President Trump's Visit
- President Trump, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump and several officials, visited the region a week after the disaster.
- The visit included:
- A helicopter tour of the devastation.
- Meetings with first responders, local leaders, and families of victims.
- A roundtable discussion where Trump emphasized unity and competence in the emergency response.
- Praise for the swift federal response, including deployment of over 400 first responders and 1,500 rescues.
Emotional Testimonies and Heroism
- Senator Ted Cruz shared deeply moving stories:
- The tragedy at Camp Mystic, where 17 young girls and a camp director died. A cabin known as the “Bubble In” was swept away by floodwaters.
- A 14-year-old boy at a nearby boys' camp helped rescue younger children.
- Scott Ruskin, a 25-year-old Coast Guard swimmer, rescued 165 girls from Camp Mystic, comforting them in the dark, rain-soaked night.
- A first-person account from a family caught in the flood described the terrifying moments as their river house was swept away. The story highlighted the survival of a young girl, Rosemary, and the tragic loss of her younger brother, Clay.
Community Response and Support
- The community rallied with extraordinary compassion and support:
- Over $30 million raised in donations, with $5 million already distributed.
- Streets adorned with green ribbons in memory of the lost girls.
- Stories of survivor’s guilt, especially among children, and the long road to healing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Center. It's nice to be back with you in studio.
We're here in Texas. It has been a very tough
last week. You spent a lot of time with victims families,
you spend a lot of time with first responders, You
spent time with local elected officials, and even with the
President United States American Kerrville. There's such sad stories that
have come out of this tragedy, but also a lot
(00:22):
of hope for just humanity and seeing people come together.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, it's been just over a week since the horrific
flooding in Kerr County and throughout the Hill Country had
a devastating impact. We are still searching at this point
for bodies. To date, one hundred and twenty nine people
have been confirmed killed in that flooding. Many of those
were children. They're an additional one hundred and seventy three
(00:48):
people that we know of that are still missing. Search
and rescue teams are out searching right now. Unfortunately, the
Hill Country is right now as you and I speak,
under another flash flood warning, so they've suspended some of
the searches because there's there's heavy rains that are occurring
there right now. I could tell you I just today
spoke with a family whose little girls remains were discovered yesterday.
(01:13):
We're at a stage now, we're far enough away that
that that if you have someone missing, the odds are
becoming almost unavoidable, that that at this point it's a
search for remains and in some instances partial remains. The
damage that was done from a massive wall of water,
from trees and cars and debris is horrific. And we're
(01:36):
in the we're in the process of picking up and
coming back together. On Friday, I joined President Trump in
going to the Hill Country. We flew down together on
Air Force One. The President and I met with first responders,
met with families, We had a round table. It was powerful.
The first Lady came as well, we're going to take
you in inside what happened there, what we learned, and
(02:00):
what's going to happen next.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
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two Patriot. That's nine seven to two Patriot. Senator, you
mentioned Friday that you flew down with the President of
the First Lady. You guys were in Washington, DC at
that point. You flew back into Texas. You were there
early in the week as well, And I think one
of the things that people don't see is the amount
(03:54):
of compassion many times that the President and the First
Lady have in these types of scenarios. Donald Truck is
a guy that actually has a huge heart. He loves helping,
he loves listening to people that are going through tough times.
We've seen that through his whole career. What was it
like being with him and telling him about what you'd
seen earlier in the week in.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Texas well, Listen, I was very glad he decided to come,
and I'm glad he decided to come when he did,
which was Friday, a week after there had been some
discussion about his coming earlier, say Monday or Tuesday. And
the reason he decided not to is that when he
comes in, they shut down the airspace, and the president
coming to town shuts downs the roads. It's a huge
logistical nightmare. I think the White House made the right
(04:34):
decision that when you have active search and rescue going
a million different directions, it's not helpful to have the
President come in right in the middle of it. A
week later, after much of the search and rescue has happened.
That's the right time, when everyone is dealing with the grief,
for him to come in. And so I met him
at Andrews Air Force Base and we took off from there.
(04:55):
I will say, on kind of a lighter note, there
was a moment as we were getting ready to take
off of the play that I sent you.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
A picture and I appreciate that picture.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
So I was in the conference room at Air Force one,
the President was boarding. We're getting ready to take off,
and there's a TV screen right there in the conference
room and Boom, who smiling mug was there. But you
were on Fox News that morning you were talking on
Fox News, and so I pulled out my phone and
snapped a picture of you on Air Force One. You
joined us for the morning. I was glad of it.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
We flew together, just you were there in real life,
and I was on the screen. I'll take whatever and
get I showed the picture of my kids, by the way,
and they were like, that's Air Force One. Was like,
that's Air Force One. Daddy hasn't been on there in
twenty four years, but still the coolest plane in the world.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
So we flew down Friday morning. The President was on
the plane. Milania the first lady came on the plane,
and then we also had John Cornyan joined us, Wesley
Hunt joined us, and then there were several cabinet members
who came. Brooke Rawlins, a Texan, the head of Secretary
of Agriculture, Scott Turner, another Texan, the Secretary of HUDD.
(05:57):
We also had Kelly Loaflow, the administrator of the Small
Business Administration. So we all flew down, spent quite a
bit of time talking with the President, talking with the
President about what was going on on the ground, just
how bad it was. And then when we landed, President
Trump took a helicopter tour and examined some of the
devastation and met some of the first responders on the ground.
(06:21):
We flew in chinook helicopters down to Kerrville where we
met with first responders and we heard the latest in
terms of the search and rescue, how they're systematically going
through different areas with helicopters, with drones, with ground search
(06:41):
and rescue, with dogs that are searching. They put in
place a burn band because there's debris everywhere, but you
don't want to accidentally burn the remains of someone who
was killed, so they're holding off. Before any debris can
be burned, they've got to clear through it and make
sure that there are no remains within it. They usually
send in a cadaver dog to make sure of that.
(07:05):
And then we sat and did a round table with
President Trump and with local leaders. And I will tell you,
I think the President first lady did a really effective job.
Here's President Trump early on in that roundtable talking about
the federal response and all the heroic rescues we saw here.
(07:25):
Give a listen.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Administration is doing everything in his power to help Texas.
And I can tell you that and the governor will
be the first to tell you that when the request
was made for the emergency funds, Christy, I think we
gave it within about two minutes, maybe less, and they
had everything they needed right right immediately. So we've deployed
over four hundred first responders and assisted or enabled more
(07:48):
than fifteen hundred rescues. Amazing fifteen hundred customers in Border
Protection and the US Coast Guard have deployed numerous search
and rescue crews and they're they're all over the territory.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
It really is amazing to see how the government came together.
You witnessed it when you were down there Sunday Monday.
You get to witness it again later in the week.
But he's not exaggerating when he says everyone's working together
to try to find people and help those that were
devastated by this flood.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, that's right, and it very much is a cooperative
effort between the local government, both the city and county,
and the state government and the federal government. And I
will say Texas unfortunately has a lot of experience dealing
with natural disasters, and I think between hurricanes and floods
and tornadoes and wildfires, the Texas emergency Response team just
(08:46):
has a lot of experience. It's not our first rodeo,
and so they respond very effectively in terms of marshaling assets.
I can tell you in the first few hours of
this flood, when I was talking to the governor and
the Lieutenant governor and nim Kid who heads the Texas
Department of Emergency Management, all of them at the time,
(09:07):
they said they had every federal asset they needed. I
spoke with President Trump that first day and I said,
this is bad. We're going to need real help. He said,
anything Texas needs, yes, yes, yes is the answer. And
so we had that commitment, we had the resources surged
on the ground, and a little bit later in the
roundtable here here's an observation the President made about about
what he had seen in Texas.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
You know two words, unity and competence. If you were
to ask me two words that I've seen here, one
is unity. The unity has been unbelievable. And then the competence.
The competence of the Coast Guard and some of the
people within the Post Guard that saved a lot of lives.
They went out and they saved a lot of lives.
But there were others other than the Coastguard. But I
would say competence and unity. The way everyone has just
(09:53):
pulled together. It's rare that you see this. Again. I've
been to so many and I've seen big and fighting,
and you know, just it doesn't work the same way.
This has been amazing. This is and this is the
biggest because I've never seen one like this. Neither is
anybody else.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
By the way, He's right. I go back and I
remember when I was at the White House when Katrina happened.
We saw that bickering he's mentioning, and I listened and
watched it firsthand. On August to twenty sixth, August twenty seventh,
August twenty eighth, Hurricane hits, the twenty ninth, the devastation
where you had just because of politics, you had certain
people in the Mayor's office, in the Governor's office, and
(10:30):
then the White House and the reserves, and it was like,
why there are people that are hurting, And I'm so
thankful to you mention this because this is where we
got so many things right this past week.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Well, and I'll tell you, in visiting with some of
the senior officials in the state who deal with emergencies,
over and over and over again. One of them told
me said, of everything we've seen, this is the worst.
And I got to say, I agree with that. And
I've been on the ground for many, many disasters, tragedies,
with tragedies with very significant loss of life. So you're grieving,
(11:03):
but I got to say, they're just something different about
little kids. Amen, the little girls in the bubble in camp,
the eight and nine year old third graders whose lives
were lost. Every one of us as parents, every loss
of life is a tragedy, but this touches really deep.
(11:26):
The roundtable, the President asked me to express my thoughts.
Here's what I had to say to the President on Friday. Well,
miss President, I want to say thank you for being here. First, lady,
thank you for being here where we are right now.
The Hill Country is a very special part of the state.
It is universally considered the most beautiful part of the state.
(11:46):
You've got rolling hills, You've got these incredible, peaceful, wonderful rivers,
the Guadalupea River. Just about all of us have been
swimming in that river, floating in that river. And one
of the things that's really special about Kirk County is
there forty summer camps here. This is a place where
all across Texas our kids go. The Governor's daughter came
(12:06):
every year to camp here. Both of you know our
girls really well. Heidi. The week before this flood was
here in Hunt picking up our daughter Catherine from camp.
And Camp Mystic that faced such devastating loss is an
institution in this state. It's one hundred years old, was
(12:27):
founded in nineteen twenty six. And I'll tell you, in Texas,
it's not just here that the hurt has felt. It's
every part of the state. Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin,
West Texas, East Texas. Texans have gone. And what's amazing
is you see at the closing ceremonies of these camps.
You see multiple generations. You'll see grandmothers and moms and
(12:48):
little girls who have all gone to the same camp.
And the pain that the state is feeling. And on Monday,
I went and walked through Camp Mystic. In the center
of the camp is a cabin called the bubble In
where the littlest girls were staying. And in front of
the bubble in are right now seventeen small white crosses
(13:11):
in the ground, and each cross has the name of
another little girl who lost her life. The final cross
has the name of Dick Eastlin, the camp director who
gave his life trying to save his girls. And the
water rose in that camp and in that cabin eight
feet high. You can see the water line eight feet high.
(13:32):
It blew the windows out of the cabin and it
swept those girls out. I will tell you, I've never
seen anything more horrible in my life. And i just
sat there crying. I saw mom and dad come up
to one of those crosses, drop to their knees and
kiss that cross, and the mom was weeping. I also
want to tell you, and you said this, You talked
about unity. The way this community, the way the state
(13:55):
is coming together, is incredible. There are stories of heroisdom.
I met a mom and dad who had a fourteen
year old boy at Camp le Hunt, a boy's camp.
Their fourteen year old son was awakened at three in
the morning. The water was rising. The counselor said, let's
go save the little boys. And they went down to
the seven, eight nine year old boys and pulled them
(14:17):
out of their camps through the crashing water. And this
mom and dad were crying. Now their son survived, and
I said, look, your son will always have this trauma.
You will always have this trauma. But at the same time,
your son will always know when he was fourteen years
old that there are little boys and one day there
are men who are alive because he had the courage
(14:38):
as a fourteen year old to risk his life to
save them. And so we are grateful you're here. And
I will say something Chip referenced is very true. There's
a video of a school bus full of campers from
Mystic after this crisis, riding past the devastation and they
are singing Christian hymns. And I promise you there's no
(15:00):
a person here who can watch that video and not
weep tears of sorrow, but also tears of joy. So
we are grateful for the response, Governor, the first responders,
everyone who's come together, and to all the moms and dads,
just know we love you. The agony my street at home,
(15:20):
every house has a green ribbon around it for the
girls at Mystic, and that's true in a lot of
streets all throughout Texas. And we will come through this
one way or the other. I'll tell you the Hunt
store right now, the sign says Hunt Store, except today
it doesn't. It says Hunt Strong. They redid the sign.
That's the spirit of who we are. Thank you Jed
(15:40):
very much.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
The heroes that have come out of this, that fourteen
year old. I have three boys. I know that my dad,
when he was raising me, wanted me to be a
strong young man that would do what that fourteen year
old did. I want to raise my boys to be
the same way. But for that family to know their
son made a difference in literally save people's lives is
an incredible I think story that of the good that
(16:04):
has come out of such a horrific event. You also
met other heroes. One that went viral this past week
was it was it was a guy that was saving
literally more than there. It was one hundred and sixty four lives.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yes, Scott Ruskin. He's a Coastguard swimmer. And and here
you can see I met Scott when when I was
down in uh down in the hill country. He's twenty
five years old. And uh, you know we've talked before
about how the Coastguard swimmers. These guys are badass. I mean,
I mean, they're the analogy I use. It's it's like
a Navy seal and a California surfer combined together, you know,
(16:41):
and it's so accurate.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I mean, it's so accurate.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So Scott's comment, like it like in the press this week,
was I'm just a dude. Yeah, I'm just a dude
doing a job, which is a very swimmer thing to say.
But the early morning of the flooding, they put him
on the ground at Capt Mystic, Uh and he spent
three and a half hours there with the girls on
a field that was the highest point of Mystic. And
(17:04):
he loaded one hundred and sixty five girls onto helicopters
and they evacuated them on helicopters. They had about fifteen
girls per helicopter and the girls, you know, you got
to picture this scene. It's it's pitch black, it's still nighttime.
The rain is helping her down. The girls are in
their pajamas, they're missing shoes. Many of them are crying.
(17:27):
They're scared. Some of them are looking for their friends.
Some of them are looking for the young your younger
sisters who they can't find. They're terrified. Some of them
were singing Christian hymns and Scott was comforting each of them,
putting them when I talked to him. He'd just gotten
off the phone with a mom and dad who had
(17:49):
called him with their daughter, and they said, you saved
our daughter's life. They said she was scared out of
her mind, and you held her hands, you picked her
up and loaded her into helicopter. And as you did,
you held her hands. You told her it's gonna be
all right, You're gonna be okay. And this hero hero,
(18:09):
and you know, laid back Swimmer, he was reduced to
tears that heroism was happening day after day after day.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You look at the last little over a week and
you talk about we're still trying to find people. You
talk about you know, I say this not really sarcastily.
Finally the government got it right. The response was incredible.
And seeing you work together, seeing how strong the people
are in Texas, what was your takeaway even from Monday
to Friday, being there and seeing how quickly people are
(18:46):
still actively helping. They're still out there searching, they're still
trying to help their fellow man and woman in Texas.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Look, they're working hard, and you've got volunteers coming in
like crazy. You got people coming in from all over
the state that are contributing. The Community Foundation in Kirk
County has received over thirty million dollars in contributions in
just a week. They've already distributed over five million dollars.
As they're trying to give money just to help help
(19:13):
people get back on their feet, right on the ground
and listen. There's also lots of confusion. I will say
I've spoken now to quite a few parents and people
who lost loved ones, and there's frustration. Early on, it's
hard to get information. I'll tell you the moms and
dads who had girls missing a mystic. I would be
getting phone calls and texts do you know anything about
(19:35):
where my daughter is? And what you want to answer? Yes,
And the frustrating thing is is that you don't. And
so you'd say, look, I'll try to connect you with
the head of emergency management. I'll try to connect you
with the sheriff, like the people on the ground, but
in many cases they're just out search teams looking and
until they find the remains, there's nothing to be told
(19:56):
other than we're still looking. That frustration was I'll tell
you there was an article just came out in Texas
Monthly about what happened and I want to take a
few minutes and actually read a significant portion of the article.
The articles by a fellow named Aaron Parsley, and it's
entitled The River House Broke. We rushed in the river,
(20:16):
and he's telling a first hand story about his family
that had a house right along the Waterla Loopy River.
I want you just listen to this. Rosemary, the four
year old, woke up first. She told my brother in
law Lance that there was something on the roof. Seven
of us were at my family's river house on the
(20:37):
Guadalupe between Ingram and Hunt for the fourth Our little
stretch of river is wide, green, cool, deep and slow.
It's some of the best swimming anywhere in one of
the most beautiful spots in Texas as far as I'm concerned.
I've spent many peaceful afternoons there, floating and staring up
at the cypress trees that tower over the water house,
(21:00):
a one story cabin on stilts about fifty yards from
the river up the steeply slope. Yard was built right
after the nineteen eighty seven flood that devastated this region,
killing ten teenagers. Concrete pillars put our family's place a
few feet feet above what officials consider the one hundred
year floodplain. More than once, I'd tried to imagine the
(21:23):
water's rising that high, but it seemed impossible. I woke
around three am to the sound of thunder and rain.
My only thought was I hope it stopped so I
could go on an early morning run. Shortly before four thirty,
I would later learn Rosemary climbed down from the top
bunk of the kid's bedroom and went to get her father.
(21:46):
Lance stepped out of bed to see what was causing
all the pounding and creaking. I stirred about that time too,
and heard what I figured was the kids running around
the house, excited by the storm. What's going on? I
asked where trouble? Dad said, big trouble. I looked past them.
The river was as high as the deck, twenty feet
(22:10):
above the ground. We talked through our options. Getting onto
the roof was impossible. We had no ladder and the
eaves were about eight feet above the deck. Patrick weighed
whether we could all climb through a window onto the
live oak, whose branches were near the back of the house,
then realized it wasn't reachable. Lance called nine one one,
(22:33):
but the dispatcher said he didn't know when anyone could
get to us. As we reassembled in the kitchen, the
vinyl flooring under our feet started to bubble. Then water
began to pool. My dad walked into the bedroom and
saw the carpet floating off the floor. The river's musty
(22:54):
scent permeated the house, mixed with what smelled like freshly
chopped wood. My sister sat Rosemary and Clay on the
kitchen island countertop. Rosemary was four and Clay was twenty
months old. We discussed whether we could get them higher,
maybe even on top of the cabinets in the small
(23:16):
space below the ceiling. Then the roof over the porch
crashed down and we heard glass shatter in my father's room,
just off the kitchen. Rosemary asked, why did the window break?
Clay started to cry. When the sliding glass doors open
and water poured in. Lance ran to it, shoved it closed,
(23:39):
and held it shut. The pendant lamps began to swing
wildly over the kitchen counter. The house was shifting. It
lurked sharply, and we all struggled to stay on our feet.
It felt like walking down the aisle of a plane
during strong turbulence. We're moving, We're moving, Patrick said. The
(24:03):
realization was terrifying. The rushing, still rising water had lifted
the house off its pillars. It was a float, and
then it wasn't. I saw part of the deck rip away.
I heard windows break from every corner, Cracks split the walls.
(24:23):
We crashed into something, probably a tree. I don't know
how long It took ten seconds, maybe fifteen, for the
house to come apart. Alissa managed to keep both kids
on the countertop, one hand on each, still trying to
reassure them. As the house came undone, she grabbed one
in each arm. This is the part that will forever
(24:45):
haunt me. If I or anyone else had been closer
to them, we would have helped her. We would have
grabbed one of the kids. But we simply didn't know
that we were about to be plunged into the water.
We simply didn't now as we were thrust into churning water,
into darkness. Our disintegrating house sucked us down into the river.
(25:10):
The last thing I remember from inside the house was
seeing the refrigerator coming at me. Patrick saw the countertop
tear away from the kitchen island with Alyssa and the
kids on it. As the river carried me downstream, I
struggled to stay above water. I was surrounded by branches,
by twisted metal, by uprooted trees, by countless smaller objects,
(25:35):
bottles of sunscreen, books, couch cushions, coolers that came from
inside our home or somebody else's. I realized I lost
my shoes and my phone. I grabbed at every branch
and every tree that was still standing. A few snapped
off in my hands, leaving me with a fistful of leaves.
(25:55):
I managed to briefly hold onto one, perhaps for a
few seconds, until the force of the water and the
constant assault from debris ripped me away. I latched onto
a tree with branches large enough to support me and
pulled myself out of the water. My breathing was frantic,
but my mind was focused. I considered the possibility of death.
(26:19):
I thought, if I survive, I'll be the only one.
The tree began to crack, creak, and moan. Then it
slowly fell into the river, and so did I. I
reached for another tree and climbed as high as I could,
a couple of feet above the rushing water. I stepped
up to a higher branch, and then another. If this
(26:41):
tree collapsed, I wasn't sure if I would fight to
stay above the water again. I pleaded with the tree
to hold me, to withstand the power of the river. Please,
I whispered, please, Over the roar of the water and
the crackling of the trees. I heard screaming. It was guttural, primal.
(27:06):
Who's there? I called, I'm in a tree too. We
have to hang on. Someone will help. It's Alyssa, my sister, screamed,
I'm with Rosemary. Clay is gone. The memory of those
words will never leave me. A combination of profound relief
(27:26):
an unbearable sadness overwhelms me now, even as I type this.
Alyssa and I kept yelling to each other, though neither
of us could clearly make out what the other was saying.
Be strong for Rosemary, I implored, you have to survive this. Intermittently,
I could hear just one word, Clay, as Alyssa cried
(27:48):
out for her son. Then I noticed Patrick running along
the river bank. I couldn't believe he was there, fully dressed,
wearing his tank top and shorts, his shoes somehow still
on he had lost only his wedding ring. He told
me later, Patrick, I'm here, I yelled. For the first time.
I thought we had a shot at surviving. Patrick was
(28:09):
the first normal thing since the house broke apart. It
was like being alone on an alien planet and another
human being randomly arrives. And then Lance came jogging up
after him. They'd ended up in the same pecan tree,
about two hundred feet away from the river bank and
about two thousand feet from where our house once stood.
Lance has a watch with a flashlight that he turned
(28:29):
on after Rosemary woke him up. Patrick said he spotted
the beam after he climbed into the tree. They were
only a few yards apart, close enough that they could
talk without yelling. Lance kept repeating, my son, my daughter,
there's no way. In the river's roiling churn. With Rosemary
(28:52):
clinging to her neck while she paddled with one arm,
Alissa had somehow managed to push her daughter onto a branch.
Rosemary hugged with her arms and legs, lying flat. Alyssa
stayed in the water just below her, gripping the tree's trunk,
and as the waters were seated, she stood uncomfortably on
a branch below her. Alyssa would tell me five days
(29:15):
later that Rosemary wanted to play I spy while they
waded in the tree. Patrick waded into the water to
intercept a blue kayak that was floating by an older
couple watching from a house on a nearby hill. Brought
Lance and Patrick an inflatable inner tube, and they decided
the tube was the better option to catch Rosemary, more
(29:39):
control softer landing. After that, Rosemary's rescue happened quickly. Patrick
and Lance rigged the inner tube with a green garden
hose they found and tied it around a down tree.
Lance waded into the water, positioning the tube beneath his daughter.
I stood downriver, ready to catch Rosemar if she missed
(30:02):
the target and got caught in the stream. Alissa urged
us to hurry, saying she didn't think she could hold
onto the tree much longer. She had to pry Rosemary's
hands from the branch. Rosemary, terrified, started to cry. Then
my sister cradled her daughter and dropped her twenty feet
(30:25):
into the river where her father was waiting. She landed
directly in the middle of the inner tube, and we
all cheered. Lance carried his daughter to shore. My sister
jumped into the water right after, and I grabbed her,
put my arm around her, and together we walked to safety.
Alissa collapsed on the river bank, crying out for Clay.
(30:47):
Rosemary became calm when she reached dry land, but her
face had a blue cast. We were all shivering. We
told Rosemary how brave she'd in and that she was
now safe and it was going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
That's the reality of what it was like for so
many down there, and it happened. That article describes it,
I think perfectly, so quickly.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I want you to take a look at this picture.
This is Rosemary and Clay. Rosemary survived, Clay did not.
This family, like so many Texas families, is rejoicing at
the lives that were saved and is forever grieving at
the lives that were lost. And this family, like so
(31:38):
many Texas families, needs their friends, their loved ones, to
hold them tight. They need God's blessing and mercy and grace.
And I will tell you everyone in Texas is standing
with this family, is standing with all of the parents
at Mystic, is standing with all the little girl girls
(32:00):
who lost friends just today I was visiting with parents
who had two daughters at Mystic, One survived, one did not.
They talked about the surviving daughter and the guilt and
grief that every one of the survivors feels. Survivors guilt,
Why did my friend? Why did my sister die and
I didn't? And those girls it's going to take a
(32:23):
whole lot of love and a whole lot of time
for them to walk through that grief. We'll do that.
That's who Texans are. But these are hard times.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
There are so many different organizations doing amazing work helping
those in Texas. If you can help, make sure you help.
There's a lot of them. Pick the one that connects
with you and your family and your heart. But there
are people that need help, and if you can do that,
they'd be amazing. Sooner. I will see you back here again,
real soon
Center. It's nice to be back with you in studio.
We're here in Texas. It has been a very tough
last week. You spent a lot of time with victims families,
you spend a lot of time with first responders, You
spent time with local elected officials, and even with the
President United States American Kerrville. There's such sad stories that
have come out of this tragedy, but also a lot
(00:22):
of hope for just humanity and seeing people come together.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, it's been just over a week since the horrific
flooding in Kerr County and throughout the Hill Country had
a devastating impact. We are still searching at this point
for bodies. To date, one hundred and twenty nine people
have been confirmed killed in that flooding. Many of those
were children. They're an additional one hundred and seventy three
(00:48):
people that we know of that are still missing. Search
and rescue teams are out searching right now. Unfortunately, the
Hill Country is right now as you and I speak,
under another flash flood warning, so they've suspended some of
the searches because there's there's heavy rains that are occurring
there right now. I could tell you I just today
spoke with a family whose little girls remains were discovered yesterday.
(01:13):
We're at a stage now, we're far enough away that
that that if you have someone missing, the odds are
becoming almost unavoidable, that that at this point it's a
search for remains and in some instances partial remains. The
damage that was done from a massive wall of water,
from trees and cars and debris is horrific. And we're
(01:36):
in the we're in the process of picking up and
coming back together. On Friday, I joined President Trump in
going to the Hill Country. We flew down together on
Air Force One. The President and I met with first responders,
met with families, We had a round table. It was powerful.
The first Lady came as well, we're going to take
you in inside what happened there, what we learned, and
(02:00):
what's going to happen next.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
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That's Patriotmobile dot com slash verdict or nine seven to
two Patriot. That's nine seven to two Patriot. Senator, you
mentioned Friday that you flew down with the President of
the First Lady. You guys were in Washington, DC at
that point. You flew back into Texas. You were there
early in the week as well, And I think one
of the things that people don't see is the amount
(03:54):
of compassion many times that the President and the First
Lady have in these types of scenarios. Donald Truck is
a guy that actually has a huge heart. He loves helping,
he loves listening to people that are going through tough times.
We've seen that through his whole career. What was it
like being with him and telling him about what you'd
seen earlier in the week in.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Texas well, Listen, I was very glad he decided to come,
and I'm glad he decided to come when he did,
which was Friday, a week after there had been some
discussion about his coming earlier, say Monday or Tuesday. And
the reason he decided not to is that when he
comes in, they shut down the airspace, and the president
coming to town shuts downs the roads. It's a huge
logistical nightmare. I think the White House made the right
(04:34):
decision that when you have active search and rescue going
a million different directions, it's not helpful to have the
President come in right in the middle of it. A
week later, after much of the search and rescue has happened.
That's the right time, when everyone is dealing with the grief,
for him to come in. And so I met him
at Andrews Air Force Base and we took off from there.
(04:55):
I will say, on kind of a lighter note, there
was a moment as we were getting ready to take
off of the play that I sent you.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
A picture and I appreciate that picture.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
So I was in the conference room at Air Force one,
the President was boarding. We're getting ready to take off,
and there's a TV screen right there in the conference
room and Boom, who smiling mug was there. But you
were on Fox News that morning you were talking on
Fox News, and so I pulled out my phone and
snapped a picture of you on Air Force One. You
joined us for the morning. I was glad of it.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
We flew together, just you were there in real life,
and I was on the screen. I'll take whatever and
get I showed the picture of my kids, by the way,
and they were like, that's Air Force One. Was like,
that's Air Force One. Daddy hasn't been on there in
twenty four years, but still the coolest plane in the world.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
So we flew down Friday morning. The President was on
the plane. Milania the first lady came on the plane,
and then we also had John Cornyan joined us, Wesley
Hunt joined us, and then there were several cabinet members
who came. Brooke Rawlins, a Texan, the head of Secretary
of Agriculture, Scott Turner, another Texan, the Secretary of HUDD.
(05:57):
We also had Kelly Loaflow, the administrator of the Small
Business Administration. So we all flew down, spent quite a
bit of time talking with the President, talking with the
President about what was going on on the ground, just
how bad it was. And then when we landed, President
Trump took a helicopter tour and examined some of the
devastation and met some of the first responders on the ground.
(06:21):
We flew in chinook helicopters down to Kerrville where we
met with first responders and we heard the latest in
terms of the search and rescue, how they're systematically going
through different areas with helicopters, with drones, with ground search
(06:41):
and rescue, with dogs that are searching. They put in
place a burn band because there's debris everywhere, but you
don't want to accidentally burn the remains of someone who
was killed, so they're holding off. Before any debris can
be burned, they've got to clear through it and make
sure that there are no remains within it. They usually
send in a cadaver dog to make sure of that.
(07:05):
And then we sat and did a round table with
President Trump and with local leaders. And I will tell you,
I think the President first lady did a really effective job.
Here's President Trump early on in that roundtable talking about
the federal response and all the heroic rescues we saw here.
(07:25):
Give a listen.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Administration is doing everything in his power to help Texas.
And I can tell you that and the governor will
be the first to tell you that when the request
was made for the emergency funds, Christy, I think we
gave it within about two minutes, maybe less, and they
had everything they needed right right immediately. So we've deployed
over four hundred first responders and assisted or enabled more
(07:48):
than fifteen hundred rescues. Amazing fifteen hundred customers in Border
Protection and the US Coast Guard have deployed numerous search
and rescue crews and they're they're all over the territory.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
It really is amazing to see how the government came together.
You witnessed it when you were down there Sunday Monday.
You get to witness it again later in the week.
But he's not exaggerating when he says everyone's working together
to try to find people and help those that were
devastated by this flood.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, that's right, and it very much is a cooperative
effort between the local government, both the city and county,
and the state government and the federal government. And I
will say Texas unfortunately has a lot of experience dealing
with natural disasters, and I think between hurricanes and floods
and tornadoes and wildfires, the Texas emergency Response team just
(08:46):
has a lot of experience. It's not our first rodeo,
and so they respond very effectively in terms of marshaling assets.
I can tell you in the first few hours of
this flood, when I was talking to the governor and
the Lieutenant governor and nim Kid who heads the Texas
Department of Emergency Management, all of them at the time,
(09:07):
they said they had every federal asset they needed. I
spoke with President Trump that first day and I said,
this is bad. We're going to need real help. He said,
anything Texas needs, yes, yes, yes is the answer. And
so we had that commitment, we had the resources surged
on the ground, and a little bit later in the
roundtable here here's an observation the President made about about
what he had seen in Texas.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
You know two words, unity and competence. If you were
to ask me two words that I've seen here, one
is unity. The unity has been unbelievable. And then the competence.
The competence of the Coast Guard and some of the
people within the Post Guard that saved a lot of lives.
They went out and they saved a lot of lives.
But there were others other than the Coastguard. But I
would say competence and unity. The way everyone has just
(09:53):
pulled together. It's rare that you see this. Again. I've
been to so many and I've seen big and fighting,
and you know, just it doesn't work the same way.
This has been amazing. This is and this is the
biggest because I've never seen one like this. Neither is
anybody else.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
By the way, He's right. I go back and I
remember when I was at the White House when Katrina happened.
We saw that bickering he's mentioning, and I listened and
watched it firsthand. On August to twenty sixth, August twenty seventh,
August twenty eighth, Hurricane hits, the twenty ninth, the devastation
where you had just because of politics, you had certain
people in the Mayor's office, in the Governor's office, and
(10:30):
then the White House and the reserves, and it was like,
why there are people that are hurting, And I'm so
thankful to you mention this because this is where we
got so many things right this past week.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Well, and I'll tell you, in visiting with some of
the senior officials in the state who deal with emergencies,
over and over and over again. One of them told
me said, of everything we've seen, this is the worst.
And I got to say, I agree with that. And
I've been on the ground for many, many disasters, tragedies,
with tragedies with very significant loss of life. So you're grieving,
(11:03):
but I got to say, they're just something different about
little kids. Amen, the little girls in the bubble in camp,
the eight and nine year old third graders whose lives
were lost. Every one of us as parents, every loss
of life is a tragedy, but this touches really deep.
(11:26):
The roundtable, the President asked me to express my thoughts.
Here's what I had to say to the President on Friday. Well,
miss President, I want to say thank you for being here. First, lady,
thank you for being here where we are right now.
The Hill Country is a very special part of the state.
It is universally considered the most beautiful part of the state.
(11:46):
You've got rolling hills, You've got these incredible, peaceful, wonderful rivers,
the Guadalupea River. Just about all of us have been
swimming in that river, floating in that river. And one
of the things that's really special about Kirk County is
there forty summer camps here. This is a place where
all across Texas our kids go. The Governor's daughter came
(12:06):
every year to camp here. Both of you know our
girls really well. Heidi. The week before this flood was
here in Hunt picking up our daughter Catherine from camp.
And Camp Mystic that faced such devastating loss is an
institution in this state. It's one hundred years old, was
(12:27):
founded in nineteen twenty six. And I'll tell you, in Texas,
it's not just here that the hurt has felt. It's
every part of the state. Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin,
West Texas, East Texas. Texans have gone. And what's amazing
is you see at the closing ceremonies of these camps.
You see multiple generations. You'll see grandmothers and moms and
(12:48):
little girls who have all gone to the same camp.
And the pain that the state is feeling. And on Monday,
I went and walked through Camp Mystic. In the center
of the camp is a cabin called the bubble In
where the littlest girls were staying. And in front of
the bubble in are right now seventeen small white crosses
(13:11):
in the ground, and each cross has the name of
another little girl who lost her life. The final cross
has the name of Dick Eastlin, the camp director who
gave his life trying to save his girls. And the
water rose in that camp and in that cabin eight
feet high. You can see the water line eight feet high.
(13:32):
It blew the windows out of the cabin and it
swept those girls out. I will tell you, I've never
seen anything more horrible in my life. And i just
sat there crying. I saw mom and dad come up
to one of those crosses, drop to their knees and
kiss that cross, and the mom was weeping. I also
want to tell you, and you said this, You talked
about unity. The way this community, the way the state
(13:55):
is coming together, is incredible. There are stories of heroisdom.
I met a mom and dad who had a fourteen
year old boy at Camp le Hunt, a boy's camp.
Their fourteen year old son was awakened at three in
the morning. The water was rising. The counselor said, let's
go save the little boys. And they went down to
the seven, eight nine year old boys and pulled them
(14:17):
out of their camps through the crashing water. And this
mom and dad were crying. Now their son survived, and
I said, look, your son will always have this trauma.
You will always have this trauma. But at the same time,
your son will always know when he was fourteen years
old that there are little boys and one day there
are men who are alive because he had the courage
(14:38):
as a fourteen year old to risk his life to
save them. And so we are grateful you're here. And
I will say something Chip referenced is very true. There's
a video of a school bus full of campers from
Mystic after this crisis, riding past the devastation and they
are singing Christian hymns. And I promise you there's no
(15:00):
a person here who can watch that video and not
weep tears of sorrow, but also tears of joy. So
we are grateful for the response, Governor, the first responders,
everyone who's come together, and to all the moms and dads,
just know we love you. The agony my street at home,
(15:20):
every house has a green ribbon around it for the
girls at Mystic, and that's true in a lot of
streets all throughout Texas. And we will come through this
one way or the other. I'll tell you the Hunt
store right now, the sign says Hunt Store, except today
it doesn't. It says Hunt Strong. They redid the sign.
That's the spirit of who we are. Thank you Jed
(15:40):
very much.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
The heroes that have come out of this, that fourteen
year old. I have three boys. I know that my dad,
when he was raising me, wanted me to be a
strong young man that would do what that fourteen year
old did. I want to raise my boys to be
the same way. But for that family to know their
son made a difference in literally save people's lives is
an incredible I think story that of the good that
(16:04):
has come out of such a horrific event. You also
met other heroes. One that went viral this past week
was it was it was a guy that was saving
literally more than there. It was one hundred and sixty four lives.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yes, Scott Ruskin. He's a Coastguard swimmer. And and here
you can see I met Scott when when I was
down in uh down in the hill country. He's twenty
five years old. And uh, you know we've talked before
about how the Coastguard swimmers. These guys are badass. I mean,
I mean, they're the analogy I use. It's it's like
a Navy seal and a California surfer combined together, you know,
(16:41):
and it's so accurate.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I mean, it's so accurate.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So Scott's comment, like it like in the press this week,
was I'm just a dude. Yeah, I'm just a dude
doing a job, which is a very swimmer thing to say.
But the early morning of the flooding, they put him
on the ground at Capt Mystic, Uh and he spent
three and a half hours there with the girls on
a field that was the highest point of Mystic. And
(17:04):
he loaded one hundred and sixty five girls onto helicopters
and they evacuated them on helicopters. They had about fifteen
girls per helicopter and the girls, you know, you got
to picture this scene. It's it's pitch black, it's still nighttime.
The rain is helping her down. The girls are in
their pajamas, they're missing shoes. Many of them are crying.
(17:27):
They're scared. Some of them are looking for their friends.
Some of them are looking for the young your younger
sisters who they can't find. They're terrified. Some of them
were singing Christian hymns and Scott was comforting each of them,
putting them when I talked to him. He'd just gotten
off the phone with a mom and dad who had
(17:49):
called him with their daughter, and they said, you saved
our daughter's life. They said she was scared out of
her mind, and you held her hands, you picked her
up and loaded her into helicopter. And as you did,
you held her hands. You told her it's gonna be
all right, You're gonna be okay. And this hero hero,
(18:09):
and you know, laid back Swimmer, he was reduced to
tears that heroism was happening day after day after day.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You look at the last little over a week and
you talk about we're still trying to find people. You
talk about you know, I say this not really sarcastily.
Finally the government got it right. The response was incredible.
And seeing you work together, seeing how strong the people
are in Texas, what was your takeaway even from Monday
to Friday, being there and seeing how quickly people are
(18:46):
still actively helping. They're still out there searching, they're still
trying to help their fellow man and woman in Texas.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Look, they're working hard, and you've got volunteers coming in
like crazy. You got people coming in from all over
the state that are contributing. The Community Foundation in Kirk
County has received over thirty million dollars in contributions in
just a week. They've already distributed over five million dollars.
As they're trying to give money just to help help
(19:13):
people get back on their feet, right on the ground
and listen. There's also lots of confusion. I will say
I've spoken now to quite a few parents and people
who lost loved ones, and there's frustration. Early on, it's
hard to get information. I'll tell you the moms and
dads who had girls missing a mystic. I would be
getting phone calls and texts do you know anything about
(19:35):
where my daughter is? And what you want to answer? Yes,
And the frustrating thing is is that you don't. And
so you'd say, look, I'll try to connect you with
the head of emergency management. I'll try to connect you
with the sheriff, like the people on the ground, but
in many cases they're just out search teams looking and
until they find the remains, there's nothing to be told
(19:56):
other than we're still looking. That frustration was I'll tell
you there was an article just came out in Texas
Monthly about what happened and I want to take a
few minutes and actually read a significant portion of the article.
The articles by a fellow named Aaron Parsley, and it's
entitled The River House Broke. We rushed in the river,
(20:16):
and he's telling a first hand story about his family
that had a house right along the Waterla Loopy River.
I want you just listen to this. Rosemary, the four
year old, woke up first. She told my brother in
law Lance that there was something on the roof. Seven
of us were at my family's river house on the
(20:37):
Guadalupe between Ingram and Hunt for the fourth Our little
stretch of river is wide, green, cool, deep and slow.
It's some of the best swimming anywhere in one of
the most beautiful spots in Texas as far as I'm concerned.
I've spent many peaceful afternoons there, floating and staring up
at the cypress trees that tower over the water house,
(21:00):
a one story cabin on stilts about fifty yards from
the river up the steeply slope. Yard was built right
after the nineteen eighty seven flood that devastated this region,
killing ten teenagers. Concrete pillars put our family's place a
few feet feet above what officials consider the one hundred
year floodplain. More than once, I'd tried to imagine the
(21:23):
water's rising that high, but it seemed impossible. I woke
around three am to the sound of thunder and rain.
My only thought was I hope it stopped so I
could go on an early morning run. Shortly before four thirty,
I would later learn Rosemary climbed down from the top
bunk of the kid's bedroom and went to get her father.
(21:46):
Lance stepped out of bed to see what was causing
all the pounding and creaking. I stirred about that time too,
and heard what I figured was the kids running around
the house, excited by the storm. What's going on? I
asked where trouble? Dad said, big trouble. I looked past them.
The river was as high as the deck, twenty feet
(22:10):
above the ground. We talked through our options. Getting onto
the roof was impossible. We had no ladder and the
eaves were about eight feet above the deck. Patrick weighed
whether we could all climb through a window onto the
live oak, whose branches were near the back of the house,
then realized it wasn't reachable. Lance called nine one one,
(22:33):
but the dispatcher said he didn't know when anyone could
get to us. As we reassembled in the kitchen, the
vinyl flooring under our feet started to bubble. Then water
began to pool. My dad walked into the bedroom and
saw the carpet floating off the floor. The river's musty
(22:54):
scent permeated the house, mixed with what smelled like freshly
chopped wood. My sister sat Rosemary and Clay on the
kitchen island countertop. Rosemary was four and Clay was twenty
months old. We discussed whether we could get them higher,
maybe even on top of the cabinets in the small
(23:16):
space below the ceiling. Then the roof over the porch
crashed down and we heard glass shatter in my father's room,
just off the kitchen. Rosemary asked, why did the window break?
Clay started to cry. When the sliding glass doors open
and water poured in. Lance ran to it, shoved it closed,
(23:39):
and held it shut. The pendant lamps began to swing
wildly over the kitchen counter. The house was shifting. It
lurked sharply, and we all struggled to stay on our feet.
It felt like walking down the aisle of a plane
during strong turbulence. We're moving, We're moving, Patrick said. The
(24:03):
realization was terrifying. The rushing, still rising water had lifted
the house off its pillars. It was a float, and
then it wasn't. I saw part of the deck rip away.
I heard windows break from every corner, Cracks split the walls.
(24:23):
We crashed into something, probably a tree. I don't know
how long It took ten seconds, maybe fifteen, for the
house to come apart. Alissa managed to keep both kids
on the countertop, one hand on each, still trying to
reassure them. As the house came undone, she grabbed one
in each arm. This is the part that will forever
(24:45):
haunt me. If I or anyone else had been closer
to them, we would have helped her. We would have
grabbed one of the kids. But we simply didn't know
that we were about to be plunged into the water.
We simply didn't now as we were thrust into churning water,
into darkness. Our disintegrating house sucked us down into the river.
(25:10):
The last thing I remember from inside the house was
seeing the refrigerator coming at me. Patrick saw the countertop
tear away from the kitchen island with Alyssa and the
kids on it. As the river carried me downstream, I
struggled to stay above water. I was surrounded by branches,
by twisted metal, by uprooted trees, by countless smaller objects,
(25:35):
bottles of sunscreen, books, couch cushions, coolers that came from
inside our home or somebody else's. I realized I lost
my shoes and my phone. I grabbed at every branch
and every tree that was still standing. A few snapped
off in my hands, leaving me with a fistful of leaves.
(25:55):
I managed to briefly hold onto one, perhaps for a
few seconds, until the force of the water and the
constant assault from debris ripped me away. I latched onto
a tree with branches large enough to support me and
pulled myself out of the water. My breathing was frantic,
but my mind was focused. I considered the possibility of death.
(26:19):
I thought, if I survive, I'll be the only one.
The tree began to crack, creak, and moan. Then it
slowly fell into the river, and so did I. I
reached for another tree and climbed as high as I could,
a couple of feet above the rushing water. I stepped
up to a higher branch, and then another. If this
(26:41):
tree collapsed, I wasn't sure if I would fight to
stay above the water again. I pleaded with the tree
to hold me, to withstand the power of the river. Please,
I whispered, please, Over the roar of the water and
the crackling of the trees. I heard screaming. It was guttural, primal.
(27:06):
Who's there? I called, I'm in a tree too. We
have to hang on. Someone will help. It's Alyssa, my sister, screamed,
I'm with Rosemary. Clay is gone. The memory of those
words will never leave me. A combination of profound relief
(27:26):
an unbearable sadness overwhelms me now, even as I type this.
Alyssa and I kept yelling to each other, though neither
of us could clearly make out what the other was saying.
Be strong for Rosemary, I implored, you have to survive this. Intermittently,
I could hear just one word, Clay, as Alyssa cried
(27:48):
out for her son. Then I noticed Patrick running along
the river bank. I couldn't believe he was there, fully dressed,
wearing his tank top and shorts, his shoes somehow still
on he had lost only his wedding ring. He told
me later, Patrick, I'm here, I yelled. For the first time.
I thought we had a shot at surviving. Patrick was
(28:09):
the first normal thing since the house broke apart. It
was like being alone on an alien planet and another
human being randomly arrives. And then Lance came jogging up
after him. They'd ended up in the same pecan tree,
about two hundred feet away from the river bank and
about two thousand feet from where our house once stood.
Lance has a watch with a flashlight that he turned
(28:29):
on after Rosemary woke him up. Patrick said he spotted
the beam after he climbed into the tree. They were
only a few yards apart, close enough that they could
talk without yelling. Lance kept repeating, my son, my daughter,
there's no way. In the river's roiling churn. With Rosemary
(28:52):
clinging to her neck while she paddled with one arm,
Alissa had somehow managed to push her daughter onto a branch.
Rosemary hugged with her arms and legs, lying flat. Alyssa
stayed in the water just below her, gripping the tree's trunk,
and as the waters were seated, she stood uncomfortably on
a branch below her. Alyssa would tell me five days
(29:15):
later that Rosemary wanted to play I spy while they
waded in the tree. Patrick waded into the water to
intercept a blue kayak that was floating by an older
couple watching from a house on a nearby hill. Brought
Lance and Patrick an inflatable inner tube, and they decided
the tube was the better option to catch Rosemary, more
(29:39):
control softer landing. After that, Rosemary's rescue happened quickly. Patrick
and Lance rigged the inner tube with a green garden
hose they found and tied it around a down tree.
Lance waded into the water, positioning the tube beneath his daughter.
I stood downriver, ready to catch Rosemar if she missed
(30:02):
the target and got caught in the stream. Alissa urged
us to hurry, saying she didn't think she could hold
onto the tree much longer. She had to pry Rosemary's
hands from the branch. Rosemary, terrified, started to cry. Then
my sister cradled her daughter and dropped her twenty feet
(30:25):
into the river where her father was waiting. She landed
directly in the middle of the inner tube, and we
all cheered. Lance carried his daughter to shore. My sister
jumped into the water right after, and I grabbed her,
put my arm around her, and together we walked to safety.
Alissa collapsed on the river bank, crying out for Clay.
(30:47):
Rosemary became calm when she reached dry land, but her
face had a blue cast. We were all shivering. We
told Rosemary how brave she'd in and that she was
now safe and it was going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
That's the reality of what it was like for so
many down there, and it happened. That article describes it,
I think perfectly, so quickly.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I want you to take a look at this picture.
This is Rosemary and Clay. Rosemary survived, Clay did not.
This family, like so many Texas families, is rejoicing at
the lives that were saved and is forever grieving at
the lives that were lost. And this family, like so
(31:38):
many Texas families, needs their friends, their loved ones, to
hold them tight. They need God's blessing and mercy and grace.
And I will tell you everyone in Texas is standing
with this family, is standing with all of the parents
at Mystic, is standing with all the little girl girls
(32:00):
who lost friends just today I was visiting with parents
who had two daughters at Mystic, One survived, one did not.
They talked about the surviving daughter and the guilt and
grief that every one of the survivors feels. Survivors guilt,
Why did my friend? Why did my sister die and
I didn't? And those girls it's going to take a
(32:23):
whole lot of love and a whole lot of time
for them to walk through that grief. We'll do that.
That's who Texans are. But these are hard times.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
There are so many different organizations doing amazing work helping
those in Texas. If you can help, make sure you help.
There's a lot of them. Pick the one that connects
with you and your family and your heart. But there
are people that need help, and if you can do that,
they'd be amazing. Sooner. I will see you back here again,
real soon
Host
Ben Ferguson
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