Judy Dale has been coming to the Guadalupe River outside of Hunt, Texas, for the Fourth of July weekend with her friends and family for decades. And this year was no different. She arrived Thursday afternoon at the River Inn Resort & Conference Center in a group of about 30 people that included her daughter, grandchildren, her brother and close friends.
But what started as a usual trip with swimming and brisket turned into something else entirely, when a member of the hotel staff banged on her door at about 3 a.m. and told her to evacuate because the river was rising.
"The storm was raging. It was constant lightning and thunder," Dale said. "This wonderful woman was standing outside, shouting at us that the river was coming up and we had to leave immediately. So we grabbed my grandson, who is 7 years old – he was sleeping in the living room – and we walked out the door."
Dale got in one car with a friend and her grandson. Her daughter and granddaughter got in another. But soon, the group found themselves stopped in traffic because the water was already too high over the low water crossing down the road.
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"We were watching a mailbox next to us, and we saw the water rising. And we had decided if it got to a certain point we would get out of the car and try to cross the road and go up the cliff behind the River Inn," she said. "And as we were contemplating what to do, this woman, and I came to find out her name is Lisa Coffey, she appeared out of nowhere again, banging on our window and told us the river was coming up, we had to leave our cars."
Dale was told to go to the parking lot of the River Inn, where there was a second-floor apartment for a member of hotel staff.
"We got out of the car. My friend, Greg, took my grandson by the arm. He was holding him very tightly. I just remember he told him to be brave, and I heard him saying he wouldn't let go of him," Dale said. "The water was at our shins, and in a second or two, it was up to our knees. There was quite a bit of pressure and moving debris."
When Dale and her group of three arrived at the apartment, there were a handful of other guests already there. After some time had passed, all of a sudden, people started appearing in the space.
"The river had gotten so high, and there was a low-hanging roof on this apartment that you could clamber up, and then you could get in a window into the second-floor apartment," she said. "And people were being swept by. There were people helping other people up. My daughter and granddaughter appeared, miraculously. They came through the window."
Dale described what she said felt like an unreal scene of people helping pull others out of the river and boost them through the window — at this point, the water had covered the stairs.
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"People had dogs and they were floating by, and people were grabbing them and pulling them up onto the roof and helping them up," she said. "And I think in the next 30 minutes, there were, I don't know, 40 people in that tiny apartment.
"My brother and his wife appeared, and they had been in several cars ahead of us. And she told me later that the water was, I think, to her waist when she got out of the car, and it was up above her chest."
By the time the sun came up, the flood water had already started to recede. Dale said every room on the first floor of the hotel sustained massive damage.
"Every room on the bottom floor, water had pushed through it," she said. "Some had walls missing, windows missing. And if this woman had not been watching what was going on and alerted us, [we would not have] had time to get out. Because another 45 minutes would have been too late for everybody on the first floor."
There was no cell service, so everyone milled around the property assessing the damage until the first Department of Public Safety helicopter landed on the site in the early afternoon to take high-priority evacuees.
"Boy, it felt good to hear those choppers coming in," Dale said. "During the day, someone found a grill and brought out their food that was gonna spoil. They had been on the second floor, so they still had food. And so everyone from the second floor who had food brought all their food out, and it was cooked on the grill, which was very nice. The sense of community was awesome."
Around 6 p.m., the Kerr County sheriff was able to clear through the debris in a Humvee and evacuate another group of people. Then, around 9 p.m., Dale and her family were evacuated by the National Guard.
"We were taken on to Kerrville, where we spent the night in a Methodist encampment," she said. "I've never been in a better hotel in my life. And the next morning, friends from Austin came and picked us up and brought us home."
Since she got home, Dale said she has felt numb. But she also feels enormous grief for those who lost loved ones.
"The pain is unimaginable for all those families who lost their children. It's incomprehensible," she said. "We were very lucky. We were lucky, but our hearts go out to everyone else."
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