Five months after the deadly Texas Hill Country flood, newly released 911 calls reveal panic, desperation and heartbreaking pleas.
The two emergency dispatchers on duty were overwhelmed as they were inundated with calls from individuals dealing with an increasingly dire situation. Among the more than 400 calls to emergency services were people stuck in or on their homes, their summer camp cabins and even trees. Some called multiple times to let rescuers know where they were and to alert them that their situations were becoming increasingly urgent.
“We’re okay, but we live about a mile down the road from Camp Mystic, and we’ve already got two little girls who have come down the river, and we’ve gotten to them, but I’m not sure how many else are out there,” one caller said.
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Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp located along the Guadalupe River, lost 25 campers and two teenage counselors in the floods. The camp’s longtime director and co-owner, Dick Eastland, tragically died in the floods while trying to rescue the campers.
Britt Eastland, the co-director of Camp Mystic and Dick’s son, called 911 as well, asking for the National Guard to be called because as many as 40 people were missing, The Associated Press reported.
A counselor at Camp La Junta called as water filled a cabin “super fast,” as screams of campers could be heard in the background. Everyone in the cabin and the rest of the campers at Camp La Junta were rescued, according to the AP.
In another call, a woman frantically says that she and two elderly people were trapped in a house and could not get out. She begged for help and told the dispatcher that she was scared.
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Yet another caller said that there were people floating by screaming for help as others went into their attics and onto their roofs in an attempt to escape the rapidly rising waters.
“We have people in water, I guess, floating that are screaming for help and we, we can’t get to them,” the caller said. “People are in their attics and on their routes if there’s anybody that can get to us with a helicopter or something?”
The dispatcher informed her that help was on the way but that the water was “slowing us down a little bit.”
“The tree I’m in is starting to lean, and it’s going to fall. Is there a helicopter close?” Bradley Perry, a firefighter, calmly told a dispatcher, adding that he saw his wife, Tina, and their RV wash away, according to the AP.
Perry did not survive, making him one of the more than 130 people killed in the deadly July 4 floods. The AP reported that his wife was later found alive, clinging to a tree.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
