Verdict with Ted Cruz - Tragedy & Hope in Texas-On the Ground in the Aftermath of Historic & Horrific Floods

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.480 Welcome.

00:00:06.240 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.580 Traditionally, you hear the show on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

00:00:12.640 We are coming to you on Tuesday after the just tragic flooding in Texas.

00:00:19.580 The Senators, you've been down there with the people in Kerrville and the surrounding areas, Comfort.

00:00:26.140 This is actually an area that I spend a ton of time with my family.

00:00:30.660 At the ranch, and it has hit very close to home for us.

00:00:34.540 We also have friends who lost a daughter in this flooding at the Christian camp that so many have talked about and you've seen in the media.

00:00:47.040 And it is just so sad and devastating to know that there are people that are going to be going to that little girl's funeral on Friday.

00:00:54.860 And to see what it's done in Houston to people that knew so many that were there.

00:00:58.960 You were down there, and it is obviously sad, but it is also encouraging to see so many people coming together, so many Texans coming together, so many people rallying around these families in this just horrific time.

00:01:12.840 Well, Ben, you and I are recording this at 12.36 a.m. Monday night, and I spent the entire day in the Hill Country starting at 6 a.m. this morning.

00:01:23.460 And I visited with families who were grieving.

00:01:28.120 I went to Camp Mystic and saw firsthand the devastation.

00:01:34.140 I will tell you there are not words to describe just how much Texas is hurting.

00:01:39.600 This is across the state and across the country.

00:01:45.560 People are grieving.

00:01:46.700 They're grieving for the moms and dads.

00:01:49.620 This flooding, I'll tell you, in my 13 years in the Senate, I've seen a lot of natural disasters, hurricanes and tornadoes and wildfires, and it's always difficult.

00:02:00.420 But this was something really different.

00:02:04.800 What happened in the Hill Country, right now, the fatality count, it is over 100.

00:02:14.780 It is expected to keep growing.

00:02:17.020 They are still searching for and finding bodies.

00:02:22.480 Right now, Camp Mystic, we know of 27 kids and counselors who lost their lives in the flooding.

00:02:31.540 There are an additional 10 more girls and one more counselor who are missing.

00:02:37.300 And so there are search and rescue teams that are searching for them right now, obviously every hour, every day that goes by.

00:02:44.440 The odds of a happy outcome go down.

00:02:51.880 But we are certainly praying that those 11 girls are found safe and sound.

00:03:01.940 You know, I want to tell folks a little bit about what has happened on the ground and where this is.

00:03:09.980 So if you're not from Texas, the Hill Country is in central Texas.

00:03:15.040 It's the central part of the state.

00:03:17.900 And it is, I think, the most beautiful part of the state.

00:03:21.200 And I think most Texans agree with that.

00:03:23.940 There are rolling hills.

00:03:26.220 There are beautiful rivers.

00:03:29.300 And in particular, Kerr County, there are about 40 summer camps.

00:03:37.480 And there's a long tradition of camps.

00:03:40.760 It's an incredible tradition that goes back 100 years where people went and formed these summer camps.

00:03:46.420 Because the natural beauty was so extraordinary that it's an incredible place for girls and for boys to come and spend typically a month at a time.

00:03:58.700 And Camp Mystic is 100 years old.

00:04:03.280 It is a Christian girls camp.

00:04:04.840 And I will tell you, Camp Mystic is really an institution in Texas.

00:04:12.380 It is...

00:04:14.840 You see families from all across Texas who, at the end of typically the month-long camp session, there's a two-day closing ceremony.

00:04:29.920 And you'll see grandmothers and moms and daughters, three generations of Texas women that are there.

00:04:38.280 And it is...

00:04:40.280 Look, for me, this is not abstract.

00:04:42.540 Our girls have gone to camp in Hunt in Kerr County for a decade now.

00:04:49.280 And actually, just last week, Heidi was there picking up Catherine, our youngest daughter, from camp.

00:04:55.920 And so this was literally a week ago that my daughter was there.

00:05:01.640 She was at camp.

00:05:02.500 They'd been there for a month.

00:05:03.460 And I'll tell you, these camps are...

00:05:06.600 They teach girls independence and responsibility and teamwork.

00:05:14.680 And the friendships that are formed are lifelong friendships.

00:05:19.540 Catherine's best friend is a girl from the Rio Grande Valley, who she would never have met going to school and growing up in Houston if it were not for that camp.

00:05:30.960 And they are absolutely inseparable.

00:05:33.680 Those sorts of friendships you see at the closing ceremony, you see women in their 70s and 80s with those same lifelong friendships.

00:05:43.440 And when this flooding hit, it just devastated Camp Mystic, and not just Camp Mystic, but the entire region.

00:05:54.680 It was the 4th of July weekend.

00:05:57.320 And so you had thousands and thousands of people there celebrating by the riverbanks.

00:06:01.740 And the Guadalupe River is this beautiful river that I have floated on and swam in dozens of times.

00:06:09.120 It's a gorgeous river.

00:06:10.360 It's wonderful.

00:06:11.020 People love to swim in it, vacation in it, canoe in it.

00:06:16.100 And...

00:06:16.500 No, it's part of just the summers in Texas.

00:06:19.800 And for people like you mentioned that are outside Texas, floating the river is just so much fun because you get...

00:06:26.120 I mean, these basically...

00:06:27.800 They used to be back in the day, the inner tubes of tires.

00:06:30.200 You get these floats now.

00:06:32.020 And you float with your best friends.

00:06:34.020 I have a friend that actually met his future wife floating the Guadalupe River.

00:06:40.000 I mean, it's just a community.

00:06:41.280 It's a slow float.

00:06:42.160 It's very safe.

00:06:43.280 It is something that you do.

00:06:44.800 We've stayed on that river before.

00:06:46.280 We floated it, as you mentioned, countless times.

00:06:49.040 And on the 4th of July, a lot of people go down there camping.

00:06:52.340 You camp close to the river.

00:06:53.840 You bring your RV.

00:06:55.740 And you do that.

00:06:56.860 And that's what people were doing.

00:06:58.220 As you mentioned, it was a 4th of July weekend.

00:07:01.120 Well, and you mentioned RVs.

00:07:03.080 And the flooding, there were many RVs that were just swept into the river.

00:07:08.780 And we don't have a count.

00:07:10.380 So I started this morning by meeting with the mayor and the county judge and the county commissioners and Texas DPS and the sheriff and just getting a report from on the ground.

00:07:20.720 And one of the challenging things, we have over 100 confirmed fatalities.

00:07:25.380 There are a number of bodies that have been discovered, both adults and kids, that have not been identified yet.

00:07:31.720 And bodies that have been in the water for an extended period of time can be difficult to identify visually.

00:07:37.620 And so they're doing DNA swabs.

00:07:39.380 You know, when this started happening, it was early in the morning on the 4th of July.

00:07:47.480 The National Weather Service put out an emergency warning just after 1 a.m.

00:07:51.280 They put out another emergency warning just after 4 a.m.

00:07:55.000 And the waters rose about 30 feet in less than an hour.

00:08:01.780 30 feet is a lot for an ordinary calm river to rise suddenly.

00:08:07.100 The flash flood was absolutely devastating.

00:08:11.020 Now, when this was happening, within hours of the flooding occurring, I was on the phone speaking with Governor Greg Abbott.

00:08:21.020 I spoke with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.

00:08:24.500 I spoke with Nim Kidd, who is head of the Texas Department of Emergency Management.

00:08:30.100 And I called President Trump.

00:08:32.060 And I talked to President Trump on that first day.

00:08:34.820 And I said, Mr. President, what is happening in Texas, this is bad.

00:08:42.860 It is.

00:08:44.260 All indications are this is really, really serious.

00:08:47.600 There could be a lot of fatalities.

00:08:49.860 Information was just starting to come in.

00:08:52.000 So it was it was hazy.

00:08:53.500 But I said, this could be really, really bad.

00:08:57.300 And President Trump, to his credit, he said, Ted, whatever Texas needs, the answer is yes.

00:09:01.880 Whatever federal assets you need, the answer is yes.

00:09:05.100 And that I passed on to the state officials, to the local officials.

00:09:09.480 And I'll tell you, Ben, within hours, I was hearing from families.

00:09:13.220 I was hearing from parents whose daughters were at Mystic and whose daughters were missing.

00:09:19.920 And they were panicked.

00:09:20.740 And they were saying, can you tell us anything?

00:09:23.280 Do you have any information?

00:09:24.500 And I was connecting them with the local sheriff, with emergency management.

00:09:29.020 And look, you and I are both dads.

00:09:33.640 It is difficult to imagine the panic, the fear, the bewilderment, everything those moms

00:09:42.580 and dads were feeling as you get the news that your daughter is missing.

00:09:47.320 And many of those parents just drove to Central Texas, immediately got in the car and drove.

00:09:52.560 As I told you, we picked up our daughter last week from right there.

00:09:58.240 Yeah.

00:09:58.720 And Catherine said to me, she said, well, why would the dads drive there?

00:10:03.200 And I said, sweetheart, that's just what you do.

00:10:05.020 If your child is lost, you just go.

00:10:08.460 You'll move heaven and earth.

00:10:13.240 You'll do whatever you can.

00:10:14.540 I mean, this is the same conversation I have with my boys.

00:10:17.220 And in the ages here, you know, you see these little girls that are missing.

00:10:21.580 And one of my wife's high school friend's daughter is one of those that lost her life.

00:10:27.800 And having that conversation with your kids are the same age.

00:10:32.300 My twins are six.

00:10:33.940 They could have been at camp.

00:10:35.640 And my oldest is eight.

00:10:37.060 Could have been at camp.

00:10:38.280 And you put yourself in that situation of just what would you do?

00:10:41.840 And it's exactly what you just said.

00:10:43.420 And you just go.

00:10:45.940 And there's been – I also want people to understand flooding in this region because I think there's been a lot of misinformation nationwide on this so that people understand the hill country and kind of how it works.

00:10:56.540 There's a lot of rock in the hill country.

00:10:59.500 And so when it rains, the water doesn't absorb into the land like it does in most places in the country.

00:11:06.280 Like when we get rain in Houston or when I lived in Dallas, like it rains and a lot of the water goes into the earth.

00:11:14.540 And you don't have this flash flooding, this massive quick flooding.

00:11:18.280 In the hill country, that's what you get when you get rain.

00:11:21.480 But to be clear, in this part of the hill country, they don't get a lot of rain.

00:11:25.460 They can go hundreds of days without rain in this area.

00:11:29.040 And so when it – you know, there's a reality of like when it rains, the locals know that you're going to have some flooding in the low-lying areas.

00:11:37.180 And you kind of know where those areas are and where the bridges are and where the low areas are in the roadways.

00:11:42.920 This is something that no one had seen in their lifetime.

00:11:47.740 There had never been flooding like this in Kerrville or in Comfort the way that we are witnessing it now.

00:11:55.040 And so there are some people I think out there acting like, well, they should have – you know, this is something that happened so common.

00:11:59.900 I've seen comments like that.

00:12:01.700 This was catastrophic.

00:12:03.140 You witnessed it today.

00:12:05.360 Yeah, it was utterly unprecedented.

00:12:08.180 I went up in a Coast Guard helicopter and I flew a significant portion of the Guadalupe River.

00:12:14.980 And I will tell you, just looking at the devastation, you know, water, when you have a fast-moving wall of water, nothing stands in its way.

00:12:26.740 There were cars strewn everywhere.

00:12:29.260 And by the way, when a car is being thrown and it crashes into a tree, it destroys the car.

00:12:35.720 But there were thousands and thousands of trees that were just mowed over by the water because when water hits a tree, water is a lot stronger than the trees.

00:12:45.360 And the volume of – you saw houses just taken clean off their foundation and swept into the river.

00:12:54.560 We were talking about RVs.

00:12:56.240 A lot of people bring RVs or in mobile homes.

00:12:58.740 And, look, if you're going to a campsite, you know, it's a 4th of July weekend.

00:13:02.360 It's a great weekend.

00:13:04.360 And the problem is RVs and mobile homes are particularly vulnerable in a flood or tornado or other natural disaster.

00:13:11.360 And so you just had multiple RVs swept into the river.

00:13:15.060 They don't have a firm count.

00:13:16.620 They don't know how many people they're looking for because many of the visitors were not from Kerr County and were just there to celebrate the 4th of July.

00:13:24.420 Going down, flying that helicopter, and just seeing the extent of the devastation was massive.

00:13:39.640 And, look, but I want to say this.

00:13:43.860 There's so much grief.

00:13:46.300 In Texas, our hearts are broken right now.

00:13:50.320 And there are families from Houston, from Dallas, from Austin, from San Antonio, from every community in Texas.

00:13:59.960 And there are campers who come from all over the country to come to Camp Mystic, but many of them are from cities in Texas.

00:14:06.340 And many of them, you and I know, we have multiple friends who've lost children.

00:14:11.260 And my street at home, around the oak tree in our front yard, we have a big green ribbon for the girls at Camp Mystic.

00:14:20.900 And if you look at tree after tree just going up and down our street, there are green ribbons on tree after tree after tree.

00:14:30.360 But I want to give some encouragement.

00:14:34.020 Look, this is unbearably hard and painful for the state.

00:14:42.360 But in the face of unspeakable pain, there's also unbelievable courage.

00:14:49.140 And there were over 850 rescues from that river.

00:14:58.300 We had, early on, when I got on the phone and I worked to make sure that there were federal assets there, we had over a dozen helicopters in the air.

00:15:06.360 We had Coast Guard in the air.

00:15:07.560 We had National Guardsmen in the air.

00:15:09.840 We had DPS in the air.

00:15:11.820 We had game wardens on the ground.

00:15:14.080 And they were rescuing people, pulling them out of harm's way.

00:15:18.780 I met today with a Coast Guard swimmer.

00:15:23.000 And, by the way, Coast Guard swimmers are incredible.

00:15:26.620 You know, I have analogized Coast Guard swimmers before to kind of a blend of Navy SEALs and California surfers.

00:15:35.660 And I've gotten to know several of these Coast Guard swimmers.

00:15:38.140 And Hurricane Harvey, I got to know them.

00:15:39.780 And they're utterly fearless.

00:15:41.080 These are guys that jump out of helicopters into hurricane force winds and waters and just swim and rescue people.

00:15:47.680 And they kind of, you know, often will be just sort of dudes, like surfer dudes, who are these incredibly fearless lifesavers.

00:15:58.680 Well, I met this one Coast Guardsman who landed at Camp Mystic.

00:16:09.260 He was on a Coast Guard helicopter.

00:16:11.000 They landed him there.

00:16:13.120 And he rescued 165 girls.

00:16:17.140 And I talked with him.

00:16:18.580 His name is Petty Officer Scott Ruskin.

00:16:20.780 He's 26 years old.

00:16:22.500 He's from New Jersey.

00:16:24.940 And it was his first mission as a Coast Guard rescue swimmer.

00:16:28.500 He's new to the Coast Guard.

00:16:30.420 He did a lot of training.

00:16:31.820 But they put him on the ground there.

00:16:33.400 And it was the highest part of Camp Mystic.

00:16:36.760 And then they brought in a whole series of helicopters to helicopter the girls out. 1.00

00:16:41.440 Because all the roads were underwater.

00:16:43.040 So you couldn't drive in and get the girls because the roads were completely submerged.

00:16:47.440 And so he was there.

00:16:48.620 He spent three and a half hours on the ground at Camp Mystic.

00:16:53.040 Understand, there's torrential rains coming down.

00:16:55.440 He's sitting there with girls, girls who are terrified, who are crying, who are screaming, who are scared.

00:17:05.420 Some of them were singing hymns.

00:17:07.180 And he's trying to comfort them.

00:17:09.080 They dropped him off.

00:17:10.120 And he was the one staying with them and trying to get the girls.

00:17:13.560 They would come and land helicopters.

00:17:16.160 And they would load about 15 girls.

00:17:17.960 And they'd take them to a safe place.

00:17:21.040 And they'd come back and pick up another load, another load, another load.

00:17:23.480 So for three and a half hours, you know, when I visited with him, and it's interesting.

00:17:29.860 He's 26 years old.

00:17:31.160 He has kind of short blonde hair and a mustache.

00:17:34.200 And, you know, he's done some media interviews today.

00:17:36.740 And one of them, he said, I'm just a dude, which is sort of what I said about the...

00:17:43.480 And he was saying, and he was kind of laughing and saying, like he talks to his commanding officer and sometimes says, hey, dude.

00:17:50.580 He's like, oh, wait, wait, you're my commanding officer.

00:17:52.140 Sorry, but it's kind of just how swimmers are.

00:17:55.380 It's sort of their culture.

00:17:57.980 But he said he had just gotten off the phone with a mom and dad and a girl who he said, and he said they were crying and he was crying because they said, you saved my daughter's life.

00:18:07.860 She said that when she was terrified, you held her hand and just held her hand as you put her in the helicopter and made her not be scared for a minute.

00:18:15.920 And that heroism was happening over and over and over again.

00:18:24.200 It's incredible.

00:18:27.660 It's the best part of the tragedy is just seeing how quickly people came together.

00:18:33.780 You know, there's also another aspect of this.

00:18:36.400 And I do want to just take a moment and set the record straight.

00:18:39.680 There have been some people that have tried to use this tragedy to score political points.

00:18:47.040 It makes me sad that there's people in the media and there's people on the left that are just that vile and partisan.

00:18:58.640 We even saw, you know, a pediatrician that actually worked for my kids go to a pediatrician who said that basically the people deserve what they get because they voted for Donald Trump in this area of the country.

00:19:11.620 You know, thank goodness it was exposed and she was fired today for that. 1.00

00:19:17.080 It is it is sad to see this happen.

00:19:21.220 And I even called her pediatrician's office and I said, hey, like this, I need to know that if there's an on-call doctor, they're not going to give my kid bad care if they know what I do.

00:19:33.520 And they said, watch our website.

00:19:35.800 You'll be getting an update soon.

00:19:37.100 Thank goodness they put out there that this this doctor had been had been fired from from this job as a pediatrician.

00:19:43.360 And you look at these moments and it does make you sad.

00:19:46.360 But I also think we need to be clear about the record here.

00:19:49.820 There is a lot of rumors that this was all preventable, that this was somehow Donald Trump's fault.

00:19:56.380 This was the fault of defunding of FEMA and different agencies, National Weather Service.

00:20:01.580 All that is a lie.

00:20:02.740 They were staffed adequately.

00:20:04.800 There were warnings that went out.

00:20:06.600 Can we learn from this and do better?

00:20:08.420 Absolutely.

00:20:09.160 Can we put maybe a warning system on the on the on the riverbanks?

00:20:12.480 Something they've talked about seven years ago, but it was voted down because the costs and Kerr County.

00:20:17.320 These are things that we can learn from.

00:20:21.880 But but the partisan politics of this and just watching people try to somehow blame Trump for this tragedy.

00:20:28.500 It really makes me sad that this is still where we are in this way.

00:20:33.100 When something like this happens, I wish people could just learn this isn't political.

00:20:36.980 This storm didn't care if you're Republican or Democrat or agnostic or Christian or Jewish or Catholic or anything else.

00:20:44.420 They didn't care if you're rich or poor, black or white.

00:20:47.500 Everybody that was in the line of this flooding, life was in danger.

00:20:51.840 That's what people should focus on and the help we can do to give them.

00:20:55.320 Not trying to say, all right, how do we use this to make points?

00:20:58.520 Yeah, you see this, unfortunately, frequently after after natural disasters, after hurricanes or tornadoes or in this case flooding, that that partisans will try to attack their political opponents and score cheap points.

00:21:13.200 And there are a bunch of folks online and both in the media and on the left that are just trying to attack Trump.

00:21:21.560 And, you know, if there's a hurricane, the hurricane is Trump's fault.

00:21:25.040 And in this case, the sort of talking point of the left was that that Doge made reductions in different areas of government.

00:21:31.720 And the National Weather Service, they say, Doge gutted it.

00:21:35.260 Now, we know that that is not the case.

00:21:38.300 How do we know that?

00:21:39.100 Number one, because the National Weather Service in this case put out two warnings, one, as I mentioned, just after 1 a.m., one after 4 a.m., that that was their job.

00:21:49.520 We also know the National Weather Service for this region was headquarters in New Braunfels, which is another small town not too far away from Kerrville, not too far away from Hunt.

00:21:58.800 And the night of this flood, they not only had full staffing, they had three additional people, three extra people staffed that evening because they knew it was going to be a difficult weather event.

00:22:10.900 So they deliberately staffed up.

00:22:12.440 And, look, I will say beyond that, the National Weather Service union, which has been very critical of the Doge reductions, as you would expect the union to be,

00:22:24.000 they publicly said that the reductions through Doge had zero impact on the National Weather Service's ability to predict what happened here.

00:22:33.980 And given that they're an entity that is naturally critical of those cuts, I think that speaks volumes.

00:22:41.340 Now, you know, I spent the day, I did a lot of interviews with a lot of reporters today, and many of them were saying, okay, well, and they would ask this question.

00:22:50.700 Many of the reporters would say, well, isn't this all Trump's fault?

00:22:53.220 And so I tried to say, look, stop politicizing a crisis that has broken the heart of our state.

00:23:00.740 But as you noted, and listen, with any disaster, there's a natural order of events.

00:23:07.980 The first phase is search and rescue.

00:23:12.620 It is crisis saving people's lives.

00:23:16.020 And we have been in that phase.

00:23:17.720 We're still in that phase looking for these 11 still missing girls.

00:23:23.060 But that phase will soon come to an end.

00:23:25.360 The next phase is rebuilding.

00:23:29.080 And there are many people who have lost their homes, who've lost everything.

00:23:32.260 And the rebuilding phase will take months.

00:23:36.160 It may take years for some of these places to be rebuilt.

00:23:40.380 But that's a process.

00:23:41.680 That's a process that there will be local assistance and state assistance and federal assistance.

00:23:46.180 At the same time, when we get through the crisis period, there will naturally be a retrospective examination of what happened, what was the exact timeline, and what could have gone better, what lessons can be learned.

00:24:03.280 And we've seen that, for instance, with many hurricanes.

00:24:07.000 You know, you and I both live in Houston.

00:24:08.360 If you live on the Gulf Coast, you have a lot of hurricanes.

00:24:10.160 I will say, unfortunately, Texas has gotten really good with dealing with hurricanes because we have a lot of practice in it.

00:24:17.080 And so we've learned lessons.

00:24:18.460 We've learned how to identify the most vulnerable areas, the most vulnerable populations when a hurricane is in the Gulf to get them out of there to try to minimize fatalities.

00:24:27.100 And I think we can certainly learn lessons here.

00:24:30.380 In particular, you know, you're putting out warnings at 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.

00:24:36.460 Most people are sleeping at 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.

00:24:38.640 And every one of us, if you and I could...

00:24:41.940 Yeah, and they silence their phones or they have...

00:24:43.260 Yeah, yeah.

00:24:44.400 And actually, with the kids at the camp, they don't have phones.

00:24:46.440 We knew people...

00:24:48.360 Yeah, and by the way, there was people that we knew that were in Kerrville that received the notices on their phones.

00:24:54.340 They woke up to them.

00:24:56.040 And they didn't get them because they were asleep.

00:24:58.800 And the cell coverage, I will say, in that region is just lousy.

00:25:04.720 Like, every time we go for camp pickup, it's very hard to get any cell coverage at all.

00:25:09.480 Just given the topography, there's not a lot of cell towers there.

00:25:12.860 And it's also, you know, the campers are not allowed to have phones.

00:25:25.100 And so they leave their phones at home.

00:25:27.400 So it's just the counselors and adults that have phones.

00:25:30.080 But look, Ben, if you and I could step in a time machine right now and go back to 2 or 3 in the morning on the 4th of July,

00:25:38.740 we would run into those cabins and pull those girls out and get them out of there. 1.00

00:25:43.760 Every one of us, we're just like, dear God, get them to high ground.

00:25:48.500 And so it is perfectly reasonable to say, how can we improve the response from when an emergency warning gets out to make sure that it is heard?

00:25:59.380 And I'll tell you, I spoke today with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.

00:26:04.080 The Texas legislature is coming back for special session shortly.

00:26:07.720 And I suggested to him this is something that should be on the call.

00:26:10.820 The governor chooses that.

00:26:11.940 But Lieutenant Governor agreed that it made sense to look at an emergency warning system along the Guadalupe River,

00:26:22.920 much like we have up in the Texas panhandle when there's a tornado.

00:26:25.760 They have sirens that go off because a tornado, like a flash flood, you get very little warning.

00:26:31.720 It could develop quickly.

00:26:32.880 It could be devastating.

00:26:33.920 And so they'll set off the alarms.

00:26:36.620 I think it makes a lot of sense to consider putting in a warning system like that.

00:26:40.960 So at least if you had a blaring alarm going off at 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning,

00:26:45.720 it would wake the kids up and wake the counselors up and put them in a position to get the kids out of harm's way.

00:26:53.380 No, I couldn't agree with you more on that one.

00:26:56.020 How does that, when you look at the response moving forward, final question on this,

00:27:00.480 because there are people that say, hey, we want to make sure, as you just mentioned, this never happens again.

00:27:05.160 Is this a cooperation within the state of Texas with the federal government?

00:27:09.900 Does the state of Texas come first?

00:27:11.440 There's a lot of people that ask that question.

00:27:13.400 I'd love for you to answer it.

00:27:15.000 Where does that start?

00:27:16.200 So it'll be at every level of government.

00:27:19.380 It'll be the local level.

00:27:21.560 It'll be at the state level.

00:27:22.560 It'll be at the federal level.

00:27:23.480 And I think at every level we're going to have discussions about what can we do, what makes sense, how do we keep people safe.

00:27:29.920 And look, this level of devastation, we've never seen anything like it.

00:27:40.860 But I want to go back to some of the signs of encouragement.

00:27:45.740 I met with one family today, a mom and dad, who had a young boy, a 14-year-old boy, who was at La Junta, which is another summer camp for boys.

00:27:58.960 It's right down the river from Mystic.

00:28:02.980 And La Junta also badly flooded.

00:28:05.700 And miraculously, nobody was killed.

00:28:08.340 But they said their 14-year-old son was woken up about 3 in the morning, and the counselors were telling him, come, come help us.

00:28:16.140 Let's get the little boys out of harm's way.

00:28:18.180 And he said they were going and getting 7- and 8-year-old boys, pulling them out of their cabin and having them swim through rushing water and rescue them.

00:28:28.080 And I've got to tell you, this mom and dad, they were there just hugging.

00:28:32.340 I was hugging, I was hugging them, and they had tears in their eyes, and they were just, and first of all, their son was alive.

00:28:40.620 So I just said, praise God.

00:28:42.240 But it was, you know, terrifying.

00:28:45.940 And what I did say to the mom and dad, I said, look, this trauma, this experience will be with your son for the rest of his life.

00:28:55.280 It will be with both of you for the rest of your lives.

00:28:58.580 But I said, your son also has the experience of knowing for the rest of his life that as a 14-year-old boy, he helped save the lives of these younger 7, 8, and 9-year-old boys.

00:29:10.360 That there are boys and soon-to-be men living because of his heroism in a time of crisis.

00:29:19.100 And that, I heard another story of a counselor who was in a cabin.

00:29:23.240 The cabin was filled up with water.

00:29:25.620 His head was just barely sticking above the water where he could breathe.

00:29:30.540 And with each hand, he was holding up a mattress with a camper on the mattress.

00:29:35.880 And all three of them, the counselor and both campers, survived.

00:29:40.240 Those sorts of acts of heroism happened over and over again.

00:29:44.920 There are stories of Eagle Scouts who were counselors rescuing young kids over and over and over again.

00:29:51.560 That was happening repeatedly.

00:29:53.460 But I'll tell you, Ben, the most difficult thing I did today is I went to Camp Mystic.

00:30:00.100 And I went and walked the grounds at Camp Mystic.

00:30:04.500 And I think it may be the most horrifying thing I've ever seen in my life.

00:30:09.760 You walk through, and actually, as you walk through, the river was calm and peaceful and beautiful.

00:30:21.320 But it rose, and it rose suddenly.

00:30:26.460 And I will say, the press, I think, has been less than clear and honest about how Camp Mystic is set up.

00:30:34.820 Because they've described it as saying, well, the cabins for the young girls were down by the riverbank and all of the other cabins were up high.

00:30:44.620 That's not accurate.

00:30:45.780 And walking the grounds, the cabins are all hundreds of yards removed from the riverbank.

00:30:52.080 There's a lot of distance between the river and where the cabin is.

00:30:54.960 And the cabins are all about the same elevation.

00:30:58.420 There's some differences, but not massive differences in elevation between the cabins at Mystic.

00:31:04.420 And I was talking with one of the longtime employees there who said there had been a flood decades before.

00:31:12.800 And it had gotten up and crossed a little bit of the ground.

00:31:17.080 And it had come to sort of the foundation of one of the buildings that was not a cabin, but one of the buildings closer to the river.

00:31:24.200 But it had never gotten close to the cabins.

00:31:26.680 So that's one thing to understand.

00:31:28.360 People say, well, gosh, this is prone to floods.

00:31:30.380 It was, yes, but in the 100 years of Camp Mystic, there'd never been a flood where the water had gotten to the cabins.

00:31:38.180 And in this case, the water was eight feet deep in the cabins.

00:31:45.160 Walking through, and every building, you could see the water line.

00:31:48.420 You could see the water line outside the buildings.

00:31:51.960 And it was eight feet deep.

00:31:53.860 And in the cabins, the water shattered the windows.

00:31:58.540 It swept the furniture out.

00:32:01.120 You looked in the cabins, and every one of the cabins, the furniture had been swept out.

00:32:07.040 The windows were all shattered.

00:32:09.920 And I've got to tell you, look, there was one cabin.

00:32:17.200 It's called the Bubble Inn.

00:32:21.280 And it's a cabin at Mystic where the youngest girls were.

00:32:24.400 And outside the Bubble Inn were 16 white crosses.

00:32:34.260 And on each one of those was a name of a little girl.

00:32:39.000 And they're names that we've read in the paper.

00:32:42.740 They're names of little seven- and eight-year-old girls, third graders, who lost their lives.

00:32:49.800 And one of the crosses was for Dick Eastland, the camp director, who drowned trying to save the girls' lives.

00:32:57.780 And he had spent – he graduated from UT 50 years ago and had spent 50 years of his life running this camp for girls.

00:33:06.880 And he was in his suburban.

00:33:09.020 They showed me where he drowned.

00:33:10.420 It was a couple hundred yards from where I was standing in the river.

00:33:12.660 He was trying to save the girls, and the water swept them away, and he drowned.

00:33:15.980 And the 16 crosses, reading those names, two of those little girls go to school with my daughter.

00:33:30.920 They're third graders at our school.

00:33:32.200 The parents of one of those little girls lives a block away from me.

00:33:43.560 And I'll tell you, I just knelt and wept.

00:33:50.020 There were families there, Ben.

00:33:53.720 There was a mom and dad who was kneeling in front of those crosses.

00:34:07.720 And they were kissing the cross.

00:34:11.020 And I stood back.

00:34:12.180 I didn't want to interrupt their grieving, but just watching them.

00:34:16.520 And the mom came to that cabin, the bubble in, and she just broke down in tears.

00:34:28.800 In front of every cabin, there were the children's belongings.

00:34:34.480 There were trunks.

00:34:36.540 There were electric fans.

00:34:39.160 There were slippers and flip-flops and Crocs.

00:34:44.980 There were teddy bears.

00:34:46.500 There were stuffed animals everywhere.

00:34:47.820 These were little girls.

00:34:50.680 And many of them have their names on them.

00:34:54.980 And there were moms and dads picking through the rubble, looking for their girls' belongings.

00:35:03.380 And I don't know which of those moms and dads lost a daughter.

00:35:10.800 We know of 27 who were lost, and there may be more.

00:35:16.940 There are 11 that are missing.

00:35:20.660 And there were girls picking through the rubble. 0.89

00:35:23.620 I don't know if those girls were campers themselves who had survived.

00:35:29.100 I don't know if they're siblings who had lost a sibling.

00:35:32.400 But everyone is walking around.

00:35:36.620 Shell shock doesn't begin to describe it.

00:35:40.200 They're up on the field.

00:35:43.560 There was a field that was basically a parking lot for the cars of counselors.

00:35:48.640 And the waters had thrown the cars on top of each other.

00:35:55.120 It was like they were matchbox cars, just flipped over.

00:35:57.780 You saw car after car after car stacked on each other, flipped on its side, flipped over, tossed around.

00:36:05.780 The dining hall, an entire wall of the dining hall had been ripped off.

00:36:11.780 They had heavy wooden tables that filled the dining hall.

00:36:15.400 Every one of them had been pulled out.

00:36:16.900 And the bubble in, which is where a large percentage of the fatalities occurred,

00:36:23.940 the water swept in and just pulled those girls out the windows. 1.00

00:36:29.480 Seeing that, and I saw it first from the helicopter, and you could see all their belongings spread out,

00:36:43.020 but then standing there and viewing it from the perspective of a dad.

00:36:52.360 You know, I've helped my daughters pack their trunks.

00:36:55.740 I've, you know, can't pick up every year.

00:37:01.920 You go and pick up your daughter's trunk, and it's a joyful time.

00:37:10.660 Our state is mourning right now, Ben.

00:37:13.040 I tell you, for everyone listening, and I say this, just pray for the people that are affected.

00:37:22.920 Pray for the people in Texas.

00:37:24.480 Pray for the families who are still without their loved ones.

00:37:30.600 They're still trying to find them.

00:37:32.420 Pray for the moms and the dads who are planning the funerals.

00:37:36.880 We know people personally that are doing that and getting ready for that this week.

00:37:40.900 Pray for the moms. 1.00

00:37:42.760 God, please pray for the moms. 1.00

00:37:44.980 Yes.

00:37:45.920 And anything you can do to help with all of the, there's so many different groups that are helping the people

00:37:51.160 and Comfort and Kerr County, and there are people that need help, and we focus so much on the kids,

00:37:57.240 but there's a lot of elderly people that have been affected by this.

00:38:00.080 There are a lot of people that lost their lives and all their belongings.

00:38:03.360 And help any way you can with all of the nonprofits that are getting involved that are doing this.

00:38:12.420 And we're going to keep you updated, but I would just say hug your babies.

00:38:17.060 And, Ben, I want to say three more things of encouragement.

00:38:22.260 So, in Hunt, there's a store that's kind of a focal point.

00:38:27.980 It's called the Hunt Store.

00:38:29.600 And it's right at the junction of two of the highways.

00:38:32.840 You go up one highway to go to one of the big camps.

00:38:35.500 You go up another highway to go up to Mystic and La Junta.

00:38:37.740 And, actually, La Junta is right across the street from the Hunt Store.

00:38:41.880 The Hunt Store, the flood utterly gutted it.

00:38:45.840 It's just ripped out in a hollow shell.

00:38:48.260 I went and stopped at the Hunt Store and just visited people who were there or gathering there.

00:38:55.280 And they'd actually changed the sign where it said Hunt Store.

00:38:59.040 And instead of Hunt Store, they changed the sign to read Hunt Strong.

00:39:06.200 And, you know, Heidi and Catherine were at the Hunt Store last week.

00:39:14.180 I mean, I've been there dozens of times.

00:39:18.260 The owners were there.

00:39:20.100 I just hugged them.

00:39:21.160 And there were just, like, residents there who were just there mourning and grieving.

00:39:26.740 And I'll tell you, there was set up.

00:39:27.980 There was a giant barbecue truck.

00:39:30.680 All right.

00:39:31.160 So, this is a story that is amazing that you're going to like.

00:39:33.920 It's a barbecue truck from Rockport.

00:39:36.160 Rockport is a town down on the Gulf Coast.

00:39:38.640 And Rockport, when Hurricane Harvey hit, it devastated the Gulf Coast from deep east Texas to south, all the way, really, to Corpus Christi.

00:39:50.820 So, that's a lot of – and Rockport is right in there.

00:39:53.500 It's by Port Aransas and Aransas Pass.

00:39:55.360 And Rockport was devastated by Hurricane Harvey.

00:39:57.560 Well, these guys, and these are big old Texans with big old beards. 0.90

00:40:03.820 They look like ZZ Top.

00:40:05.340 And they said, well, you know, when Hurricane Harvey hit, there was a group from Hunt, Texas, little town in the hill country,

00:40:15.800 that came down to Rockport and set up a food truck and fed us when we had lost our homes.

00:40:21.520 And so, they got in a truck and drove up this giant smoker and griller, and they were just giving away free barbecue.

00:40:29.540 And one of the things that's really cool, I was at – in Rockport several times after Hurricane Harvey,

00:40:38.040 and I was in all the towns up and down the Gulf Coast.

00:40:40.140 But I was at those food trucks.

00:40:42.640 So, I don't recall visiting with someone and hearing that they were from Hunt down in Rockport.

00:40:47.840 But you know what?

00:40:48.400 In Rockport, they remembered that.

00:40:50.500 And that's something we see happening, just Texans coming together.

00:40:56.880 The Cajun Navy from Louisiana came and were there helping people out.

00:41:01.660 That was incredible, and I just had a chance.

00:41:05.340 I visited with a family, one dad who introduced me to two little boys.

00:41:10.620 And he said both of them lost some of their closest friends in the flood.

00:41:18.260 And I just – I said, you know, little kids, and they're not much older than your boys.

00:41:24.560 They shouldn't have to deal with death and loss at that age.

00:41:28.600 But I'll tell you, in that same parking lot at the Hunt store, there was a car that had written on the back of it a Bible verse,

00:41:39.360 written in like shaving cream on the back window.

00:41:42.840 And it was Isaiah 43.2 that says,

00:41:47.600 When you go through deep water, I will be with you.

00:41:55.760 Amen.

00:41:56.800 That is – look, you just asked folks to pray.

00:42:00.460 Let me just underscore that.

00:42:03.560 For the moms and dads who have a yearning, gaping hole in their heart,

00:42:08.960 I think there is no pain, no agony like losing a child.

00:42:14.040 And nothing will ever fill that hole.

00:42:16.720 That pain will never go away.

00:42:18.940 But they need love.

00:42:20.500 They need support.

00:42:21.480 They need friends.

00:42:22.400 They need families to hug them, to hold them tight,

00:42:26.860 to just give them a shoulder to cry on and to hold them up.

00:42:30.720 And I've got to tell you, this is a time for the church.

00:42:34.100 One of the reasons, Texas, I think we are so resilient when facing natural disasters

00:42:39.480 is because the church is strong in Texas.

00:42:42.220 And you see church's step – I started the day actually by visiting with a number of chaplains who –

00:42:48.820 look, you want to talk about it.

00:42:50.200 It was brutal on the chaplains when you're dealing with moms and dads who've lost their kids

00:42:54.320 and they're just weeping.

00:42:56.080 Even a chaplain, a man or woman of strong faith, I mean, it rips your heart out 1.00

00:43:02.620 to be with a parent who's lost a seven- or eight-year-old daughter.

00:43:07.560 And right down from the Hunt store, there was a church that had a big sign,

00:43:14.960 free barbecue, lunch and dinner, all are welcome.

00:43:18.220 And that's what the church should be doing is helping and clothing and comforting 0.96

00:43:22.420 and taking care of the needy.

00:43:23.840 And the church should always be doing that, but especially in time of crisis.

00:43:30.380 And I want to close this pod today, Ben, with something I saw on the internet.

00:43:36.160 And it's a video that was recorded in a bus that was driving a bus full of campers

00:43:45.840 from Cap Mystic after this flooding.

00:43:48.620 And it's a video recording, and you can watch on X.

00:43:53.840 There's a video of it.

00:43:55.640 It's an iPhone that is going along and showing the video as they're driving along,

00:44:01.540 and you can see the wreckage and the wreckage and the wreckage and everything.

00:44:04.980 But the girls are singing hymns, and Mystic is a Christian camp.

00:44:09.760 And these are girls that have just been through hell, have been terrified,

00:44:13.180 have lost friends.

00:44:14.620 Friends, some of these girls have lost siblings.

00:44:18.700 And I want to close this podcast by just listening to the voices of these girls sing. 0.82

00:44:25.420 And I will tell you, I have a hard time listening to them singing without being in tears.

00:44:32.240 But I want you to hear them singing these hymns.

00:44:36.600 Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

00:45:06.440 Oh my God.

00:45:29.940 Oh my God.

00:45:59.920 Be a living sanctuary for you.

00:46:10.540 The kingdom of God and His righteousness.

00:46:18.380 And all these things shall be added unto you.

00:46:23.300 Allelu, alleluia.

00:46:26.540 We shall not live by prayer, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

00:46:40.880 Allelu, alleluia.

00:46:42.920 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:46:45.480 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 08, 2025

Tragedy & Hope in Texas-On the Ground in the Aftermath of Historic & Horrific Floods

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