By Julie Garica and Matt Woolbright
Corpus Christi Caller-Times
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Wimberley Fire Chief Carroll Czichos was warned early that trouble was headed to his vacation town.
He tried to get a jump on the rising Blanco River, but the chief and emergency responders quickly learned the river was fierce and moving fast.
Hundreds of 911 calls from the historic Memorial Day weekend flood released by Hays County to the Caller-Times reveal victims and rescuers struggling to survive the natural disaster in Central Texas.
Dozens and dozens of calls illustrate the victims were spread along the river, some clinging to trees, some floating in their cars, others trapped in their homes with floodwaters rising, cutting off their ability to escape or be rescued. Some callers warned the only way to reach them was by air, but the nighttime storm made that impossible.
“It was biblical in proportion, and something no one has ever seen before,” Wimberley city administrator Don Ferguson said.
By 6:30 p.m., officials began ordering first responders to start evacuation and prepare for rescue efforts along the raging river.
The rural community activated its reverse alert system, an emergency alert was sounded, and some sheriff’s deputies and constables were sent door-to-door.
Calls for help started to pour into the Sheriff’s Office dispatch about 9 p.m. Fire department rescue crews received at least 84 rescue calls during the next five hours, Czichos said.
Twenty-three minutes later, crews received the first swift-water rescue call.
When a rescue team reached its first house, Wimberley Fire Lt. Lynn Burttschell realized the gravity of the disaster. The Wimberley Fire Department needed reinforcements. Fast.
“We didn’t even understand how big this was going to be during that night,” Burttschell said.
Between 10 p.m. and sunrise, seven regional and statewide agencies joined in rescue efforts.
Caught in the middle of the influx of emergency calls and a rapidly rising river were the Carey, Charba and McComb families vacationing on Deer Crossing Lane.
At 11:11 p.m., Laura McComb made her first call to 911, warning that the Corpus Christi families were trapped.
“It’s coming up to the second floor,” she said. “It’s so high up, and we have no exit out of the home.”
Dispatch told her to stay out of the attic so they won’t get trapped and that help is on the way.
At 11:26 p.m., a man who didn’t identify himself called from the home, warning the flood inside was worse.
“We’re running out of breathing room,” he said.
The dispatcher instructed him to move the families to the roof.
At 11:29 p.m., McComb called 911 when the river knocked the house off its pilings and carried it downstream.
“Our house is down. We’re floating.” McComb yelled.
In the next few minutes, dozens of eyewitnesses called 911 reporting a house floating with people on the roof with flashlights screaming for help.
“They flashed the light to us, and they’re going,” one woman said. “They’re probably almost to the bridge by now.”
Minutes later, more witnesses told dispatchers there were people in the water.
Laura’s husband, Jonathan McComb, 36, survived.
Randy Charba; his wife, Michelle Charba; her parents, Ralph and Sue Carey; Laura McComb and her son, Andrew McComb, 6, died in the flood. Leighton McComb, 4, and Will Charba, 6, remain missing.
After midnight, 911 calls in desperate need of rescue quickly grew countywide.
“We had to prioritize those calls,” Burttschell said. “There were also issues of access. A lot of our higher priority calls … we couldn’t get to (the location) anymore.”
Many reported being trapped in their homes or vacation rentals. One caller said two people were clinging to a tree.
Another cried as she reported being stuck in her attic with a man and a 4-year-old boy. Floodwaters reached the stairs.
“We’re trapped in our attic,” she said. “I don’t know how they can get to us.”
Many others fled to their roofs.
Some who initially called and calmly gave their address to dispatchers called again minutes later. It was worse.
“We’ve only got a few minutes left,” one woman pleaded.
Boat and vehicle responders used ladders to rescue people from their attics and roofs, Burttschell said.
People on their houses’ roofs were considered lower priority, he said, compared to people possibly trapped by water in their houses or hanging onto trees.
“We would try to get their cellphone numbers and call them every now and then to see where the water was (in their home), but they were ‘dry,’ and we had people who were ‘wet,’” Burttschell said.
There were at least three areas that rescue crews couldn’t reach during the flood’s early hours, Fire Chief Czichos said, including the south side of the river, where the Carey house stood.
“It would have been suicide to try and cross that thing in a boat that night,” Czichos said. “A lot of people who called, we couldn’t get to them. It was gut-wrenching knowing we couldn’t get to some people.”
Rescue crews hadn’t staged teams on the river’s southern side because more people lived and stayed on the northern side, and officials figured crews could easily be sent over the Ranch Road 12 bridge as needed, Czichos explained.
“We never thought it’d go over that bridge, but it did, and we were stuck,” Czichos said.
Crews from other south communities had trouble reaching that riverbank because of debris. Low-water crossings had flooded, blocking almost every route into Wimberley.
“Wimberley basically became an island except for one road in, so you worked what side you could,” Czichos said.
Czichos estimated about 130 people were rescued out of the river that night. Some waited hours for help.
By sunrise, the rushing water continued downriver to San Marcos and Martindale where rescue efforts lasted through Sunday afternoon.
The flow of 911 calls from Wimberley slowed long enough for rescue crews to return to lower-priority areas in the morning.
The aftermath was overwhelming.
“It looks like a tornado cut a half-mile path though the city in a serpentine fashion,” Ferguson said. “It’s changed people’s lives for years to come.”
———
©2015 the Corpus Christi Caller-Times (Corpus Christi, Texas)