A North Texas man from Mesquite who has made it his life's mission to find missing people is helping others search for their loved ones following this weekend's flooding along the Guadalupe River.
Dozens of people died and many are still missing after storms devastated the area.
"I'm exhausted," said Alfonso Solis, who spent the weekend offering support to first responders. He came back to his residence in Mesquite on Monday for some respite and to see his family — but plans to return to Kerr County on Tuesday to continue the work.
"It's emotionally draining," he said. "You see a lot and you think about what's going on and you just want to find a way to help people."
Solis was on vacation with his family when he got a call from a North Texas man whose brother, wife and one-year-old son were missing after flood waters swept through their home in Kerrville.
He said he didn't initially expect to be "boots on the ground," but joined the man as he searched for his relatives.
"They were at the riverbank at night with flashlights and it was hard for me to tell them, like, 'you can't be there,'" Solis said. "You know, it's still an active zone. You're in danger of something happening to you and then we gotta come rescue you too."
Solis has been leading and helping with search and rescue efforts for decades, volunteering with efforts after becoming a widow at a young age, but water rescue is not his area of expertise.
"It's one thing to go look for a lost kid in the woods or an Alzheimer's patient that wandered off," Solis said. "You know, water is a very powerful thing and there's nothing for me to track. There's just a big line where water just carved a new path into the earth."
Solis, a chaplain, said he offered support without getting in the way, and helped where he could.
He went back and forth between the reunification center in Kerrville and the funeral home relaying information to people, especially to Spanish-speaking families who are dealing with language barriers as they search for information.
"I went there for peer support and for the families," he said. "There are very few people in search and rescue that speak Spanish, so wanted to be there ... to be able to use that particular skill set."
Solis is planning to return to later this week and will connect with a search and rescue team from Tennessee he's trained with in the past. He said he's taking items like a chainsaw and a generator to help.
As he looked to go back, he said he was preparing himself mentally to deal with something of this magnitude. He's been listening and talking to people and "hearing the desperation in their voice" as they wait for notifications about their loved ones.
"You carry that weight with you because you're witness to that, and ... your heart hurts for them," he said.
"My hope is, is we find everyone and bring them home."
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