Volunteers flock to help search efforts after Texas floods even as officials warn them away
Justin Rubio awoke in the wee hours to an alert on his phone, thunder, sirens and the thud of helicopter blades — the beginning of one of the largest rescue operations in Texas history. Rubio was determined to be a part of it.
Even as authorities in Kerr County have repeatedly discouraged civilian volunteers, Rubio and dozens of others went out Monday to search for people still missing after flash flooding tore through the Texas Hill Country over the July Fourth weekend.
The emotions wrapped up in the calamity that killed at least 100 people — and the urge to help find those still missing — at times butted up against officials' need for structure and safety as they search over 60 miles along the Guadalupe River.
The river grew by the size of a two-story building in less than an hour on Friday. One survivor described a "pitch-black wall of death." The flooding decimated shorelines, ripped trees from the ground, tossed and crushed a Ram truck, disappeared buildings and swept through a century-old summer camp packed with kids.
Rubio, who picked through torn tree limbs Monday, said he couldn’t help but pitch in.
“It’s sad. It eats at your soul, it eats at your heart,” he said. “I can’t just sit at home thinking about what's going on out here.”
The outpouring, volunteers say, is a Texas strain of solidarity, and officials have applauded the donations and volunteers in other areas.
When it comes to search and rescue, however, fickle weather and a flash flood warning Sunday afternoon heightened authorities' fears that unorganized volunteers may end up adding to the missing or dead.
On Sunday and Monday, officials began closing more search sites to volunteers, instead directing them to a local Salvation Army.
“We need focused and coordinated volunteers, not random people just showing up and doing what they do,” Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr. said. "We remain hopeful every foot, every mile, every bend of the river.”
Some families have been frustrated by the pace, but officials are asking for patience with the breadth of the search area and methodical, no-stone-unturned approach. It’s a sweeping operation with 19 different local and state agencies, drones, dogs, boats and helicopters.
Officials have laid out a grid over the search area. Each segment can reach over a mile and takes between one and three hours to search, Dalton Rice, the city manager of Kerrville, said at a news conference Monday morning.
Rice reiterated for volunteers to “stay out of the way" so that first responders aren't waylaid ensuring that volunteers “don’t become victims themselves.”
When volunteers were asked by official responders to leave sites in Kerrville, some moved to help search in the unincorporated community of Center Point on Monday, said Cord Shiflet, who'd rallied volunteers through a Facebook post.
On Sunday, Shiflet had falsely claimed on Facebook that two girls had been rescued in a tree days after the flooding, but he said Monday that he had received bad information and apologized.
The mistake caught the attention of U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, who represents the area and urged people to be careful about false news.
“It’s not fair to families and it distracts law enforcement,” Roy posted on the social platform X.
At Center Point on Monday, dozens of undeterred volunteers gathered, including Rubio and Bryan Dutton, in the afternoon heat. Dutton, a veteran who said he had friends at an RV camp affected by the floods, had been waiting to get off work to join the droves of residents coming out to assist and provide food.
“We do what we can do,” Dutton said. “That’s how Texas is.”
___
Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.