's Air Force One.
00:05:38.480 Daddy hasn't been on there in 24 years, but it's still the coolest plane in the world.
00:05:41.700 So we flew down Friday morning.
00:05:43.720 The President was on the plane.
00:05:45.500 Melania, the First Lady, came on the plane. 0.98
00:05:47.140 And then we also had John Cornyn joined us.
00:05:49.440 Wesley Hunt joined us.
00:05:50.420 And then there were several cabinet members who came.
00:05:52.040 Brooke Rollins, a Texan, the head of Secretary of Agriculture.
00:05:56.800 Scott Turner, another Texan, Secretary of HUD.
00:06:01.640 We also had Kelly Loeffler, the administrator of the Small Business Administration.
00:06:07.160 So we all flew down, spent quite a bit of time talking with the President,
00:06:10.880 talking with the President about what was going on on the ground, just how bad it was.
00:06:13.900 And then when we landed, President Trump took a helicopter tour and examined some of the devastation
00:06:22.100 and met some of the first responders on the ground.
00:06:25.800 We flew in Chinook helicopters down to Kerrville, where we met with first responders,
00:06:33.700 and we heard the latest in terms of the search and rescue, how they're systematically going through
00:06:39.160 different areas with helicopters, with drones, with ground search and rescue, with dogs that are searching.
00:06:49.540 They put in place a burn ban because there's debris everywhere,
00:06:53.220 but you don't want to accidentally burn the remains of someone who was killed.
00:06:57.260 So they're holding off before any debris can be burned.
00:07:00.320 They've got to clear through it and make sure that there are no remains within it.
00:07:04.820 They usually send in a cadaver dog to make sure of that.
00:07:09.180 And then we sat and did a roundtable with President Trump and with local leaders.
00:07:16.020 And I will tell you, I think the President and First Lady did a really effective job.
00:07:21.240 Here's President Trump early on in that roundtable talking about the federal response
00:07:27.060 and all the heroic rescues we saw.
00:07:29.400 Here, give a listen.
00:07:29.940 The administration is doing everything in its power to help Texas.
00:07:34.280 And I can tell you that, and the governor will be the first to tell you that when the request was made
00:07:40.780 for the emergency funds, Christy, I think we gave it within about two minutes, maybe less.
00:07:46.100 And they had everything they needed, right?
00:07:47.900 Right.
00:07:48.280 Immediately.
00:07:49.100 So we've deployed over 400 first responders and assisted or enabled more than 1,500 rescues.
00:07:56.600 Amazing.
00:07:57.080 1,500 Customers and Border Protection and the U.S. Coast Guard have deployed numerous search
00:08:02.620 and rescue crews.
00:08:03.720 And they're all over the territory.
00:08:07.360 It really is amazing to see how the government came together.
00:08:11.360 You witnessed it when you were down there Sunday, Monday.
00:08:14.780 You get to witness it again later in the week.
00:08:16.940 But he's not exaggerating when he says everyone's working together to try to find people and help
00:08:24.080 those that were devastated by this flood.
00:08:25.840 Well, that's right.
00:08:27.040 And it very much is a cooperative effort between the local government, both the city
00:08:31.380 and county, and the state government and the federal government.
00:08:34.700 And I will say, Texas, unfortunately, has a lot of experience dealing with natural disasters.
00:08:42.240 Hurricanes.
00:08:42.400 And I think between hurricanes and floods and tornadoes and wildfires, the Texas Emergency
00:08:49.900 Response Team just has a lot of experience.
00:08:52.300 It's not our first rodeo.
00:08:53.580 And so they respond very effectively in terms of marshalling assets.
00:08:59.440 I can tell you, in the first few hours of this flood, when I was talking to the governor
00:09:02.940 and the lieutenant governor and Nim Kidd, who heads the Texas Department of Emergency Management,
00:09:09.060 all of them, at the time, they said they had every federal asset they needed.
00:09:13.280 I spoke with President Trump that first day.
00:09:15.240 And I said, this is bad.
00:09:16.820 We're going to need real help.
00:09:18.160 He said, anything Texas needs, yes, yes, yes, is the answer.
00:09:22.300 And so we had that commitment.
00:09:23.900 We had the resources surged on the ground.
00:09:26.600 And a little bit later in the roundtable, here's an observation the president made about
00:09:30.500 what he had seen in Texas.
00:09:33.440 You know, two words, unity and competence.
00:09:36.100 If you were to ask me, two words that I've seen here.
00:09:39.980 One is unity.
00:09:40.880 The unity has been unbelievable.
00:09:42.380 And then the competence, the competence of the Coast Guard and some of the people within
00:09:47.220 the Coast Guard that saved a lot of lives.
00:09:49.260 They went out and they saved a lot of lives.
00:09:51.140 But there were others other than the Coast Guard.
00:09:53.160 But I would say competence and unity, the way everyone has just pulled together.
00:09:58.680 It's rare that you see this.
00:10:01.120 Mr. President.
00:10:01.880 Again, I've been to so many and I've seen bickering and fighting and, you know, just
00:10:07.040 it doesn't work the same way.
00:10:08.440 This has been amazing.
00:10:09.300 This is and this is the biggest because I've never seen one like this.
00:10:12.480 Neither has anybody else, by the way.
00:10:14.420 He's right.
00:10:15.100 I go back and I remember when I was at the White House, when Katrina happened, we saw that
00:10:20.220 bickering he's mentioning.
00:10:21.440 And I listened and watched it firsthand on August the 26th, August 27th, August 28th.
00:10:26.880 Hurricane hits the 29th.
00:10:28.520 The devastation where you had just because of politics, you had certain people in the mayor's
00:10:33.020 office and in the governor's office and then the White House and the reserves.
00:10:36.800 And it was like, why?
00:10:37.880 There are people that are hurting.
00:10:39.200 And I'm so thankful that you mentioned this because this is where we got so many things
00:10:43.000 right this past week.
00:10:44.380 Well, and I'll tell you, in visiting with some of the senior officials in the state who deal
00:10:48.700 with emergencies over and over and over again, one of them told me, said, of everything we've
00:10:54.480 seen, this is the worst.
00:10:56.340 And I got to say, I agree with that.
00:10:58.100 And I've been on the ground for many, many disasters, tragedies, tragedies with very significant
00:11:05.260 loss of life.
00:11:06.760 So you're grieving.
00:11:07.980 But I got to say, they're just something different about little kids.
00:11:11.880 Amen.
00:11:12.000 The little girls in the bubble in camp, the eight and nine-year-old third graders whose
00:11:19.580 lives were lost.
00:11:21.620 Every one of us as parents, every loss of life is a tragedy.
00:11:26.260 But this touches really deep.
00:11:30.520 The round table, the president asked me to express my thoughts.
00:11:34.500 Here's what I had to say to the president on Friday.
00:11:36.640 Well, Mr. President, I want to say thank you for being here.
00:11:40.180 First Lady, thank you for being here.
00:11:43.040 Where we are right now, the hill country, is a very special part of the state.
00:11:47.300 It is universally considered the most beautiful part of the state.
00:11:51.260 You've got rolling hills.
00:11:52.460 You've got these incredible, peaceful, wonderful rivers.
00:11:56.140 The Guadalupe River, just about all of us have been swimming in that river, floating in
00:12:00.460 that river.
00:12:00.920 And one of the things that's really special about Kirk County is there are 40 summer camps
00:12:05.820 here.
00:12:06.140 This is a place where all across Texas our kids go.
00:12:09.880 The governor's daughter came every year to camp here.
00:12:13.580 Both of you know our girls really well.
00:12:15.940 Heidi, the week before this flood, was here in Hunt picking up our daughter Catherine from
00:12:21.440 camp.
00:12:22.880 And Camp Mystic, that faced such devastating loss, is an institution in this state.
00:12:30.540 It's 100 years old.
00:12:32.100 It was founded in 1926.
00:12:33.880 And I'll tell you in Texas, it's not just here that the herd has felled.
00:12:37.600 It's every part of the state, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, West Texas, East Texas.
00:12:43.220 Texans have gone.
00:12:44.200 And what's amazing is you see at the closing ceremonies of these camps, you see multiple
00:12:49.980 generations.
00:12:50.660 You'll see grandmothers and moms and little girls who have all gone to the same camp.
00:12:54.940 And the pain that the state is feeling, and on Monday I went and walked through Camp Mystic.
00:13:02.860 In the center of the camp is a cabin called the Bubble Inn, where the littlest girls were 0.99
00:13:09.360 staying.
00:13:10.660 And in front of the Bubble Inn are, right now, 17 small white crosses in the ground.
00:13:16.640 And each cross has the name of another little girl who lost her life.
00:13:21.680 And the final cross has the name of Dick Eastland, the camp director who gave his life trying to
00:13:27.660 save his girls.
00:13:29.500 And the water rose in that camp, and in that cabin, eight feet high.
00:13:34.760 You can see the water line eight feet high.
00:13:37.240 It blew the windows out of the cabin, and it swept those girls out. 0.99
00:13:40.680 I will tell you, I've never seen anything more horrible in my life, and I just sat there
00:13:44.820 crying.
00:13:46.440 I saw a mom and dad come up to one of those crosses, drop to their knees, and kiss that
00:13:50.840 cross.
00:13:52.280 And the mom was weeping.
00:13:54.200 I also want to tell you, and you said this, you talked about unity.
00:13:58.300 The way this community, the way the state is coming together is incredible.
00:14:02.980 There are stories of heroism.
00:14:05.060 I met a mom and dad who had a 14-year-old boy at Camp La Junta, a boys' camp.
00:14:11.780 Their 14-year-old son was awakened at 3 in the morning.
00:14:14.820 The water was rising.
00:14:15.840 The counselor said, let's go save the little boys.
00:14:18.980 And they went down to the 7, 8, 9-year-old boys and pulled them out of their camps through
00:14:23.280 the crashing water.
00:14:24.500 And this mom and dad were crying.
00:14:26.420 Now, their son survived.
00:14:28.360 And I said, look, your son will always have this trauma.
00:14:30.920 You will always have this trauma.
00:14:32.200 But at the same time, your son will always know when he was 14 years old that there are
00:14:37.860 little boys and one day there are men who are alive because he had the courage as a 14-year-old
00:14:43.940 to risk his life to save them.
00:14:46.540 And so we are grateful you're here.
00:14:48.300 And I will say something Chip referenced is very true.
00:14:51.700 There's a video of a school bus full of campers from Mystic after this crisis riding past the
00:14:59.800 devastation.
00:15:00.540 And they are singing Christian hymns.
00:15:03.200 And I promise you there's not a person here who can watch that video and not weep.
00:15:08.500 Tears of sorrow, but also tears of joy.
00:15:11.320 So we are grateful for the response.
00:15:13.800 Governor, the first responders, everyone who's come together.
00:15:18.100 And to all the moms and dads, just know we love you.
00:15:20.380 The agony, my street at home, every house has a green ribbon around it for the girls at Mystic.
00:15:28.940 And that's true in a lot of streets all throughout Texas.
00:15:31.820 And we will come through this one way or the other.
00:15:34.660 I'll tell you, the Hunt Store right now, the sign says Hunt Store, except today it doesn't.
00:15:38.880 It says Hunt Strong.
00:15:40.180 They redid the sign.
00:15:42.300 That's the spirit of who we are.
00:15:44.460 Thank you, Ted, very much.
00:15:46.820 The heroes that have come out of this, that 14-year-old, I have three boys.
00:15:51.340 I know that my dad, when he was raising me, wanted me to be a strong young man that would
00:15:56.960 do what that 14-year-old did.
00:15:58.380 I want to raise my boys to be the same way.
00:16:00.860 But for that family to know their son made a difference and literally saved people's lives
00:16:04.700 is an incredible, I think, story of the good that has come out of such a horrific event.
00:16:10.140 You also met other heroes.
00:16:12.100 One that went viral this past week was a guy that was saving literally more than, I think
00:16:17.980 it was 164 lives.
00:16:19.400 It's amazing.
00:16:20.100 165, yeah.
00:16:20.480 Scott Ruskin.
00:16:21.180 He's a Coast Guard swimmer.
00:16:24.240 And here you can see, I met Scott when I was down in the Hill Country.
00:16:30.560 He's 25 years old.
00:16:32.780 And, you know, we've talked before about how the Coast Guard swimmers, these guys are badass.
00:16:37.180 I mean, the analogy I use, it's like a Navy SEAL and a California surfer combined together.
00:16:45.200 And it's so accurate.
00:16:46.880 I mean, it's so accurate.
00:16:48.020 So Scott's comment, like in the press this week, was, I'm just a dude.
00:16:52.060 Yeah, I'm just a dude doing a job.
00:16:54.020 Which is a very swimmer thing to say.
00:16:56.720 Yeah.
00:16:57.340 But the early morning of the flooding, they put him on the ground at Cat Mystic.
00:17:02.260 And he spent three and a half hours there with the girls on a field that was the highest point of Mystic.
00:17:08.600 And he loaded 165 girls onto helicopters.
00:17:13.280 And they evacuated them on helicopters.
00:17:16.000 They had about 15 girls per helicopter. 1.00
00:17:18.900 And the girls, you know, you've got to picture this scene. 0.99
00:17:21.260 It's pitch black.
00:17:22.260 It's still nighttime.
00:17:23.440 The rain is...
00:17:24.500 Still coming.
00:17:25.220 ...pelting down.
00:17:26.760 The girls are in their pajamas.
00:17:28.860 They're missing shoes.
00:17:30.720 Many of them are crying.
00:17:32.320 They're scared.
00:17:33.760 Some of them are looking for their friends.
00:17:36.600 Some of them are looking for their younger sisters who they can't find.
00:17:40.000 They're terrified.
00:17:41.360 Some of them were singing Christian hymns.
00:17:45.140 And Scott was comforting each of them, putting them...
00:17:48.560 When I talked to him, he'd just gotten off the phone with a mom and dad who had called him with their daughter.
00:17:56.780 And they said, you saved our daughter's life.
00:17:58.920 They said she was scared out of her mind.
00:18:01.080 And you held her hands.
00:18:02.640 You picked her up and loaded her into a helicopter.
00:18:05.400 And as you did, you held her hands.
00:18:07.040 You told her, it's going to be all right.
00:18:08.300 You're going to be okay.
00:18:09.160 And this hero and, you know, laid-back swimmer, he was reduced to tears.
00:18:21.440 That heroism was happening day after day after day.
00:18:39.160 You look at the last little over a week and you talk about we're still trying to find people.
00:19:01.160 You talk about, you know, I say this not really sarcastically, finally the government got it right.
00:19:06.140 The response was incredible.
00:19:07.640 And seeing people work together, seeing how strong the people are in Texas.
00:19:12.920 What was your takeaway even from Monday to Friday, being there and seeing how quickly people are still actively helping?
00:19:22.220 They're still out there searching.
00:19:23.800 They're still trying to help their fellow man and woman in Texas.
00:19:26.820 Look, they're working hard.
00:19:28.160 And you've got volunteers coming in like crazy.
00:19:31.520 You've got people coming in from all over the state that are contributing.
00:19:34.960 The Community Foundation in Kirk County has received over $30 million in contributions in just a week.
00:19:42.920 They've already distributed over $5 million as they're trying to give money just to help people get back on their feet right on the ground.
00:19:50.320 And listen, there's also lots of confusion.
00:19:53.040 I will say I've spoken now to quite a few parents and people who lost loved ones.
00:19:59.400 And there's frustration early on.
00:20:01.660 It's hard to get information.
00:20:03.160 I'll tell you, the moms and dads who had girls missing at Mystic, I would be getting phone calls and texts.
00:20:08.800 Do you know anything about where my daughter is?
00:20:11.100 And what you want to answer yes, and the frustrating thing is that you don't.
00:20:15.620 And so you'd say, look, I'll try to connect you with the head of emergency management.
00:20:19.320 I'll try to connect you with the sheriff, like the people on the ground.
00:20:23.500 But in many cases, they're just out search teams looking.
00:20:26.680 And until they find the remains, there's nothing to be told other than we're still looking.
00:20:32.900 That frustration was real.
00:20:34.700 Well, I'll tell you, there was an article just came out in Texas Monthly about what happened.
00:20:40.700 And I want to take a few minutes and actually read a significant portion of the article.
00:20:44.680 The article is by a fellow named Aaron Parsley, and it's entitled The River House Broke, We Rushed in the River.
00:20:51.160 And he's telling a firsthand story about his family that had a house right along the Waterloo River.
00:20:58.640 I want you just to listen to this.
00:20:59.740 Rosemary, the four-year-old, woke up first.
00:21:05.400 She told my brother-in-law, Lance, that there was something on the roof.
00:21:09.860 Seven of us were at my family's river house on the Guadalupe, between Ingram and Hunt, for the fourth.
00:21:15.920 Our little stretch of river is wide, green, cool, deep, and slow.
00:21:20.400 It's some of the best swimming anywhere and one of the most beautiful spots in Texas, as far as I'm concerned.
00:21:26.520 I've spent many peaceful afternoons there.
00:21:28.840 Floating and staring up at the cypress trees that tower over the water.
00:21:34.120 The house, a one-story cabin on stilts about 50 yards from the river, up the steeply sloped yard,
00:21:40.960 was built right after the 1987 flood that devastated this region, killing 10 teenagers.
00:21:48.240 Concrete pillars put our family's place a few feet above what officials consider the 100-year floodplain.
00:21:55.340 More than once, I'd tried to imagine the waters rising that high, but it seemed impossible.
00:22:02.680 I woke around 3 a.m. to the sound of thunder and rain.
00:22:06.520 My only thought was I hope it stops so I can go on an early morning run.
00:22:11.140 Shortly before 4.30, I would later learn,
00:22:13.760 Rosemary climbed down from the top bunk of the kids' bedroom and went to get her father.
00:22:20.800 Lance stepped out of bed to see what was causing all the pounding and creaking.
00:22:24.640 I stirred about that time, too, and heard what I figured was the kids running around the house,
00:22:29.700 excited by the storm.
00:22:30.780 What's going on, I asked.
00:22:33.940 We're in trouble, Dad said.
00:22:36.220 Big trouble.
00:22:37.740 I looked past them.
00:22:39.880 The river was as high as the deck, 20 feet above the ground.
00:22:46.560 We talked through our options.
00:22:49.100 Getting onto the roof was impossible.
00:22:51.740 We had no ladder, and the eaves were about 8 feet above the deck.
00:22:55.260 Patrick weighed whether we could all climb through a window onto the live oak whose branches were near the back of the house,
00:23:02.140 then realized it wasn't reachable.
00:23:05.240 Lance called 911, but the dispatcher said he didn't know when anyone could get to us.
00:23:13.180 As we reassembled in the kitchen, the vinyl flooring under our feet started to bubble.
00:23:19.740 Then water began to pool.
00:23:21.980 My dad walked into the bedroom and saw the carpet floating off the floor.
00:23:27.320 The river's musty scent permeated the house, mixed with what smelled like freshly chopped wood.
00:23:35.820 My sister sat rosemary and clay on the kitchen island countertop.
00:23:42.580 Rosemary was 4 and clay was 20 months old.
00:23:45.220 We discussed whether we could get them higher,
00:23:47.920 maybe even on top of the cabinets in the small space below the ceiling.
00:23:53.620 Then the roof over the porch crashed down,
00:23:57.720 and we heard glass shatter in my father's room, just off the kitchen.
00:24:02.940 Rosemary asked,
00:24:04.460 Why did the window break?
00:24:07.380 Clay started to cry.
00:24:08.440 When the sliding glass doors opened and water poured in,
00:24:12.420 Lance ran to it, shoved it closed, and held it shut.
00:24:15.900 The pendant lamps began to swing wildly over the kitchen counter.
00:24:20.300 The house was shifting.
00:24:22.040 It lurched sharply, and we all struggled to stay on our feet.
00:24:27.080 It felt like walking down the aisle of a plane during strong turbulence.
00:24:31.740 We're moving.
00:24:34.480 We're moving, Patrick said.
00:24:37.400 The realization was terrifying.
00:24:40.100 The rushing, still-rising water had lifted the house off its pillars.
00:24:46.960 It was afloat, and then it wasn't.
00:24:51.020 I saw part of the deck rip away.
00:24:53.520 I heard windows break from every corner.
00:24:56.020 Cracks split the walls.
00:24:58.100 We crashed into something, probably a tree.
00:25:00.240 I don't know how long it took.
00:25:02.320 Ten seconds, maybe fifteen, for the house to come apart.
00:25:07.860 Alyssa managed to keep both kids on the countertop,
00:25:10.600 one hand on each, still trying to reassure them.
00:25:13.680 As the house came undone, she grabbed one in each arm.
00:25:17.880 This is the part that will forever haunt me.
00:25:20.960 If I or anyone else had been closer to them, we would have helped her.
00:25:25.500 We would have grabbed one of the kids,
00:25:27.320 but we simply didn't know that we were about to be plunged into the water.
00:25:32.580 We simply didn't know.
00:25:35.500 As we were thrust into churning water,
00:25:38.240 into darkness,
00:25:40.340 our disintegrating house sucked us down into the river.
00:25:44.620 The last thing I remember from inside the house
00:25:46.980 was seeing the refrigerator coming at me.
00:25:49.840 Patrick saw the countertop tear away from the kitchen island
00:25:54.280 with Alyssa and the kids on it.
00:25:57.720 As the river carried me downstream,
00:25:59.940 I struggled to stay above water.
00:26:02.840 I was surrounded by branches,
00:26:04.500 by twisted metal,
00:26:05.780 by uprooted trees,
00:26:07.140 by countless smaller objects,
00:26:09.640 bottles of sunscreen,
00:26:10.980 books,
00:26:11.760 couch cushions,
00:26:12.580 coolers,
00:26:13.300 that came from inside our home
00:26:15.660 or somebody else's.
00:26:17.820 I realized I had lost my shoes
00:26:20.140 and my phone.
00:26:21.960 I grabbed at every branch
00:26:23.300 and every tree that was still standing.
00:26:24.940 A few snapped off in my hands,
00:26:27.380 leaving me with a fistful of leaves.
00:26:29.660 I managed to briefly hold onto one,
00:26:31.900 perhaps for a few seconds,
00:26:33.580 until the force of the water
00:26:35.260 and the constant assault from debris
00:26:37.060 ripped me away.
00:26:40.040 I latched onto a tree
00:26:41.480 with branches large enough to support me
00:26:43.200 and pulled myself out of the water.
00:26:45.260 My breathing was frantic,
00:26:47.840 but my mind was focused.
00:26:50.040 I considered the possibility of death.
00:26:53.200 I thought if I survive,
00:26:55.060 I'll be the only one.
00:26:57.940 The tree began to crack, creak, and moan.
00:27:02.200 Then it slowly fell into the river.
00:27:05.460 And so did I.
00:27:07.100 I reached for another tree
00:27:08.500 and climbed as high as I could,
00:27:09.800 a couple of feet above the rushing water.
00:27:11.380 I stepped up to a higher branch
00:27:14.080 and then another.
00:27:15.660 If this tree collapsed,
00:27:17.320 I wasn't sure
00:27:18.620 if I would fight to stay above the water again.
00:27:23.080 I pleaded with the tree to hold me,
00:27:25.560 to withstand the power of the river.
00:27:28.960 Please, I whispered.
00:27:31.160 Please.
00:27:33.000 Over the roar of the water
00:27:34.300 and the crackling of the trees,
00:27:36.100 I heard screaming.
00:27:36.820 It was guttural, primal.
00:27:40.680 Who's there, I called.
00:27:43.100 I'm in a tree too.
00:27:44.340 We have to hang on.
00:27:45.360 Someone will help.
00:27:47.100 It's Alyssa,
00:27:48.780 my sister screamed. 0.95
00:27:51.100 I'm with Rosemary.
00:27:53.380 Clay is gone.
00:27:55.160 The memory of those words will never leave me.
00:27:58.140 A combination of profound relief
00:28:00.100 and unbearable sadness overwhelms me now,
00:28:03.200 even as I type this.
00:28:05.180 Alyssa and I kept yelling to each other,
00:28:07.800 though neither of us could clearly make out
00:28:09.600 what the other was saying.
00:28:11.580 Be strong for Rosemary,
00:28:13.640 I implored.
00:28:14.340 You have to survive this.
00:28:17.000 Intermittently,
00:28:17.960 I could hear just one word.
00:28:20.460 Clay.
00:28:22.140 As Alyssa cried out for her son.
00:28:25.000 Then I noticed Patrick running along the riverbank.
00:28:27.720 I couldn't believe he was there,
00:28:29.340 fully dressed,
00:28:30.160 wearing his tank top and shorts,
00:28:31.660 his shoes somehow still on.
00:28:33.060 He had lost only his wedding ring,
00:28:35.460 he told me later.
00:28:37.080 Patrick, I'm here, I yelled.
00:28:39.220 For the first time,
00:28:40.240 I thought we had a shot at surviving.
00:28:42.860 Patrick was the first normal thing
00:28:44.460 since the house broke apart.
00:28:46.240 It was like being alone on an alien planet
00:28:48.460 and another human being randomly arrives.
00:28:51.580 And then Lance came jogging up after him.
00:28:54.340 They'd ended up in the same pecan tree,
00:28:56.280 about 200 feet away from the riverbank
00:28:58.000 and about 2,000 feet
00:28:59.220 from where our house once stood.
00:29:00.760 Lance has a watch with a flashlight
00:29:03.500 that he'd turned on
00:29:04.520 after Rosemary woke him up.
00:29:07.320 Patrick said he spotted the beam
00:29:08.840 after he climbed into the tree.
00:29:10.680 They were only a few yards apart,
00:29:12.560 close enough that they could talk without yelling.
00:29:15.900 Lance kept repeating,
00:29:18.140 my son,
00:29:19.040 my daughter,
00:29:20.100 there's no way.
00:29:22.860 In the river's roiling churn,
00:29:24.760 with Rosemary clinging to her neck
00:29:27.520 while she paddled with one arm,
00:29:30.220 Alyssa had somehow managed
00:29:31.480 to push her daughter onto a branch, 0.76
00:29:33.820 which Rosemary hugged
00:29:35.640 with her arms and legs,
00:29:37.840 lying flat.
00:29:39.700 Alyssa stayed in the water just below her,
00:29:41.620 gripping the tree's trunk.
00:29:43.400 And as the waters receded,
00:29:44.800 she stood uncomfortably
00:29:45.940 on a branch below her.
00:29:48.520 Alyssa would tell me five days later
00:29:50.560 that Rosemary
00:29:52.340 wanted to play
00:29:53.960 I Spy
00:29:54.660 while they waded in the tree.
00:29:58.460 Patrick waded into the water
00:30:00.000 to intercept a blue kayak
00:30:01.380 that was floating by.
00:30:03.120 An older couple
00:30:04.140 watching from a house
00:30:05.100 on a nearby hill
00:30:06.020 brought Lance and Patrick
00:30:08.020 an inflatable inner tube
00:30:09.300 and they decided the tube
00:30:10.500 was the better option
00:30:11.340 to catch Rosemary.
00:30:13.140 More control,
00:30:14.840 softer landing.
00:30:15.660 After that,
00:30:18.020 Rosemary's rescue
00:30:18.880 happened quickly.
00:30:21.180 Patrick and Lance
00:30:21.960 rigged the inner tube
00:30:22.960 with a green garden hose
00:30:24.140 they found
00:30:24.660 and tied it around
00:30:25.460 a downed tree.
00:30:27.220 Lance waded into the water,
00:30:28.620 positioning the tube
00:30:29.440 beneath his daughter.
00:30:31.580 I stood downriver,
00:30:33.420 ready to catch Rosemary
00:30:34.620 if she missed the target
00:30:37.080 and got caught in the stream.
00:30:39.660 Alyssa urged us to hurry,
00:30:42.100 saying she didn't think
00:30:42.980 she could hold onto
00:30:43.720 the tree much longer.
00:30:45.660 She had to pry
00:30:46.860 Rosemary's hands
00:30:48.080 from the branch.
00:30:51.060 Rosemary,
00:30:52.720 terrified,
00:30:54.440 started to cry.
00:30:56.100 Then my sister
00:30:56.900 cradled her daughter
00:30:57.860 and dropped her 0.93
00:30:59.460 20 feet into the river
00:31:00.560 where her father
00:31:02.120 was waiting.
00:31:03.660 She landed directly
00:31:05.040 in the middle
00:31:05.620 of the inner tube
00:31:06.360 and we all cheered.
00:31:09.100 Lance carried
00:31:09.860 his daughter to shore.
00:31:11.100 My sister jumped 0.66
00:31:11.920 into the water
00:31:12.460 right after
00:31:13.040 and I grabbed her,
00:31:14.220 put my arm around her
00:31:15.140 and together
00:31:15.540 and together
00:31:15.560 we walked to safety.
00:31:17.800 Alyssa collapsed
00:31:18.660 on the riverbank
00:31:19.460 crying out for Clay.
00:31:22.220 Rosemary became calm
00:31:23.800 when she reached dry land
00:31:26.260 but her face
00:31:28.200 had a blue cast.
00:31:30.020 We were all shivering.
00:31:32.420 We told Rosemary
00:31:33.580 how brave she'd been
00:31:34.680 and that she was now safe
00:31:37.520 and it was going
00:31:38.980 to be okay.
00:31:39.540 That's the reality
00:31:41.680 of what it was like
00:31:43.560 for so many down there
00:31:44.560 and it happened
00:31:45.580 there's that article
00:31:46.780 describes it
00:31:47.880 I think perfectly
00:31:48.700 so quickly.
00:31:50.440 I want you to take a look
00:31:51.880 at this picture.
00:31:55.000 This is Rosemary and Clay.
00:31:57.660 Rosemary survived,
00:31:58.700 Clay did not.
00:32:00.000 This family
00:32:00.820 like so many Texas families
00:32:02.360 is rejoicing
00:32:04.440 at the lives
00:32:05.140 that were saved
00:32:05.940 and is forever grieving
00:32:08.340 at the lives
00:32:08.860 that were lost
00:32:09.760 and this family
00:32:12.000 like so many Texas families
00:32:13.580 needs their friends,
00:32:16.760 their loved ones
00:32:17.660 to hold them tight.
00:32:19.040 They need God's blessing
00:32:20.580 and mercy
00:32:21.400 and grace
00:32:22.240 and I will tell you
00:32:24.500 everyone in Texas
00:32:26.540 is standing with this family,
00:32:28.940 is standing with all
00:32:29.680 of the parents
00:32:30.340 at Mystic,
00:32:33.040 is standing with all
00:32:33.900 the little girls
00:32:34.660 who lost friends.
00:32:36.700 Just today
00:32:37.540 I was visiting
00:32:38.240 with parents
00:32:39.180 who had two daughters
00:32:40.680 at Mystic,
00:32:41.340 one survived,
00:32:42.080 one did not.
00:32:43.440 They talked about
00:32:44.160 the surviving daughter
00:32:45.180 and the guilt
00:32:47.580 and grief
00:32:48.520 that every one
00:32:49.400 of the survivors
00:32:50.140 feels,
00:32:50.880 survivor's guilt,
00:32:51.880 why did my friend,
00:32:52.780 why did my sister die
00:32:53.940 and I didn't
00:32:55.140 and those girls, 1.00
00:32:56.920 it's going to take
00:32:57.680 a whole lot of love
00:32:58.600 and a whole lot of time
00:32:59.440 for them to walk
00:33:00.280 through that grief.
00:33:01.600 We'll do that.
00:33:03.520 That's who Texans are 1.00
00:33:04.960 but these are hard times.
00:33:08.280 There are so many
00:33:08.900 different organizations
00:33:09.880 doing amazing work
00:33:10.860 helping those
00:33:11.720 in Texas.
00:33:13.560 If you can help,
00:33:15.560 make sure you help.
00:33:17.560 There's a lot of them.
00:33:18.820 Pick the one
00:33:19.320 that connects with you
00:33:20.560 and your family
00:33:21.140 and your heart
00:33:21.660 but there are people
00:33:22.500 that need help
00:33:23.140 and if you can do that
00:33:24.520 they'd be amazing.
00:33:25.440 As soon as I will see you
00:33:26.100 back here again real soon.
00:33:27.100 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:33:31.320 Guaranteed Human.