Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / The Texas Flood Disaster-Stories from on the Ground in the Hill Country

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The Texas Flood Disaster-Stories from on the Ground in the Hill Country · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome. It is Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson
0:03
Speaker 1: with you, and it's so nice to have you with
0:05
Speaker 1: us on the program. Today, Senator, We're going to be
0:07
Speaker 1: covering yet again the horrific flooding in Texas and get
0:12
Speaker 1: people up to date on the latest information that you have.
0:15
Speaker 2: Right now, well five days into it, we have one
0:19
Speaker 2: hundred and nine people who've been killed in the flooding
0:21
Speaker 2: in the Hill Country of Texas. There are still a
0:25
Speaker 2: significant number of people that are missing. We know of
0:28
Speaker 2: at least twenty seven campers and counselors that were killed
0:31
Speaker 2: at Camp Mystic. Those numbers may grow. The one hundred
0:34
Speaker 2: and nine is likely to grow. And I have to say,
0:39
Speaker 2: just having spent all day yesterday on the ground in
0:42
Speaker 2: the Hill Country, the devastation, I got to tell you,
0:46
Speaker 2: as bad as you think it is, it's worse. It
0:49
Speaker 2: is being on the ground and Camp Mystic. And later
0:54
Speaker 2: in this podcast, I'm going to walk you through exactly
0:57
Speaker 2: what is going on in Camp Mystic, what the state is.
1:02
Speaker 2: It is the most horrific thing I've ever seen, and
1:04
Speaker 2: it is look, I got to say, the whole state
1:07
Speaker 2: of Texas we are grieving we're mourning, but the whole
1:11
Speaker 2: country is morning. Everyone particularly had anyone who's a parent,
1:15
Speaker 2: the nightmare of losing your child, and losing your child
1:20
Speaker 2: to this kind of disaster, going from joy and celebration
1:24
Speaker 2: dropping your kid off at summer camp to have an
1:27
Speaker 2: incredible experience just days later being swept away by floodwaters.
1:32
Speaker 2: It is horrific and we're hurting. We're hurting right.
1:36
Speaker 1: Now, no doubt about it. We're going to give you
1:38
Speaker 1: that update on exactly where we are now in just
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Speaker 1: make the switch today. So, Senator, we've had a lot
3:26
Speaker 1: that's happened since we put out that podcast yesterday. Usually
3:29
Speaker 1: we published a show on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I
3:31
Speaker 1: know mini are tuning in this morning that may have
3:33
Speaker 1: missed part of that, and we're going to talk about
3:35
Speaker 1: and play some of that for you in a moment.
3:37
Speaker 1: But catch us up to the latest briefings you've received
3:40
Speaker 1: in the last twenty four hours.
3:41
Speaker 2: Well, look, I want to read you a story that
3:44
Speaker 2: was published in the Wall Street Journal and it was
3:47
Speaker 2: entitled A Texas dad tried to kayak to his daughters.
3:52
Speaker 2: The girls texted I love you, and the story focuses
3:57
Speaker 2: on the Harbor family that spent holiday at a cabin
4:01
Speaker 2: they owned at cassabidneda cabin community near Hunt, Texas. Around
4:05
Speaker 2: three thirty a m. On Friday, R J. Harbor was
4:08
Speaker 2: awakened by pounding rain, thunder and lightning. Hours earlier. He'd
4:12
Speaker 2: received flash flood warnings for other areas, but not where
4:15
Speaker 2: he was staying. R J, who was a forty five
4:18
Speaker 2: year old father and Dallas lawyer who had been vacationing
4:21
Speaker 2: and going to summer camp in this area his whole life,
4:24
Speaker 2: thought the river might rise a little. He wanted to
4:27
Speaker 2: check on his two young daughters, eleven year old Brook
4:31
Speaker 2: and thirteen year old Blair. The girls were staying in
4:35
Speaker 2: a borrowed cabin closer to the river with their grandparents,
4:39
Speaker 2: Mike and Charlene Harbor. R J said he thought he
4:43
Speaker 2: would also clear away a kayak and some fishing geary
4:46
Speaker 2: was keeping by the river. He put his foot down
4:49
Speaker 2: on the floor of his cabin and felt about four
4:51
Speaker 2: inches of water. RJ turned to his wife, who was
4:55
Speaker 2: laying in bed beside him, also awake. He told her Annie,
4:59
Speaker 2: the cabin's flo flooding. RJ could see the water rushing
5:03
Speaker 2: in through the front door. He tried to open the door,
5:06
Speaker 2: but he couldn't. He looked out the window and saw
5:08
Speaker 2: the water level was about two feet below the window.
5:12
Speaker 2: We need to get out right now, RJ told Annie.
5:15
Speaker 2: They grabbed a few items, their cell phones in a
5:18
Speaker 2: bag they had no unpacked. By the time they jumped
5:21
Speaker 2: out the window, about two minutes later, the water had
5:24
Speaker 2: reached up to Annie's neck. The Harbors hurried to another
5:28
Speaker 2: cabin nearby on slightly higher ground, then knocked on the
5:31
Speaker 2: door and woke the family. By the time the family
5:34
Speaker 2: came to the door, the water was almost at their door.
5:37
Speaker 2: They went to another cabin and woke a third family
5:39
Speaker 2: as well. RJ borrowed a kayak, a life vest, and
5:43
Speaker 2: a flashlight. He started to kayak to the cabin where
5:46
Speaker 2: the couple's daughters and RJ's parents were standing. It was
5:49
Speaker 2: about one hundred feet below and he reached about half
5:52
Speaker 2: way when RJ said a swell knocked him into a post.
5:58
Speaker 2: I shined a flashlight out there, and I could see
6:02
Speaker 2: it was white water, and I've kayaked enough to know
6:05
Speaker 2: that was going to be impossible. He could see an
6:10
Speaker 2: entire cabin had been detached from its foundation and was
6:14
Speaker 2: stuck against the side of the cabin where his daughters
6:17
Speaker 2: and parents were staying. There were cars floating at me
6:22
Speaker 2: and trees floating at me. I knew if I took
6:26
Speaker 2: even one stroke further, it was going to be a
6:30
Speaker 2: death sentence. RJ turned around to get his wife in
6:34
Speaker 2: the remaining families. They went to a home nearby on
6:37
Speaker 2: higher ground across Highway thirty nine, where a family left
6:40
Speaker 2: them in about three forty five am. That was when
6:44
Speaker 2: he checked his cell phone and he saw a text
6:48
Speaker 2: sent at three thirty am from his daughter Brooke. Receiving
6:53
Speaker 2: the text alone was a miracle in the area. Where
6:56
Speaker 2: he usually couldn't get cell serviced. It said I love you.
7:03
Speaker 2: Annie forty three, worked at Saint Rita's Catholic School, which
7:07
Speaker 2: both girls attended, received texts from both Brook and Blair,
7:13
Speaker 2: time stamped at three thirty a m. That said I
7:17
Speaker 2: love you. Their other grandfather, lives in Michigan, received text
7:22
Speaker 2: with love you and a photo of the girls with him.
7:27
Speaker 2: The Harbors and the other families waited without power all night,
7:30
Speaker 2: hearing horrible sounds. The next morning, they realized they had
7:36
Speaker 2: been hearing the cabins being ripped off their foundations and
7:41
Speaker 2: crashing apart. At sunrise, the water had finally receded enough
7:45
Speaker 2: for r J to go back to the site. Only
7:48
Speaker 2: a half dozen of the community's twenty something cabins were
7:50
Speaker 2: still standing. The others had been ripped from the foundations,
7:55
Speaker 2: leaving only their tile floors. The cabin where Blair, brook
8:00
Speaker 2: and their grandparents and been staying was completely washed away.
8:06
Speaker 2: Blair and Brooks bodies were found and identified about a
8:10
Speaker 2: dozen miles from the cabin. Their grandfather's bodies was recovered
8:15
Speaker 2: on Monday. Their grandmother that was unaccounted for as of
8:20
Speaker 2: Monday afternoon. Can you imagine ben No. The last thing
8:28
Speaker 2: you hear from your child is a text I love
8:33
Speaker 2: you as the cabin they're in is swept into the
8:37
Speaker 2: river and they're on their way to their death. This
8:41
Speaker 2: happened over and over and over again that night.
8:46
Speaker 1: It is another reminder of just how quick things happen.
8:51
Speaker 1: It's a reminder of just how unprecedented this type of
8:54
Speaker 1: flooding was. It's a reminder, I think, to those trying
8:58
Speaker 1: to put aside this, how much this should never have
9:02
Speaker 1: been politicized and try to turn this into a talking
9:07
Speaker 1: point for politics, because as I said yesterday, there is
9:12
Speaker 1: no one that was involved in this in those moments
9:15
Speaker 1: was thinking about if you're a Republican or Democrat or
9:17
Speaker 1: rich orpore No.
9:19
Speaker 2: Pray for Texas, Pray for these parents, Pray for these
9:22
Speaker 2: moms and dads, Pray for these grandparents, Pray for these
9:25
Speaker 2: brothers and sisters. The agony, the pain, it is, it
9:29
Speaker 2: is unreal and and and we have Texans and Americans
9:33
Speaker 2: hurting tonight.
9:34
Speaker 1: Aim into that. We do know that President Trump is
9:36
Speaker 1: pointing on coming down to Texas, and I think there's
9:39
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are going to want to
9:41
Speaker 1: see their president, their commander in chief down in Texas.
9:45
Speaker 1: That White House has said that that they're going to
9:46
Speaker 1: be there, and that's going to help I think with
9:48
Speaker 1: certainly some of the healing as well.
9:52
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I'm very glad the President is coming. It's the
9:54
Speaker 2: right thing to do.
9:56
Speaker 1: I want to go back to what many of you
9:58
Speaker 1: may have missed yesterday. Senator Cruz was down in the center,
10:04
Speaker 1: the epicenter of where everything happened, and for many of you,
10:07
Speaker 1: you may have missed it what was said about that
10:10
Speaker 1: time down there on Monday, and the time that was spent,
10:14
Speaker 1: and the stories that were told, and the families that
10:16
Speaker 1: were there, And if you missed it, I hope, by
10:19
Speaker 1: the way, that you'll take this show and share it
10:20
Speaker 1: wherever you can so others can hear exactly what happened
10:25
Speaker 1: in Kerrville in the surrounding area and how you can
10:28
Speaker 1: also help as well. So if you missed that yesterday,
10:33
Speaker 1: when we put this out on a day we normally
10:34
Speaker 1: don't publish, we wanted to play that for you again
10:37
Speaker 1: right now.
10:39
Speaker 2: Well, Ben, you and I are recording this at twelve
10:41
Speaker 2: thirty six am Monday night, and I spent the entire
10:44
Speaker 2: day in the hill country starting at six am this morning,
10:48
Speaker 2: and I visited with families who were grieving. I went
10:54
Speaker 2: to camp missed it and saw firsthand the devastation. I
10:59
Speaker 2: will tell you there are not words to describe just
11:02
Speaker 2: how much Texas is hurting. This is across the state
11:08
Speaker 2: and across the country. People are grieving. They're grieving for
11:12
Speaker 2: the moms and dads. This flooding. I'll tell you, In
11:16
Speaker 2: my thirteen years in the Senate, I've seen a lot
11:19
Speaker 2: of natural disasters, hurricanes and tornadoes and wildfires, and it's
11:24
Speaker 2: always difficult. But this was something really different what happened
11:31
Speaker 2: in the Hill Country. Right now, the fatality count it
11:37
Speaker 2: is over one hundred. It is expected to keep growing.
11:42
Speaker 2: They are still searching for and finding bodies right now,
11:48
Speaker 2: can't mystic. We know of twenty seven kids and counselors
11:53
Speaker 2: who lost their lives in the flooding. There are an
11:56
Speaker 2: additional ten more girls and one more counselor who are missing,
12:01
Speaker 2: and and so there are search and rescue teams that
12:04
Speaker 2: are searching for them right now. Obviously, every hour, every
12:07
Speaker 2: day that goes by the the the the odds of
12:12
Speaker 2: a happy outcome go down. But but we are certainly
12:17
Speaker 2: praying that that those those eleven girls are are are
12:22
Speaker 2: found safe and sound.
12:26
Speaker 3: You know.
12:27
Speaker 2: I want to tell folks a little bit about what
12:32
Speaker 2: what has happened on the ground and where this is.
12:34
Speaker 2: So if you're if you're not from Texas, the Hill
12:37
Speaker 2: Country is in central Texas, is the center central part
12:40
Speaker 2: of the state and and it is I think the
12:44
Speaker 2: most beautiful part of the state. And I think most
12:46
Speaker 2: most Texans agree with that. Uh. There are rolling hills, Uh,
12:50
Speaker 2: there are beautiful rivers and and in particular Kerr County. Uh,
12:58
Speaker 2: there are about forty summer camps. And there's a long
13:02
Speaker 2: tradition of camps. It's an incredible tradition that goes back
13:07
Speaker 2: one hundred years where people went and formed these summer
13:10
Speaker 2: camps because the natural beauty was so extraordinary that it's
13:14
Speaker 2: an incredible place for girls and for boys to come
13:19
Speaker 2: and spend typically a month at a time. And Camp
13:23
Speaker 2: Mystic is it's one hundred years old. It is a
13:28
Speaker 2: Christian girls camp. And I will tell you Camp Mystic
13:31
Speaker 2: is really an institution in Texas. It is you see
13:43
Speaker 2: families from all across Texas who at the end of
13:49
Speaker 2: typically the month long camp session that there's a two
13:53
Speaker 2: day closing ceremony, and you'll see grandmothers and moms and daughters,
13:59
Speaker 2: three generations of Texas women that are there, and and
14:03
Speaker 2: and it is look for me, this is not abstract.
14:06
Speaker 2: Are Our girls have have gone to camp in Hunt
14:10
Speaker 2: in Kirk County, UH for a decade now. And and
14:14
Speaker 2: and actually just last week Heidi was there picking up Catherine,
14:19
Speaker 2: our youngest daughter from camp. And and and so this
14:21
Speaker 2: was literally a week ago that that my daughter was there.
14:26
Speaker 2: She was at camp that had been there for a month.
14:27
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you these camps are that they teach
14:32
Speaker 2: girls independence and responsibility and teamwork and and the friendships
14:40
Speaker 2: that are formed are lifelong friendships. Catherine's best friend, uh
14:47
Speaker 2: is Is is a girl from UH from the Rio
14:50
Speaker 2: Grand Valley who she would never have met going to
14:52
Speaker 2: school and grown up in Houston if it were not
14:54
Speaker 2: for that camp. And and they are absolutely inseparable. Those
14:58
Speaker 2: sorts of friendships you see at the closing ceremony. You
15:01
Speaker 2: see women in their seventies and eighties with those same
15:06
Speaker 2: lifelong friendships. And when this flooding hit, it just devastated
15:14
Speaker 2: cam't Mystic, and not just Camp Mystic, but the entire region.
15:19
Speaker 2: It was the fourth of July weekend, and so you
15:22
Speaker 2: had thousands of thousands of people there celebrating by the
15:25
Speaker 2: river banks. And the Guadalupe River is this beautiful river
15:29
Speaker 2: that I have have floated on and swam in dozens
15:33
Speaker 2: of times. It's a gorgeous river. It's wonderful. People love
15:36
Speaker 2: to swim in it, vacation in it, canoe in it, and.
15:40
Speaker 1: No, it's it's it's part of just the summers in Texas.
15:44
Speaker 1: That and for people I mentioned that are outside Texas,
15:47
Speaker 1: floating the river is just so much fun because you
15:50
Speaker 1: get I mean these basically they used to be back
15:53
Speaker 1: in the day, the inner tubes of tires. You get
15:54
Speaker 1: these floats now and you float with your best friends.
15:58
Speaker 1: I have a friend that act actually met his future
16:01
Speaker 1: wife floating the Guadalupe River. I mean, it's just a community.
16:05
Speaker 1: It's a slow float, it's very safe. It is something
16:08
Speaker 1: that you do. We've stayed on that river before we
16:10
Speaker 1: floated it, as you mentioned countless times. And on the
16:14
Speaker 1: fourth of July, a lot of people go down there camping.
16:16
Speaker 1: You camp close the river, you bring your RV and
16:20
Speaker 1: you do that. And that's what people were doing. As
16:22
Speaker 1: you mentioned, it was a fourth of July weekend.
16:25
Speaker 2: Well, and you mentioned r vs the flooding. There were
16:29
Speaker 2: many RVs that were just swept into the river, and
16:33
Speaker 2: we don't have a count. So I started this morning
16:36
Speaker 2: by meeting with the mayor and the county judge and
16:38
Speaker 2: the county commissioners and Texas DPS and the sheriff, and
16:42
Speaker 2: just getting a report from on the ground. And one
16:45
Speaker 2: of the challenging things. We have over one hundred confirmed fatalities.
16:50
Speaker 2: There are a number of bodies that have been discovered,
16:52
Speaker 2: both adults and kids, that have not been identified yet,
16:55
Speaker 2: and bodies that have been in the water for an
16:58
Speaker 2: extended period of time be difficult to identify visually, and
17:02
Speaker 2: so they're doing DNA swabs. You know, when this started happening,
17:08
Speaker 2: it was early in the morning on the fourth of July.
17:11
Speaker 2: The National Weather Service put out an emergency warning just
17:14
Speaker 2: after one am. They put out another emergency warning just
17:18
Speaker 2: after four am, and the waters rose about thirty feet
17:23
Speaker 2: in less than an hour. Thirty feet is a lot
17:28
Speaker 2: for an ordinary calm river to rise suddenly. The flash
17:32
Speaker 2: flood was absolutely devastating. That now, when this was happening.
17:37
Speaker 2: Within hours of the flooding, occurring. I was on the
17:41
Speaker 2: phone speaking with Governor Greg Abbott. I spoke with Lieutenant
17:47
Speaker 2: Governor Dan Patrick. I spoke with Nim Kidd, who is
17:51
Speaker 2: head of the Texas Department of Emergency Management, and I
17:55
Speaker 2: called President Trump and I talked to President Trump on
17:58
Speaker 2: that first day and I said, mister President, what is
18:03
Speaker 2: happening in Texas. This is bad. It is all indications
18:10
Speaker 2: are this is really really serious. There could be a
18:12
Speaker 2: lot of fatalities. Information was just starting to come in,
18:16
Speaker 2: so it was hazy, but I said, this could be
18:19
Speaker 2: really really bad. And President Trump, to his credit, he said, ted,
18:24
Speaker 2: whatever Texas needs, the answer is yes. Whatever federal assets
18:27
Speaker 2: you need, the answer is yes. And that I passed
18:31
Speaker 2: on to the state officials, to the local officials, and
18:34
Speaker 2: I'll tell you Ben, within hours, I was hearing from families.
18:38
Speaker 2: I was hearing from parents whose daughters weren't mystic and
18:43
Speaker 2: whose daughters were missing, and they were panicked, and they
18:45
Speaker 2: were saying, can you tell us anything? Can you do
18:48
Speaker 2: you have any information? And I was connecting them with
18:51
Speaker 2: the local sheriff, with emergency management, and look, you and
18:55
Speaker 2: I are both dads. It is difficult to imagine the panic.
19:02
Speaker 2: The fear, the bewilderment, everything those moms and dads were
19:07
Speaker 2: feeling as you get the news that your daughter is missing,
19:11
Speaker 2: and and and many of those parents just drove to
19:13
Speaker 2: Central Texas immediately got in the car and drove. As
19:17
Speaker 2: I told you, we picked up our daughter last week
19:20
Speaker 2: from right there.
19:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:23
Speaker 2: And Catherine said to me, said, well, why would the
19:26
Speaker 2: dads drive there? And I said, sweetheart, that's just what
19:29
Speaker 2: you do. If you're if your child has lost, you
19:32
Speaker 2: just go. You you'll move heaven and Earth.
19:38
Speaker 1: Just do whatever you can. I mean, it's the same
19:39
Speaker 1: conversation I have with my boys. And in the ages here,
19:43
Speaker 1: you know, you see these little girls that are missing,
19:45
Speaker 1: and what if my wife's high school friend's daughter is
19:50
Speaker 1: one of those that lost your life, and and having
19:53
Speaker 1: that conversation with your kids or the same age. My
19:56
Speaker 1: twins are six, they could have been at camp, and
20:00
Speaker 1: my oldest is eight, could have been at camp. And
20:03
Speaker 1: you put yourself in that situation of just what would
20:05
Speaker 1: you do, and it's exactly what you just said. You
20:09
Speaker 1: just go. And there's been I also want people to
20:12
Speaker 1: understand flooding in this region, because I think there's been
20:15
Speaker 1: a lot of misinformation nationwide on this so that people
20:18
Speaker 1: understand the Hill Country and kind of how it works.
20:21
Speaker 1: There's a lot of rock in the Hill Country, and
20:24
Speaker 1: so when it rains, the water doesn't absorb into the
20:28
Speaker 1: land like it does in most places in the country,
20:30
Speaker 1: like when we get rain in Houston or when I
20:33
Speaker 1: lived in in Dallas, like it rains and a lot
20:36
Speaker 1: of the water goes into the earth, and you don't
20:39
Speaker 1: have this flash flooding, this massive, quick flooding in the
20:43
Speaker 1: Hill country. That's what you get when you get rain.
20:46
Speaker 1: But to be clear, in this part of the Hill Country,
20:48
Speaker 1: they don't get a lot of rain. They can go
20:50
Speaker 1: hundreds of days without rain in this area. And so
20:54
Speaker 1: when it you know, there's there's a reality of like
20:57
Speaker 1: when it rains, the locals know that you're gonna have
21:00
Speaker 1: some flooding and the low lying areas and you kind
21:02
Speaker 1: of know where those areas are and where the bridges
21:04
Speaker 1: are and where the low areas are in the roadways.
21:07
Speaker 1: This is something that no one had seen in their lifetime.
21:12
Speaker 1: There had never been flooding like this in Kerrville or
21:16
Speaker 1: in Comfort the way that we are witnessing it now.
21:19
Speaker 1: And so there's some people I think out there acting like,
21:21
Speaker 1: well they should, you know, this is something that happened
21:23
Speaker 1: so common. I've seen comments like that this was catastrophic.
21:27
Speaker 1: You witness it today.
21:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was utterly unprecedented. I went up in a
21:33
Speaker 2: Coastguard helicopter and I flew a significant portion of the
21:38
Speaker 2: Guadalupe River, and I will tell you just looking at
21:42
Speaker 2: the devastation. You know water, when you have a fast
21:47
Speaker 2: moving wall of water, nothing stands in its way. There
21:51
Speaker 2: were cars strewn everywhere, and by the way, when a
21:54
Speaker 2: car is being thrown and it crashes into a tree,
21:58
Speaker 2: it destroys the car. But there were thousands and thousands
22:03
Speaker 2: of trees that were just mowed over by the water
22:06
Speaker 2: because when water hits a tree, water's a lot stronger
22:09
Speaker 2: than the trees. And the volume of you saw houses
22:12
Speaker 2: just taking clean off off their foundation and swept into
22:18
Speaker 2: the river that we were talking about. RV's a lot
22:20
Speaker 2: of people bring ur vs or in mobile homes and look,
22:23
Speaker 2: if you're going to a campsidey, you know it's a
22:25
Speaker 2: fourth of July weekend, it's a great weekend. And the
22:29
Speaker 2: problem is urvs and mobile homes are particularly vulnerable in
22:33
Speaker 2: a flood or tornado or other natural disaster, and so
22:36
Speaker 2: you just had multiple RVs swept into the river. They
22:39
Speaker 2: don't have a firm count, they don't know how many
22:41
Speaker 2: people they're looking for, because many of the visitors were
22:44
Speaker 2: not from Kirk County. And we're just there to celebrate
22:48
Speaker 2: the Fourth of July. Going down flying that helicopter and
22:54
Speaker 2: just seeing the extent of the devastation was massive. And look,
23:05
Speaker 2: but but I want to say this this, there's so
23:09
Speaker 2: much grief in Texas. Our hearts are broken right now.
23:17
Speaker 2: And and they're families from from Houston, from Dallas, from Austin,
23:21
Speaker 2: from San Antonio, from every community in Texas and there,
23:24
Speaker 2: and they're they're campers who come from all over the
23:26
Speaker 2: country to come to Camp Mystic, but many of them
23:28
Speaker 2: are from cities in Texas and and many of them
23:31
Speaker 2: you and I know we have multiple friends who've lost children.
23:37
Speaker 2: My street at home, around the oak tree in our
23:40
Speaker 2: front yard, we have a big green ribbon for the
23:44
Speaker 2: girls that can't Mystic. And if you look at tree
23:46
Speaker 2: after tree, just going up and down our street, they're
23:49
Speaker 2: green ribbons on tree after tree after tree. But but
23:55
Speaker 2: I want to I want to give some encouragement look,
23:59
Speaker 2: this unbearably hard and painful for the state. But in
24:07
Speaker 2: the face of unspeakable pain, there's also unbelievable courage. And
24:15
Speaker 2: there were over eight hundred and fifty rescues from that river.
24:23
Speaker 2: We had early on when I got on the phone
24:26
Speaker 2: and I worked to make sure that there were there
24:27
Speaker 2: were federal assets. There went over a dozen helicopters in
24:30
Speaker 2: the air. We had Coast Guard in the air, we
24:32
Speaker 2: had National guardsmen in the air, we had DPS in
24:35
Speaker 2: the air, we had Game wardens on the ground, and
24:39
Speaker 2: they were rescuing people, pulling them out of harm's way.
24:45
Speaker 2: I met today with a Coastguard swimmer, and by the way,
24:48
Speaker 2: Coastguard swimmers are incredible. You know, I have analogized Coastguard
24:52
Speaker 2: swimmers before to kind of a blend of Navy seals
24:57
Speaker 2: and California surfers, and I've gotten to know several of
25:01
Speaker 2: these Coast Guard swimmers, and Hurricane Harvey, I got to
25:03
Speaker 2: know them, and they're utterly fearless. These are guys that
25:06
Speaker 2: jump out of helicopters into hurricane force winds and waters
25:10
Speaker 2: and just swim and rescue people, and they kind of,
25:13
Speaker 2: you know, offen O'll be just sort of dudes, like
25:18
Speaker 2: surfer dudes, who are these incredibly fearless life savers. Well,
25:23
Speaker 2: I met met this one coastguardsman who landed at Camp Mystic.
25:34
Speaker 2: He was on a Coastguard helicopter. They landed him there
25:37
Speaker 2: and he rescued one hundred and sixty five girls, and
25:42
Speaker 2: I talked with him. His name is Petty Officer Scott Ruskin.
25:45
Speaker 2: He's twenty six years old. He's from New Jersey and
25:49
Speaker 2: it was his first mission as a Coast Guard rescue swimmer.
25:53
Speaker 2: He's due to the Coast Guard. He did a lot
25:55
Speaker 2: of training, but they put him on the ground there
25:58
Speaker 2: and it was the highest part part of Camp Mystic.
26:01
Speaker 2: And then they they brought in a whole series of
26:03
Speaker 2: helicopters to helicopter the girls out because all the roads
26:06
Speaker 2: were underwater, so you couldn't drive in and get the
26:09
Speaker 2: girls because the roads were completely submerged. And so he
26:12
Speaker 2: was there. He spent three and a half hours on
26:15
Speaker 2: the ground at CA can't mystic understand there's torrential rains
26:19
Speaker 2: coming down. He's sitting there with girls, girls who are terrified,
26:26
Speaker 2: who are crying, who are screaming, who are scared. Some
26:30
Speaker 2: of them were singing hymns and he's trying to comfort them.
26:33
Speaker 2: They dropped him off and he was the one staying
26:35
Speaker 2: with them and trying to get the girls that they
26:38
Speaker 2: would come and land helicopters and they would load about
26:41
Speaker 2: fifteen girls and they'd take them, take them to a
26:44
Speaker 2: safe place, and they'd come back and pick up another
26:46
Speaker 2: load and another load, another load, so for three and
26:48
Speaker 2: a half hours, you know, when I visited with him,
26:53
Speaker 2: and it's interesting. He's twenty six years old. He has
26:55
Speaker 2: kind of short blonde hair and a mustache, and it's
26:59
Speaker 2: you know, he's done some media interviews today and one
27:01
Speaker 2: of them said, I'm just a dude, which is sort
27:05
Speaker 2: of what what I said about like the and he
27:08
Speaker 2: was saying and he was kind of laughing and saying
27:11
Speaker 2: like like he talks to his commanding officer and sometimes says, hey, dude,
27:15
Speaker 2: He's like, oh wait, wait, you're a commanding officer. Sorry,
27:17
Speaker 2: But it's it's kind of just how swimmers are. It's
27:20
Speaker 2: sort of their culture. But he said he had just
27:23
Speaker 2: gotten off the phone with a mom and dad and
27:26
Speaker 2: a girl who he said, and he said they were
27:29
Speaker 2: crying and he was crying because they said, you saved
27:31
Speaker 2: my daughter's life. She said that when she was terrified,
27:34
Speaker 2: you held her hand and just held her hand as
27:36
Speaker 2: you put her in the helicopter and and made her
27:39
Speaker 2: not be scared for a minute.
27:41
Speaker 3: And I.
27:44
Speaker 2: That heroism was happening over and over and over again.
27:51
Speaker 1: It's incredible. It's the best part of the tragedy is
27:55
Speaker 1: just seeing how quickly people came together. You know, there's
27:59
Speaker 1: also another aspect of this, and I do want to
28:01
Speaker 1: just take a moment and set the record straight. There
28:05
Speaker 1: have been some people that have tried to use this
28:09
Speaker 1: tragedy to score political points. I I it makes me
28:15
Speaker 1: sad that that that there's people in the media and
28:18
Speaker 1: there's people on the left that are just that vile
28:22
Speaker 1: and partisan. We even saw, you know, a pediatrician that
28:28
Speaker 1: actually worked where my kids go to, a pediatrician who
28:31
Speaker 1: said that basically, the people deserve what they get because
28:33
Speaker 1: they voted for Donald Trump in this area of the country.
28:36
Speaker 1: You know, Thank goodness, it was exposed and she was
28:38
Speaker 1: fired today for for that. It is it is sad
28:44
Speaker 1: to see this happen. And I even called her pediatricians
28:48
Speaker 1: office and I said, hey, like this, I need to
28:51
Speaker 1: know that if there's an on call doctor. They're not
28:54
Speaker 1: going to give my kid bad care if they know
28:57
Speaker 1: what I do. And they said, watch our website. You'll
29:00
Speaker 1: be getting an update soon. Thank goodness. They put out
29:02
Speaker 1: there that this doctor had been had been fired from
29:06
Speaker 1: from this job as a pediatrician. And you look at
29:08
Speaker 1: these moments and it does make you sad. But I
29:11
Speaker 1: also think we need to be clear about the record here.
29:15
Speaker 1: There's a lot of rumors that this was all preventable,
29:18
Speaker 1: that this was somehow Donald Trump's fault, this was the
29:21
Speaker 1: fault of defunding of FEMA and different agencies and National
29:25
Speaker 1: Weather Service. All that is a lie. They were staffed adequately.
29:29
Speaker 1: There were warnings that went out. Can we learn from
29:31
Speaker 1: this and do better? Absolutely? Can we put maybe a
29:34
Speaker 1: warning system on the on the on the river banks.
29:37
Speaker 1: So they've talked about seven years ago, but it was
29:39
Speaker 1: voted down because the costs and Kirk County that these
29:43
Speaker 1: are things that we can learn from. But the partisan
29:47
Speaker 1: politics of this and just watching people try to somehow
29:51
Speaker 1: blame Trump for this tragedy, it really makes me sad
29:54
Speaker 1: that this is still where we are in this way
29:57
Speaker 1: when something like this happens. I wish people could just
29:59
Speaker 1: learn this isn't political. This storm didn't care if you're
30:03
Speaker 1: a Republican or Democrat, or agnostic, or Christian or Jewish
30:07
Speaker 1: or Catholic or anything else. They didn't care if you
30:09
Speaker 1: were rich or poor, black or white. Everybody that was
30:13
Speaker 1: in the line of this flooding life was in danger.
30:16
Speaker 1: That's what people should focus on and the help we
30:19
Speaker 1: can do to give them, not trying to say, all right,
30:21
Speaker 1: how do we use this to make points?
30:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, you see this unfortunately frequently after after natural disasters,
30:28
Speaker 2: after hurricanes or door tornadoes or in this case, flooding,
30:32
Speaker 2: that that that partisans will try to attack their political
30:35
Speaker 2: opponents and and and and score cheap points. And there
30:38
Speaker 2: are a bunch of folks online and both in the
30:41
Speaker 2: media and and and on the left that are just
30:44
Speaker 2: trying to attack Trump. And and you know, if there's
30:47
Speaker 2: a hurricane, the hurricane is Trump's fault. And in this case,
30:50
Speaker 2: the the sort of talking point of the left was
30:53
Speaker 2: that that Doge made reductions in different areas of government
30:56
Speaker 2: and the National Weather Service, they say Doge gutted it.
30:59
Speaker 2: Now now we know that that is not the case.
31:02
Speaker 2: How do we know that? Number One, because the National
31:05
Speaker 2: Weather Service in this case put out two warnings, one,
31:07
Speaker 2: as I mentioned, just after one am, one after four am.
31:12
Speaker 2: That that was their job. We also know the National
31:15
Speaker 2: Weather Service for this region was headquarters in New Bronfils,
31:19
Speaker 2: which is another small town not too far away from Curville,
31:21
Speaker 2: not too far away from Hunt Hunt, and the night
31:25
Speaker 2: of this flood, they not only had full staffing, they
31:29
Speaker 2: had three additional people. Three extra people staffed that evening
31:33
Speaker 2: because they knew it was going to be a difficult
31:34
Speaker 2: weather event, so they deliberately staffed up. And lookie, I
31:39
Speaker 2: will say beyond that, the National Weather Service Union, which
31:43
Speaker 2: has been very critical of the doze reductions, as you
31:46
Speaker 2: would expect the union to be, they publicly said that
31:51
Speaker 2: the reductions through does had zero impact on the National
31:55
Speaker 2: Weather Service's ability to predict what happened here. And given
31:59
Speaker 2: that they're they're an entity that is naturally critical of
32:03
Speaker 2: those cuts, I think that's that speaks volumes, now, you know.
32:07
Speaker 2: I spent the day, I did a lot of a
32:09
Speaker 2: lot of interviews with a lot of reporters today and
32:12
Speaker 2: many of them were saying, okay, well, and they would
32:14
Speaker 2: ask this question. Many of the reporters would say well,
32:16
Speaker 2: isn't this all Trump's faulten? So I tried to say, look,
32:19
Speaker 2: stop politicizing a crisis that has broken the heart of
32:23
Speaker 2: our state. But as you noted and listen, with any disaster,
32:29
Speaker 2: there's a natural order of events. The first phase is
32:35
Speaker 2: is search and rescue. It is crisis saving people's lives.
32:40
Speaker 2: And we have been in that phase. We're still in
32:42
Speaker 2: that phase looking for these these eleven still missing girls.
32:47
Speaker 2: But but that phase will soon come to an end.
32:51
Speaker 2: The next phase is rebuilding. And then there are many
32:54
Speaker 2: people who have who have lost their homes, who've lost everything,
32:56
Speaker 2: and and the rebuilding time phase will will take It
32:59
Speaker 2: will take months, it may take years for some of
33:02
Speaker 2: these some of these places to be rebuilt. But that's
33:05
Speaker 2: a process. That's a process that there will be local
33:08
Speaker 2: assistance and state assistants and federal assistants at the same time.
33:13
Speaker 2: We will when we get through the crisis period, there
33:16
Speaker 2: will naturally be a retrospective examination of what happened, what
33:21
Speaker 2: was the exact timeline, and what could have gone better,
33:25
Speaker 2: what lessons can be learned, And we've seen that, for instance,
33:30
Speaker 2: with the many hurricanes. You know, you and I both
33:32
Speaker 2: live in Houston, if you live on the Gulf coast,
33:33
Speaker 2: you have a lot of hurricanes. I will say, unfortunately,
33:36
Speaker 2: Texas has gotten really good with dealing with hurricanes because
33:40
Speaker 2: we have a lot of practice in it, and so
33:41
Speaker 2: we've learned lessons. We've learned how to identify the most
33:45
Speaker 2: vulnerable areas, the most vulnerable populations when a hurricane is
33:48
Speaker 2: in the Gulf, to get them out of there, to
33:50
Speaker 2: try to minimize fatalities. And I think we can certainly
33:53
Speaker 2: learn lessons here, in particular the the you know, you're
33:58
Speaker 2: putting out warnings at one am and four am, most
34:01
Speaker 2: people are sleeping at one am and four am, and
34:04
Speaker 2: and every one of us, if you and I, yeah, yeah,
34:09
Speaker 2: and actually with the kids of the kids, they don't
34:10
Speaker 2: have people.
34:12
Speaker 1: Yeah. And by the way, there was people that we
34:14
Speaker 1: knew that were in Curville that received the notices on
34:18
Speaker 1: their phones. They woke up to them and yeah, they
34:21
Speaker 1: didn't get them because they were asleep.
34:25
Speaker 2: And the cell coverage, I will say, in that region
34:27
Speaker 2: is is just lousy. Like every time we go for
34:30
Speaker 2: can't pick up you. It's very hard to get any
34:32
Speaker 2: cell coverage at all. Just just given the topography, there's
34:35
Speaker 2: not not a lot of cell towers there. And and
34:40
Speaker 2: it's also you know, the campers are not allowed to
34:47
Speaker 2: have phones, uh and and so they leave their phones
34:51
Speaker 2: at home, so it's just the counselors and adults that
34:53
Speaker 2: have phones. But look, Ben, if you and I could
34:56
Speaker 2: step in a time machine right now and and go
34:59
Speaker 2: back to two or three in the morning on the
35:01
Speaker 2: fourth of July, we would run into those cabins and
35:05
Speaker 2: pull those girls out and get them out of there.
35:08
Speaker 2: Every one of us. We're just like dear God, get
35:11
Speaker 2: them the high ground. And so it is perfectly reasonable
35:16
Speaker 2: to say, how can we improve the response from when
35:20
Speaker 2: an emergency warning gets out to make sure that it
35:23
Speaker 2: is heard. And I'll tell you I spoke today with
35:26
Speaker 2: the Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, the Texas Legislator's coming back
35:30
Speaker 2: for special session shortly, and I suggested to him this
35:33
Speaker 2: is something that should be on the call. The governor
35:35
Speaker 2: chooses that, But Lieutenant Governor agreed that it made sense
35:41
Speaker 2: to look at an emergency warning system along the guadally
35:46
Speaker 2: Loopy River, much like we have up in the Texas Panhandle.
35:49
Speaker 2: When there's a tornado, they have sirens that go off
35:52
Speaker 2: because a tornado like a flash flood, you get very
35:55
Speaker 2: little warning, it can develop quickly, it could be devastating,
35:58
Speaker 2: and so they'll set off the alarm. I think it
36:02
Speaker 2: makes a lot of sense to consider putting in a
36:04
Speaker 2: warning system like that, so at least if you had
36:06
Speaker 2: a blaring alarm going off at one or two or
36:09
Speaker 2: three in the morning, it would wake the kids up
36:12
Speaker 2: and wake the counselors up and put them in a
36:14
Speaker 2: position to get the kids out of harm's way.
36:18
Speaker 1: No, I couldn't agree with you more in that one.
36:20
Speaker 1: How does that when you look at the response moving forward?
36:23
Speaker 1: Final question on this, because there are people that say, hey,
36:26
Speaker 1: we want to make sure, as you just mentioned, this
36:28
Speaker 1: never happens again. Is this the cooperation within the state
36:32
Speaker 1: of Texas with the federal government? Does the State of
36:35
Speaker 1: Texas come first? There's a lot of people that ask
36:36
Speaker 1: that question. I'd love for you to answer it. Where
36:39
Speaker 1: does that start?
36:41
Speaker 2: So it'll be at every level of government. It'll be
36:44
Speaker 2: the local level, it'll be at the state level, it'll
36:47
Speaker 2: be at the federal level. And I think at every
36:48
Speaker 2: level we're going to have discussions about what can we do,
36:51
Speaker 2: what makes sense, how do we keep people safe? And look,
36:57
Speaker 2: this level of devastation. We've never seen anything like it.
37:05
Speaker 2: But I want to go back to some of the
37:09
Speaker 2: signs of encouragement. I met with with one family today,
37:14
Speaker 2: a mom and dad who had a young boy, a
37:18
Speaker 2: fourteen year old boy, who was at Lahunta, which is
37:20
Speaker 2: another summer camp for boys. It's right right down right
37:24
Speaker 2: down the river from Mystic and Lahunta also badly flooded,
37:30
Speaker 2: and miraculously nobody was killed. But they said their fourteen
37:34
Speaker 2: year old son was woken up about three in the
37:36
Speaker 2: morning and the counselors were telling him, come come help us,
37:40
Speaker 2: Let's get the little boys out of harm's way, and
37:42
Speaker 2: and and he said they were going and getting getting
37:46
Speaker 2: seven and eight year old boy, pulling them out of
37:48
Speaker 2: their cabin and having them swim through rushing water and
37:51
Speaker 2: rescue them. And I got to tell you this, Mom
37:53
Speaker 2: and dad, they were there just just hugging. I was
37:58
Speaker 2: hugging them, and they had tears in their eyes, and
38:01
Speaker 2: they were just and and and first of all, their
38:04
Speaker 2: son was alive, so I just said, Praise God. But
38:06
Speaker 2: but it was, you know, terrifying, and and and what
38:11
Speaker 2: I did say to the mom and dad, I said,
38:13
Speaker 2: look that this this trauma, this experience will be with
38:18
Speaker 2: your son for the rest of his life. It will
38:20
Speaker 2: be with with both of you for the rest of
38:22
Speaker 2: your lives. But I said, your son also has the
38:25
Speaker 2: experience of knowing for the rest of his life that
38:28
Speaker 2: that as a fourteen year old boy, he helped save
38:31
Speaker 2: the lives of these younger seven, eight nine year old boys,
38:34
Speaker 2: That that that there are there are boys and soon
38:38
Speaker 2: to be men living because of his heroism in a
38:42
Speaker 2: time of crisis. And that I heard another story of
38:45
Speaker 2: a counselor who was in a cabin. The cabin was
38:49
Speaker 2: filled up with water. His head was just barely sticking
38:52
Speaker 2: above the water where he could breathe, and with each
38:55
Speaker 2: hand he was holding up a mattress with a camper
38:59
Speaker 2: on the on the ma attress, and all three of them,
39:01
Speaker 2: the counselor and both campers survived. Those sorts of acts
39:06
Speaker 2: of heroism happened over and over again. There's stories of
39:10
Speaker 2: Eagle Scouts who were counselors rescuing young kids over and
39:15
Speaker 2: over and over again. That was happening repeatedly. But I'll
39:19
Speaker 2: tell you, Ben, the most difficult thing I did today
39:22
Speaker 2: is I went to Camp Mystic, and I went and
39:26
Speaker 2: walked to the grounds at Camp Mystic, and I think
39:31
Speaker 2: it may be the most horrifying thing I've ever seen
39:33
Speaker 2: in my life. You walk through and actually, as you
39:39
Speaker 2: walk through, the river was calm and peaceful and beautiful,
39:46
Speaker 2: but it rose, and it rose suddenly. And I will
39:51
Speaker 2: say the press, I think has been less than clear
39:55
Speaker 2: and honest about how Camp Mystic is it is set up,
39:59
Speaker 2: because they've described it as saying, well, the camps for
40:02
Speaker 2: the cabins for the young girls were down by the
40:05
Speaker 2: river bank and all of the other cabins were up high.
40:09
Speaker 2: That's not accurate. And walking the grounds, the cabins are
40:13
Speaker 2: all hundreds of yards removed from the river bank. There's
40:16
Speaker 2: a lot of distance between the river and where the
40:18
Speaker 2: cabin is, and the cabins are all about the same elevation.
40:22
Speaker 2: There's some differences, but not massive differences in elevation between
40:26
Speaker 2: the cabins at Mystic. And I was talking with one
40:31
Speaker 2: of the longtime employees there who said there had been
40:34
Speaker 2: a flood decades before and it had gotten up, It
40:38
Speaker 2: had gotten up and crossed a little bit of the
40:41
Speaker 2: ground and had come to sort of the foundation of
40:45
Speaker 2: one of the buildings that was not a cabin, but
40:47
Speaker 2: one of the buildings closer to the river. But it
40:48
Speaker 2: had never gotten close to the cabins. So that's one
40:51
Speaker 2: thing to understand. People say, well, gosh, this is prone
40:54
Speaker 2: to floods. Yes, but in the one hundred years of
40:59
Speaker 2: Camp Mystic, ever been a flood where the water had
41:01
Speaker 2: gotten to the cabins. And in this case, the water
41:04
Speaker 2: was eight feet deep in the cabins. Walking through and
41:11
Speaker 2: every building you could see the water line, you could
41:13
Speaker 2: see the water line outside the buildings, and it was
41:17
Speaker 2: eight feet deep. And in the cabins the water shattered
41:22
Speaker 2: the windows, it swept the furniture out. You looked in
41:26
Speaker 2: the cabins and every one of the cabins, the furniture
41:29
Speaker 2: had been swept out, the windows were all shattered. And
41:34
Speaker 2: I got to tell you look there there was one cabin.
41:42
Speaker 2: It's called the bubble in, and it's a cabin at
41:47
Speaker 2: Missic where the youngest girls were. And outside the bubble
41:52
Speaker 2: in were sixteen white crosses, and on each one of
41:59
Speaker 2: those was a name of a little girl. And their
42:04
Speaker 2: names that we've read in the paper, their names of
42:09
Speaker 2: little seven to eight year old girls, third graders who
42:13
Speaker 2: lost their lives and one of the crosses was for
42:16
Speaker 2: Dick Eastland, the camp director who drowned trying to save
42:21
Speaker 2: the girls' lives. And he had spent he graduated from
42:25
Speaker 2: ut fifty years ago and had spent fifty years of
42:28
Speaker 2: his life running this camp for girls. And he was
42:32
Speaker 2: in his suburban. They showed me where he drowned. It
42:34
Speaker 2: was a couple of hundred yards from where I was standing.
42:36
Speaker 2: In the river. He was trying to save the girls,
42:38
Speaker 2: and the water swept him away and he drowned. And
42:40
Speaker 2: the sixteen crosses reading those names. Two of those little
42:48
Speaker 2: girls go to school with my daughter. They are third
42:55
Speaker 2: graders at the school. The parents of one of those
42:59
Speaker 2: little girls lives a block away from me. And I'll
43:08
Speaker 2: tell you, I just knelt and wept.
43:14
Speaker 3: There.
43:17
Speaker 2: There were families there. Ben There was a mom and
43:23
Speaker 2: dad who was kneeling in front of those crosses, right
43:32
Speaker 2: and they were kissing, kissing the cross and I stood back.
43:36
Speaker 2: I didn't want to interrupt their grieving, but just watching them.
43:43
Speaker 2: The mom came to that cabin the bubble in and
43:48
Speaker 2: she just broke down in tears. In front of every
43:54
Speaker 2: cabin there were the children's belongings. There were trunks. There
44:01
Speaker 2: were electric fans. There were slippers and flip flops and crocs.
44:10
Speaker 2: There were teddy bears. There were stuffed animals everywhere. These
44:12
Speaker 2: are little girls, and many of them have their names
44:16
Speaker 2: on them. And there were moms and dads picking through
44:23
Speaker 2: the rubble looking for their girls belongings. And I don't
44:31
Speaker 2: know which of those moms and dads lost a daughter.
44:35
Speaker 2: We know of twenty seven who were lost, and there
44:39
Speaker 2: may be more. There are eleven that are missing. And
44:45
Speaker 2: there were girls picking through the rubble. I don't know
44:49
Speaker 2: if those girls were campers themselves who had survived. I
44:53
Speaker 2: don't know if they're siblings who had lost a sibling.
44:56
Speaker 2: But everyone is walking around. Shell shock doesn't begin to
45:03
Speaker 2: describe it. They're up on the field. There was a
45:08
Speaker 2: field that was basically a parking lot for the cars
45:11
Speaker 2: of councilors, and the waters had thrown the cars on
45:18
Speaker 2: top of each other. It was like they were matchbox cars,
45:21
Speaker 2: just flipped over. You saw a car after car after
45:23
Speaker 2: cars stacked on each other, flipped on its side, flipped
45:26
Speaker 2: the over, tossed around the dining hall. An entire wall
45:34
Speaker 2: of the dining hall had been ripped off. They had
45:37
Speaker 2: heavy wooden tables that filled the dining hall. Every one
45:40
Speaker 2: of them had been pulled out in the bubble in
45:43
Speaker 2: which is where a large percentage of the fatalities occurred.
45:49
Speaker 2: The water swept in and just pulled those girls out
45:53
Speaker 2: the windows it seeing that, and I saw it first
46:03
Speaker 2: from the helicopter and you could see all their belongings
46:06
Speaker 2: spread out. But then standing there and abeling it from
46:14
Speaker 2: the perspective of a dad. You know, I have help
46:17
Speaker 2: my daughters pack their trunks. I've you know, can't pick
46:25
Speaker 2: up every year. You go and pick up your daughter's
46:27
Speaker 2: trunk and it's a joyful time. Our state is more
46:36
Speaker 2: morning right now, Ben.
46:41
Speaker 1: I tell you, for everyone listening and I say this,
46:45
Speaker 1: just pray for the people that are affected. Pray for
46:47
Speaker 1: the people in Texas. Pray for the families who are
46:53
Speaker 1: still without their their loved ones and they're still trying
46:55
Speaker 1: to find them. Pray for the moms and the dads
46:58
Speaker 1: who are planning the funerals. Is we know people personally
47:02
Speaker 1: that are doing that and getting ready for that this week.
47:06
Speaker 1: Pray for the moms. God, please pray for the moms. Yes,
47:10
Speaker 1: and anything you can do to help with all of that.
47:12
Speaker 1: There's so many different groups that are helping the people,
47:15
Speaker 1: and Comfort and and Kirk County and and and there
47:19
Speaker 1: are people that need help. And we focus so much
47:21
Speaker 1: on the kids, but there's a lot of elderly people
47:23
Speaker 1: that have been affected by this. There are a lot
47:25
Speaker 1: of people that lost their lives and all their belongings,
47:28
Speaker 1: and and and help any way you can with with
47:33
Speaker 1: all of the nonprofits that are getting involved, that are
47:35
Speaker 1: that are doing this, and and we're going to keep
47:38
Speaker 1: you updated. But I would just say, hug your babies.
47:41
Speaker 2: And Ben, I want to say, Ben, I want to
47:44
Speaker 2: say three more things of encouragement. So in Hunt, there's
47:50
Speaker 2: a store that's kind of a focal point. It's called
47:52
Speaker 2: the Hunt Store, and and it's right at the junction
47:55
Speaker 2: of two of the highways. You go up one highway
47:58
Speaker 2: to go to one of the big camps, go up
48:00
Speaker 2: another highway to go up to Mystic and Lahunta, and
48:02
Speaker 2: actually Hunta's right across the street from Hunt Store. The
48:06
Speaker 2: Hunt Store. The flooded. The flood utterly gutted it. It's
48:10
Speaker 2: just ripped out and hollow shell. I went and stopped
48:15
Speaker 2: at the Hunt Store and just just visited people who
48:18
Speaker 2: were there gathering there and they'd actually changed the sign
48:21
Speaker 2: where it said Hunt Store and instead of Hunt Store,
48:25
Speaker 2: they changed the sign to read Hunt Strong. And you know,
48:33
Speaker 2: Heidi and Catherine were at the Hunt Store last week.
48:39
Speaker 2: I mean it's I've been there dozens of times. The
48:43
Speaker 2: owners were there. I just hugged them and they were
48:46
Speaker 2: just like residents there who were just there mourning and grieving.
48:51
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you there was set up. There was
48:52
Speaker 2: a giant barbecue truck. All right. So this is a
48:56
Speaker 2: story that is amazing that you're going to like. It's
48:58
Speaker 2: a barbecue truck from Rockport. Rockport is a town down
49:02
Speaker 2: on the Gulf Coast and Rockport when Hurricane Harvey hit,
49:07
Speaker 2: it devastated the Gulf Coast from from deep East Texas
49:12
Speaker 2: to to south all the way really to Corpus Christie.
49:15
Speaker 2: So that's a lot of and Rockport is right in there.
49:17
Speaker 2: It's by Port Ramsas and MS Pass and Rockport was
49:20
Speaker 2: devastated by Hurricane Harvey. Well, these guys, and these are
49:26
Speaker 2: big old Texans with big old beards. They looked like
49:28
Speaker 2: zz Top and they said, well, you know, when when
49:33
Speaker 2: Hurricane Harvey hit, there was a group from Hunt, Texas,
49:37
Speaker 2: little town in the in the Hill Country that came
49:41
Speaker 2: down to Rockport and set up a food truck and
49:43
Speaker 2: fed us when we had lost our homes. And so
49:46
Speaker 2: they got in a truck and drove up this giant
49:49
Speaker 2: smoker and griller and they were just giving away free barbecue.
49:53
Speaker 2: And one of the things that's really cool. I was
49:58
Speaker 2: at in Rockport several times after Hurricane Harvard. I was
50:02
Speaker 2: in all the towns up and down the Gulf Coast,
50:04
Speaker 2: but I was at those food trucks. So I don't
50:08
Speaker 2: recall visiting with someone and hearing that they were from
50:10
Speaker 2: Hunt down in Rockport. But you know what, in Rockport,
50:13
Speaker 2: they remember that, and that's something we see happening, just
50:19
Speaker 2: Texans coming together. The Cajun Navy from Louisiana came and
50:23
Speaker 2: and we're there helping people out. That was incredible, And
50:28
Speaker 2: I just had a chance. I visited with a family.
50:32
Speaker 2: One dad who introduced me to two little boys and
50:35
Speaker 2: and he said both of them lost some of their
50:40
Speaker 2: closest friends in the flood. And I just I said,
50:44
Speaker 2: you know, little kids, and they're not much older than
50:47
Speaker 2: your boys. They shouldn't have to deal with with death
50:51
Speaker 2: and loss at that age. But I'll tell you. In
50:55
Speaker 2: that same parking lot at the Hunt store, there was
50:59
Speaker 2: a car that had written on the back of it
51:02
Speaker 2: a Bible verse written in like shaving cream on the
51:05
Speaker 2: back window, and it was Isaiah forty three to two
51:11
Speaker 2: that says, when you go through deep water, I will
51:16
Speaker 2: be with you.
51:20
Speaker 1: Amen.
51:21
Speaker 2: That is Look, you just asked folks to pray. Let
51:25
Speaker 2: me just underscore that for the moms and dads who
51:29
Speaker 2: have a yearning, gaping hole in their heart, I think
51:34
Speaker 2: there is no pain, no agony like losing a child,
51:38
Speaker 2: and nothing will ever fill that hole. That pain will
51:41
Speaker 2: never go away. But they need love, they need support,
51:45
Speaker 2: they need friends, They need families to hug them, to
51:50
Speaker 2: hold them tight, to just give them a shoulder to
51:52
Speaker 2: cry on and to hold them up. And I got
51:55
Speaker 2: to tell you this is a time for the church.
51:58
Speaker 2: One of the reasons Texas I think we are so
52:01
Speaker 2: resilient when facing natural disasters is because the church is
52:05
Speaker 2: strong in Texas and you see, you see church step.
52:09
Speaker 2: I started the day actually by visiting with a number
52:11
Speaker 2: of chaplains who, look, you want to talk about it
52:14
Speaker 2: was brutal on the chaplains when you're dealing with moms
52:17
Speaker 2: and dads who've lost their kids and they're just weeping.
52:22
Speaker 2: Even a chaplain of a man or women of strong faith.
52:25
Speaker 2: I mean, it rips your heart out to be with
52:28
Speaker 2: a parent who's lost a seven or eight year old daughter.
52:31
Speaker 2: And right down from the Hunt store there was a
52:37
Speaker 2: church that had a big sign free barbecue, lunch, and dinner.
52:41
Speaker 2: All are welcome. And that's what the church should be doing,
52:44
Speaker 2: is helping and clothing and comforting and taking care of
52:47
Speaker 2: the needy, and that the church should always be doing that,
52:51
Speaker 2: but especially in time of crisis. And I want to
52:56
Speaker 2: close this pod today, Ben with something I saw on
53:00
Speaker 2: the internet, and it's a video that was recorded in
53:04
Speaker 2: a bus that was driving a bus full of campers
53:10
Speaker 2: from cat Mystic after this flooding, and it's a video
53:15
Speaker 2: recording and you can watch on x there's a video
53:19
Speaker 2: of it. It's an iPhone or that is going along
53:23
Speaker 2: and showing the video as they're driving along and you
53:26
Speaker 2: can see the wreckage and the wreckage and the wreckage
53:28
Speaker 2: and everything. But the girls are singing hymns and Mystic
53:32
Speaker 2: is a Christian camp and these are girls that have
53:35
Speaker 2: just been through hell and been terrified, have lost friends,
53:39
Speaker 2: some of these girls have lost siblings. And I want
53:44
Speaker 2: to close this podcast by just listening to the voices
53:48
Speaker 2: of these girls singing. And I will tell you I
53:52
Speaker 2: have a hard time listening to them singing without being
53:56
Speaker 2: in tears. But I watch you to hear them. Take
54:00
Speaker 2: at these the hips or bound.
54:03
Speaker 3: I'll shot it from the mountaintop, says, I want my
54:08
Speaker 3: world to know the Lord of Love has come to me.
54:12
Speaker 4: I want to pass it on. I'll shot it from
54:17
Speaker 4: the mountaintops, praise Scott. I want my world to know
54:22
Speaker 4: the Lord of has come to me. I want to
54:26
Speaker 4: pass as Grand God.
54:35
Speaker 3: Erman ho and and you.
54:40
Speaker 4: Wednays hoby hm oh you see oh uh uh. Anyways
55:05
Speaker 4: you know me. I know rand to be a sap
55:12
Speaker 4: she every oh try and tru three days you I'll
55:24
Speaker 4: be sae if she oh, okay, t five and it's right,
55:40
Speaker 4: chest man.
55:43
Speaker 3: And all these things, she'll be out of un to you,
55:47
Speaker 3: are they all ladys? So long the fie, oh bye,
55:57
Speaker 3: every one, the proceeds from the mountain.
56:03
Speaker 4: Not are living