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For many, the flood came without warning.
"We heard a roar, and the door started … the hinges started buckling, and we looked outside, and the water was up above our windows," said Martha Murayama. She lives in Ingram's Bumble Bee Hills subdivision, where the streets have cheery names like Queen Bee, May Bee, and Should Bee. By the time Murayama realized the danger, it was almost too late.
"It started coming through the door and rising inside, and when we looked out, there was nowhere to go," she said.
There are around two dozen homes in this subdivision, and all but one were inundated by the raging Guadalupe River early Friday. The Herreras live on Honey Bee, and Lilia Herrera said the flood was as sudden as it was ferocious.
"We couldn't push the door open with all the water that just came within five minutes," Herrera said. Her husband, who has Parkinson's disease, might have been lost in the surging flood, but a neighbor tied a rope around his waist and pulled him to safety.
"We lost everything inside the home, but we have our lives," Herrera said.
That was a refrain heard frequently this weekend in the Texas Hill Country. As people counted up their material losses, they also counted their blessings.
"I'm used to being the helper, not the receiver," Murayama said, her voice tightening with tears, "So this has been a real blessing."
Murayama and her husband escaped the quickly rising water and found refuge in a neighbor's home on higher ground. When they returned, she found that her house had filled not only with water, but with sewage, leeches, and 12-inch bass. "It's a big mess," she said.
Murayama then reflected on her gratitude for those who have rushed to Central Texas to help her and her neighbors.
"People dropping off buckets with mops and water, paper towels and trash bags," Murayama said, "And a lot of other people dropping off bags of hamburgers and bottled water. It's just a huge outpouring of love from strangers who don't know us."
Those sentiments echoed through Kerrville as well, where Kyle McCormick considered the 38-inch waterline in his father-in-law's house. "We're all safe," he said. "Everybody else wasn’t that lucky."
They plan to rebuild, McCormick said, though the prospect is daunting. "It's hard, but we're strong. We've rebuilt after floods before." He acknowledged that no other flood brought with it the devastation that this one has, "but we'll rebuild again. There's no other way."
This story was reported by Houston Public Media and Texas Public Radio in collaboration through The Texas Newsroom.
