Texas floods: 911 audio shows confusion and distress

Yahoo

4 days ago

Audio recordings obtained by ABC News reveal, for the first time, some of the desperate moments faced by Hill Country residents as floodwaters raged across Texas on the Fourth of July.
"We really need somebody," a caller told a dispatcher. "My boyfriend is currently stuck in a tree out on the current."
Another resident said that a man was stuck "in the middle of the river."
MORE: Kerr County officials waited 90 minutes to send emergency alert after requested, dispatch audio shows
These calls are among the more than 100 dispatch audio and 911 recordings from a Texas county -- downriver from hard-hit Kerrville -- released by the City of Boerne in response to an ABC News public records request.
ABC News has also requested 911 calls and dispatcher audio from Kerr County. The county has not responded to the request.
Boerne handles emergency communications in Kendall County, which borders Kerr County and was also affected by the tragic flooding.
Some of the recordings show apparent confusion and distress among some Kendall County residents about evacuation orders and road closures during the Fourth of July flooding.
"Do I go in my pajamas? Do I take a shower first? How much time do I have?" one caller asked a dispatcher after being warned by someone patrolling her street to be prepared to evacuate.
MORE: Texas flooding victims: From young campers to a dad saving his family, what we know about the lives lost
Some callers said they had heard about evacuations from social media sites, like YouTube and Facebook, but weren't sure if the orders applied to their area.
In one call, a woman with a baby told the 911 operator that her house was flooding.
"We can't go anywhere," she said.
More than 130 people died in the July 4 flooding -- with more than 100 of the deaths occurring in Kerr County. There were nine deaths reported in Kendall County. This month, officials said the number of people believed to be missing dropped from nearly 100 to three.
The recordings also provide insight into Kendall County's police response and communications with other counties.
"We have located a body," a Boerne Police Department dispatcher told a Kerr County law enforcement representative. "It's definitely going to be a drowned victim or a flood victim."
MORE: Camp Mystic began evacuating 45 minutes after 'life-threatening flash flooding' alert: Spokesperson
In another recording, a caller stated that earlier in the day, he had been just a foot away from a body on his land. The dispatcher told him that first responders were having trouble getting to his property since a road was impassable.
In addition, the recordings show how emergency orders were passed from one local agency to another -- and sometimes appeared to meet resistance.
In a call early on July 4, a Boerne dispatcher told another first responder that the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department in Kendall County had relayed a warning from Kerr County that the water was rising and would reach Boerne in four to six hours.
"They're requesting -- no, they're stating -- that we need to close all crossings," the dispatcher said.
"What? What crossings?" the other first responder on the line asked in an agitated tone. He sighed and added, "With what?"
About 20 minutes later, a first responder asked Boerne Police: "Did y'all open up a call sheet for that b------- water flood stuff?" Then he clarified, "We're not on it, right?"
Even as the initial rescue operations were unfolding, first responders and 911 dispatchers discussed problems with county emergency communications and response coordination.
MORE: Number of missing in Texas floods drops from nearly 100 to 3 in hard-hit county
In one call, a dispatcher noted that the phone line for the Guadalupe River State Park was down. In another, a first responder called 911 to raise concerns with the local emergency operations center call sheets.
"We updated and gave direction a couple of times, and it still was done a different … way by every time somebody different got on there," the first responder said.
He suggested merging call sheets to better organize and unify the emergency response, to which the dispatcher replied: "That's going to be a pain."
"Maybe we can go through this in the future, how we can do it differently," the first responder said at the end of the call, and the dispatcher agreed. "We all have something to bring for the after-action."