Miraculous way dog survived biblical Texas floods as he's reunited with family
The Vlaseks narrowly escaped the floods by evacuating their Kerr County home before the vicious floodwaters swept them away.
They were forced to leave their dog behind amid the chaos. The family of three fortunately made it to higher ground, but returned to their home to find nothing but rubble.
Cody Vlasek, a high school senior, was forced to reckon with the grim reality that his childhood home and his dog were gone forever.
Then he heard noises that sounded like an animal.
'I had to break my window, and when I climbed through, I heard scratching and a whimper,' Cody recalled to local ABC affiliate, KENS5.
'I turned my head around the corner and saw him just floating in the washer.'
The miracle was a small silver lining in the tragedy that claimed over 129 lives and left at least 160 individuals unaccounted for across Kerr County.
Cody recalled the terrifying moment he saw flood waters engulfing his home, before yelling to his parents that they had to evacuate.
He told KENS5 that their house was almost 30 feet away from the floodplain of the Guadalupe River.
The family awoke in the middle of the night to heavy rain, and Cody went outside with his father to see that the water had already reached their backyard fence.
'The current — it almost, almost tripped some of us,' the high schooler said.
The family rushed to escape their home and made it to safety at a neighbor's house uphill. Cody said the water had reached his waist when they evacuated.
They returned to find their house was demolished, and many of their neighbors didn't make it out.
'You can replace a house, but you can't replace lives,' Cody told KENS5.
Search efforts have continued to locate the missing individuals as authorities grapple with accusations that evacuations were delayed.
Among the victims of the flood were 27 young girls from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp that took the brunt of the flood.
The youngest campers, many under the age of 10, were staying in cabins closest to the river and lost their lives.
On Friday, President Donald Trump visited the flood path with First Lady Melania Trump.
The president and first lady joined republican lawmakers, federal officials, Governor Greg Abbott, and Senator Ted Cruz.
After the visit, Trump held a roundtable discussion with local and federal law makers. When a reporter asked him why alerts weren't sent to residents in the flood path sooner, Trump fired back, 'Only a bad person would ask a question like that.'
'To be honest with you, I don't know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that.'
Abbott said in a tweet on Friday night that rescue teams would continue to search for the missing individuals.
'We are unrelenting. The families deserve nothing less,' he said.
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