July 7, 2025 • 37 mins
Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:
- Meteorologist Jeff Lindner on the flooding in the hill country of Texas
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, what we need is more common sense.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Common breaking down the world's nonsense.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
About how American common sense will see us through with
the common sense of Houston.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm just pro common sense for Houston from Houston. This
is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind
dot Com.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
We will uh, we will be talking today obviously about
what happened in Kerrville and Kerr County and in the
Texas Hill Country with the flooding of the Guadalubay River.
It is a it is a sad, sad story and
one I don't relish talking about a lot, but we're
going to We need to do that because we need
to pass the story along. Number one and number two
(00:53):
is we need to try to help raise some funds here.
There's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of cleanup
now to mention, a lot of funerals and a lot
of other things that we're just going to have to
have to deal with here that we really don't want
to have to deal with. But I'll give you I'll
give you some links that you can go to if
you if you would like to help for organizations that
(01:15):
you know you can count on in order to be
doing the right thing. Well, in fact, I'll give you
one of them right now. We have a link, we
should have a link at KPRC dot com KPRC Radio
dot com. For the Community Foundation of Texas Hill Country,
they've launched the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, specifically aimed
(01:36):
at helping those affected in Hunt and Ingram, Kerrville, Centerpoint,
and Comfort all along the Guadalupe. The relief funds are
being directed to vetted local organizations, so you don't have
to worry about it. We've already done that, involved in rescue,
relief and recovery efforts, flood assistance programs for displaced families
and individuals, and rebuilding efforts in the hardest hit areas.
(01:57):
We had the Egg commissioner on Sid Miller on the
Morning Show today, and he also has a website, Texas
Agriculture dot gov that has a variety different ways that
you can help as well. That's Texas Agriculture dot gov.
All right, we'll get back into the flooding story here
in our next segment, but let's open. Let's have a
(02:18):
little bit of fun today. We can't can't be all
doom and gloom here. We have to we have to
have a little bit of enjoyment. Like car names. Does
your car have a name, a nickname? Have you bestowed
a nickname on your car? Do you call your car
whatever you call your car, whether it's a person's name
(02:38):
or it's a sort of a descriptive thing. I had
one woman write me this morning and see she said
that she had this kind of a mossy green color car,
kind of looks like almost like a poop brown and
her brother called it the dung beetle, Which is is
(03:00):
the name? I guess that's stuck to it. But we're
asking this morning on our morning showing, Katie, I raged, yeah,
because one third of Americans evidently have named their car truck.
I do have a name for my truck. I've never
named a vehicle before I got the truck. It's my
first truck, and it seemed like the truck should have
a name. And it's a big red truck, so it's
big red. Nothing horribly creative about that. But I was
(03:20):
asking our listeners to tell me about the nicknames, whether
to vehicle you have now a vehicle that you used
to have. What was the vehicle's nickname and how did
it get its nickname.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
From Summerwood. My hell cat is named Baby. She's actually
Baby three. Supernatural was one of my favorite shows, so
I named instead of an Impala Dodge Charger Baby. And
I've also got Blucifer, which is my C seven Grand
Sport Corvette and she's blue, so hence the name Blucifer.
(03:54):
Y'all have a great day.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Lucifer's that's kind of creative. I like that any other ideas.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It's a marked from commerce. Yeah, the truck has nicknamed
the Red Raider, but it's not Texas Tech Red Raiders, Decatur,
Alabama Red Raiders.
Speaker 6 (04:08):
Good morning, Jimmy and Skylake. This is Michael in South Acres.
My current car is nicknamed April because I signed the
paperwork on April fifteenth. Just don't sell the irs.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Good morning, Jimmy. My decked out H three hummer is
named Sergeant Squirrel. I was a sergeant in the army
and I squirrel a lot now in my old age,
so we are a team and we both live in
(04:40):
Spring Texas.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Have a great day.
Speaker 7 (04:42):
Hey, Jimmy, this is carlos.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
Hey.
Speaker 7 (04:45):
My car was Zebra three. That's back in the seventies,
and I'm there. Any wanted to figure out why I
call the Zebra three, But I'll let you know why.
It was Starsky in touch and and their code was
z Bra three. So yeah, mylesmobile four forty two Broth three.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
That makes sense, you too, That makes sense. I get
that one. But hang on, I think our best nickname
is yet to come.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Good morning, Jimmy. This is gone from Spring. So I
have a travel trailer and a truck.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
So my wife named a travel trailer Willy.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Because of eight wheel or the six wheels.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
That are on it and the truck. If you've got
a Willie, you have to have a whaling.
Speaker 7 (05:30):
So I've got Whaling and Willie.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I'm still working on getting the boys.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
This is Troy.
Speaker 8 (05:36):
I had a nineteen sixty six Dodge Charger back in
the late eighties and its nickname was Iron Horse. That
my brother named it, and it took Metallica's Injustice for
All to get it running in the mornings.
Speaker 9 (05:51):
This is Melanie from Belleville. The first car I went
after my divorce was a red Ford Escape and I
named her Sophie for no other reason than she just
looked like Sophie. And then last two years ago, I
had a Chevy Equinox and went through a hailstorm and
she was pretty banged up, so I called her dimples.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Hey, Jimmy, this is Chris from Rosenberg.
Speaker 10 (06:13):
Just want to let you know.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
There is a song with a car nickname in it.
Speaker 8 (06:16):
It is blinded by the Light by Man for man,
and it's talking about rapping up like a deuce, which
is a thirty two Ford.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Okay, but that's not a name, that's the model of
the vehicle.
Speaker 10 (06:28):
I do like the.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
What was that one oh one guy said he named
the car April because he bought it in April, on
April to fifteenth. I'm surprised you didn't name it like
refund or something like that, just like the lady who
bought a new vehicle after a divorce. I've surprised you
didn't name it like alimony or child support or something
(06:53):
like that. But anyway, a lot of you have nicknames
for your vehicle. And what is Spanish for blue? That's
what I'm trying to remember. What the word is the
Spanish word for blue is. That's what Elizabeth named, not
her current vehicle, but her vehicle before that. I don't
know she ever named this one. Anyway, we're gonna get
(07:13):
into the whole Texas flooding thing, more on how you
can donate, more on how you can help. I can
tell you this that everybody and their brother is there.
Every television morning show, national television morning show was there
this morning. All the politicians are there. You know, certainly
I understand why. You know, You've got Chip Roy there,
(07:34):
that's that's his district. You've got Senator Ted Cruz, he
was there this morning. So the place is basically being
overrun by media and politicians at this point.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I don't know, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
The the good news is is that, you know, there's
a lot of a lot of help that's coming, especially
at the federal level, and the Feds did not wait
too long at all in order to get involved in
all this. In fact, Christy Nome was in Kerrville. I
want to say, like the day of before before the
fourth of July, it was over and done with.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
She was there.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
So there's been immediate attention. Declarations, disaster declarations already have
been signed. So there's there's relief and help coming. More
by the way, on the flooding and in some of
the some of the information that we were dispensing this
morning that you might find interesting this afternoon. Coming up
next Jimmy Bair Show here at the AM nine fifty KPRC.
(08:45):
All Right, so we're spending a little time talking about
the flooding. You know, the I don't want to do
too much on stats because the stats are constantly changing.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I mean, we went from like.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Yesterday, I want to say, it was up around sixty
people who had been reported dead. This morning, he got
up eighty two. And there are there was at least
I think thirty or forty people who were still missing.
And unfortunately, at this point four days into this, now
I think that it's pretty safe to say that the
likelihood of finding anybody else alive is relatively slim at
(09:23):
this point. So there's going to be more bodies found
than the death count is going to continue to go up.
But President Trump on top of the story, even though
the politicians, well this is Trump's fault. What hang on
a natural disaster flash flood in Texas is Trump's fault?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
How is that?
Speaker 10 (09:44):
Well?
Speaker 4 (09:44):
He yo, he got it. The National Weather Service, they
didn't have any warning. Well, first of all, the National
Weather Service has not laid off a single person. Yet
any cuts coming to the National Weather Service don't take
effect until October, so there's nothing that's not true. Number one.
Number two is that the warnings went out. There was
(10:06):
a flash flood warning three hours before the river rose,
so you know, over twenty six feet in a matter
of an hour, hour and a half there was flash
flood warnings.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
The problem.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Part of the problem is you're out You're out there
in hill country, right You're out there in a rural
area where you know, there's not normally a ton of
I mean, there's a lot of people there right now
for the summer camps and all these other things Fourth
of July weekend going on, but how many of them
are actually paying attention to what's going on with the weather.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Not a lot.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
So even if you're putting out warnings, it doesn't mean
that people are necessarily paying attention the way they should
to the warnings. And then of course everybody wants to
Cristal well, they should have gotten evacuated everybody. I don't
think anybody had for an inkling realized just how bad
this is going to get. But at least this time around,
the federal government is very much tuned in to the disaster.
(11:03):
President Trump got asked about a couple of things at
the airport. Apologize for the background noise, but it's worth hearing.
President Trump started with, you know, his thoughts and prayers
of course for the people of Texas.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 11 (11:14):
We've been in touch with Governor Abbot and very close
to Governor Aboit and everybody in Texas. Christine omas As
you have been there and they will continue to be there.
And we're working very close with representatives from Texas. And
it's a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible. So
(11:38):
we say, God bless all of the people that have
gone through so much, and God bless, God bless the
state of Texas.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Is incredible. Plus any questions, how are you still pray?
Speaker 11 (11:50):
To say, well, FEMA is something we can talk about later,
but right now they're busy working so well.
Speaker 12 (12:00):
Believe it.
Speaker 13 (12:00):
At that go ahead for the trade letters that you're
sending out on Monday, Secretary busins that it would be
a threeming extension and that race would go back up
to the April second level on August.
Speaker 11 (12:13):
First, is that we should sending letters out on Monday
having to do with the trade deals could be twelve,
maybe fifteen, you know, Secretary of Commerce right here, and
I guess Howard, I would say it could be maybe
as many as fifty or so. And they'll be going
out on Monday and jumb we'll go out on Tuesday
(12:33):
and Wednesday, and I'll and we've we've made deals also,
so we're going to have a combination of letters and
some deals have been made.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Actually starting a third party, I think.
Speaker 11 (12:47):
It's ridiculous to start at third party. We have a
tremendous success with the Republican Party. The Democrats have lost
their way. But it's always been a two party system
and I think starting a third party.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Heads to confusion. It really seems to have.
Speaker 11 (13:02):
Been developed for two parties. Certain parties have never worked.
So he can have fun with it, but I think
it's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Have fun with it, but it's ridiculous. So he covered
a couple of things that are including some more trade
agreements evidently coming out this week. All right, this morning
on the show on our morning show in KTRH, we
had Texas State Representative Wes Verdell. His fifty third district
office is in Currville, right in the midst of the action,
and we talked to him this morning about what he
(13:31):
had seen, got a lay of the land, how things
were looking. Here's my conversation with Texas State Representative West
Verdell seven to twenty one hour time here in Houston's
forty news News Radio seven and forty KTRH. We are
joined by Texas State Representative West Verdell. As they said,
his office for his district is in Kerrville. I can't
(13:54):
even imagine what life is like in Curveville right now.
Representative Verdell fill us in a little bit on what
you've seen. I'm sure you have toured around the community
to see the aftermath of this flooding. Have you ever
seen anything like this?
Speaker 14 (14:08):
Hey, Jimmy, you know I've seen some flash floods, but
I've never seen it like this.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Just giving you an idea.
Speaker 14 (14:13):
Right now, I'm standing and everybody's doing shift change right
now and search and rescue guys. There's probably I'm betting
two hundred guys here you know that are changing over
getting ready to go back out again to look more today.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
But it is hard to imagine until you see it.
Speaker 14 (14:28):
I had a guy with me yesterday, very well known
and I took him out to the river, and he
was shocked at what he saw.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I mean, he's seen a lot of things in his life,
and he was shocked at how bad this was.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Yeah, I don't I can't even begin to acount how
many vehicles. At one point time, I saw a video
of cars floating down the Guadalupe and it just looked
like it was one vehicle after another. There's probably hundreds
of cars that ended up in that river. And in
some cases we're hearing that not just not just vehicles,
but people were carried by that river, some of the
(15:00):
ones that were rescued twenty miles away from where they
went into the river.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 14 (15:05):
Yeah, that's uh, you know, that's actually not real uncommon
in flash floods like this for people will be carried
that far. We've seen somebody had ridden a door one time,
I think about twenty miles whenever Lando River flooded in Junction.
And it's I mean, it's amazing the strength people can
find to hang on and how long they could stain
a tree if if they managed to grab a tree
(15:25):
or something like that. So we're really grateful that there
were a lot of people that were able to be rescued. Unfortunately,
there are people that did not make it, and the
search and rescue teams have been working day and night.
A lot of people out there, really really working hard
to try to find everybody they can, and.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
We know the daily two have died so far. Do
you have any idea of how many are still missing,
how many people are they still looking for? No, that's
you know, I'm sure that there is a number. But
one of the problems we had is it was Fourth
of July weekend.
Speaker 14 (15:57):
They were going to have a lot of Fourth of
July festivities here, a lot of people came from out
of town and we're camping on the river and it's
possible that there are people that it's not even known
that they're missing yet.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Yeah, So do you have a feel yet for when
this becomes I know it's still considered a search and
rescue mission at this point, but we're in the day
four now. Do you have any sort of feeling for
when this becomes just a recovery effort at this point?
Speaker 14 (16:24):
Yeah, I think the reality is is we're probably at
that point. We're hoping that we find people alive. I mean,
you know, I'm just going to keep holding hope that
we find somebody that's made it through this. But the
reality is as we're shifting into a recovery recovery mode
right now, and then the other thing that they're also
now shifted over towards looking at infrastructure and trying to
(16:45):
figure out where the damage is throughout the river. It's
about thirty miles of river that comes through here, and
I've been out there several times. And there's a real
famous place a lot of people listen and probably know.
It's called the Hunt Store, and water was ten feet
above the roof of that. I mean, it's just it's
wiped entire houses away. It's it's pretty hard to imagine.
(17:07):
We're kind of havn't really gotten in that mode yet,
have we. It's awfully early here, But do we have
any sort of a feel for a price time for
this disaster? How many millions or how many billions of
dollars it'll take in order to get things right again?
You know, I'm just estimating, but I'm betting it's going
to be in the billion range. That's the number of
houses that are gone and fences. That's That's another thing
(17:30):
is a lot offenses have been wiped out to you know,
livestock getting out and everything else. And so county commissioners
are doing a great job trying to assess throughout the county.
I was out there with the county commissioner yesterday from
the precinct that got hit really hard in Ingraman Hunt,
and you know, he's grown up there. He just they
couldn't believe all the places that he used to know
(17:51):
were there and they weren't there anymore.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
It's been a lot of chris is from past administrations
as far as the response rate for these types of disasters.
I got the impression that the Trump administration has kind
of turned that around. The President was informed of this
right away. Christy Nome came to town right away. I'm
sure you're seeing federal assets at work in that community
right now. Yeah, we're starting to see them here.
Speaker 14 (18:16):
I want to, you know, I want to compliment state
the state agencies how great they've done, Text Parks and Wildlife, DPS,
several others. Team, which was extremely critical in this as
text Department of Emergency Management. You know, I rushed over
here as soon as soon as we found out what
was going on, and when I got here, the chief
of Tetam was already here on the ground and very
(18:38):
quickly he figured out what building we need to base
everybody out of, how do we get all the agents together,
and the amount of coordination. I think Texans have a
lot to be proud of how well their government was
able to get here quickly and respond to this.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
All right, Wes, thanks for joining us. Good to hear
from you, sir, glad you're well. Thank you.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
That is State Representative Wes forver Dell. And by the way, again,
if you'd like to make a donation that will go
directly to helping the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill
Country the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, go to Communityfoundation
dot net. We have a link actually at KTRH dot com.
The'll make it a whole lot easier. Just go to
KTRH dot com and click on that link and they'll
take you there and you can make a donation there.
(19:17):
And we have, by the way, the same link at
KPRC Radio dot com if you want to go there
to click on that. All right, quick will break back
with Jeff Linder in just a moment. We also talked
to him earlier this morning from a meteorological standpoint of
exactly what happened and why the flood flash flood was
so bad. More on that coming up next. You're a
name nine to fifty KPRC. You know, it's a familiar story, right,
(19:56):
much like we were just inundated by a rain system
that just wouldn't move in the name of Hurricane Harvey,
Karen Houston. They had the same sort of thing in
the Hill Country. Much smaller area, but the same kind
of thing, a system that just kept training and bringing
more and more rain. There are some places they got
(20:17):
up to twenty inches of rain. What's different about the
Hill Country, of course, is the topography. We're very flat
here in Houston. The Hill Country is just how you
would imagine it is. I mean, you've got hills, and
you know, I don't think any of them qualifies mountains,
but small, you know, you've got terrain that kind of
all feeds itself into the Guadalupe River. So here's my
(20:40):
conversation from earlier this morning with Harris County Flood Control
meteorologist Jeff Linder about what happened five to fifty one
our time here in Houston's morning news. The flooding along
the Guadalupe River in Kirk County, especially in Kerrville's currently
(21:00):
at eighty two. We still have people who are missing.
Probably the worst part I would think for any of
these search and rescue people is coming across the bodies
of children. And there has been a lot of kids
who have died as a result of this flooding. But
I think we're all still shaking our heads. If you've
(21:23):
seen any of the time lapse video of the Guadalupe
rising from the rain, it's just mind boggling how quickly
the river came up, and how high it got, and
just how powerful that water was. Joining us to talk
about guy knows a little bit about flooding. I mean,
(21:43):
he's seen plenty of it here in Harris County. I
was kind of having a little bit of a Harvey
flashback looking at some of the video on this stuff,
Jeff Lindner, because it kind of reminded me of that
We've had a storm system that basically parked itself over
a specific area of Texas and just cap Arini.
Speaker 10 (22:01):
Yeah, you know, this is the data's still coming in.
We had the gauge at Hunt, Texas and the gage
of Kerville, Texas, both taken out by the flooding, but
it looks like preminarily at the Hunt Texas gauge, this
is the highest floods surpassing the nineteen thirty two flood
out there that we've ever experienced in the Waterloope River,
(22:22):
and just you know, recently with the fatality counts what
it has got to, this appears to be now the
worst flood in the United States based on fatalities since
the nineteen seventy nine Big Thompson Canyon flood in Colorado.
Non tropical related, so not like Helleene or something like that.
But you know, I think it's very hard for a
(22:43):
lot of us in other parts of Texas that don't
live in that Hill Country flash flood Alley area that
I thirty five corridor west over to the Hill Country
to really try to wrap our heads around how the
water can come up so fast, because what we deal
with here in Houston is more slow rising water. You know,
the water comes up in the streets, it's not moving,
(23:04):
it's not really carrying cars away. But it's a much
much different type of flooding that they get out in
the Hill Country. And that I thirty five Austin San
Antonio Corridor and then a lot of it's the topography,
so they get the same type of rain that we
get here in Houston. And these really really intense rainfall rates,
you know, Saturday night and Friday night rainfall rates four
(23:26):
or five, six seven inches an hour up around marble falls.
Same types of stuff we get here.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
It's not the.
Speaker 10 (23:31):
Difference since they have these these limestone hills out there,
and it funnels the water off like a concrete parking lot,
and this water goes very quickly into whether these normally
dry creeks and river beds maybe low flowing.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And the water comes up.
Speaker 10 (23:46):
It funnels that water very quickly into these areas with
these steep cliffs and the water comes up very fast,
and that's exactly what we saw unfortunately on the upper
water with the river at Hunt, the North Fork and
South Fork of the Guadalupe kind of come together right
where the city of Hunt is. The South Fork is
where you have more of the population, the camp and
(24:08):
the RV parks and all that kind of stuff, And
unfortunately that's where the magnitude of the rainfall is greate.
It's about ten inches fell just the stream of Hunt,
and Hunt is very near what we call the headwaters
where the river starts, and so as that water came down,
there's just not a lot of time in these types
of instances, like you mentioned, twenty nine thirty feet of
(24:30):
rise of the water level in an hour or so.
And even if even if you could attempt to try
to move, for example, people and RVs and stuff like that,
it just comes up so fast that in those types
of situations, in a lot of cases, and we've seen
this before out there. This isn't the first time we've
seen this. It's just got to climb to safety. And
(24:53):
I know that's you're trying to wrap your head around
that at three o'clock in the morning, you're telling me
to climb to safety. It's exactly what do you have
to do sometimes these hill country areas to save your
life up in trees and up the hillside. It's just
a horrific, horrific event, and it kind of showcases what
(25:14):
can happen out there in that texicoeurr You know, the
same area was hit in July nineteen eighty seven, and
we had a bus of forty three kids at a
camp down in the Comfort area on the Guadalupea River
that was washed away and we had ten fatalities there.
So this area's prone to this type of stuff. They
get these big, heavy rains and the results can be
(25:37):
just absolutely devastating and tragic.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
That being the case, you know, the obviously, Jeff, there's'll
be a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking. After all, this
is Monday morning about warnings. When warnings were issued, whether
or not evacuation should occurred have occurred sooner than what
they did, knowing that this area is prone to this
type of flooding. Again, it doesn't happen every year, clearly
they call it. The last time happened at this kind
(26:01):
of level was probably the better part one hundred years ago.
But you know, it can happen. Do we need to
come up with a better evacuation system for these flood
prone rivers that can rise so quickly?
Speaker 10 (26:13):
You know, it's it's a good it's a good question.
It's a question that you know, we just went through
this almost ten years ago on the Blanco River at Wimberley, Texas.
Very similar situation that happened, and a lot of work
has been put in on the Blanco River at Wimberley,
Texas with gauging and flood warning systems and potentially sirens
systems and protocols in place of you know, for expecting
(26:37):
heavy rain or the gauge is rising, you know, you
put first responders to watch the river and do the
notifications and that type of stuff. I think the you know,
the problem we get into out in the Central Texas
area in the Hill country is that you just can't
gauge and put any warning system every single creek and
(26:57):
river out there. Yeah, there's certainly some obviously the Guadaloupe
the Frio that are much more populated and have much
more have a lot more visitors that probably could utilize
these systems a little bit you know better. But you know,
there's there's there's always gonna be these ungauged, dry creeks
that can turn. And that's exactly what happened in Marble
(27:18):
Falls and Laga Vista on Friday night. We're talking Cow
Creek and Hamilton Creek came up to record levels and
and even in there that the devastation is is tremendous
up of that area. But it's always going to be
some little creek or river out there that it hasn't
happened in one hundred years.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Or it hasn't happened recently, you know, in.
Speaker 10 (27:39):
This particular, since it just really was when you put
all the pieces together, the rainfall was in the right
exact location. You're talking about a holiday weekend where you
have a lot more visitors into this area than you
would normally have, you know, a tremendous amount of visitors
into this area in a very vulnerable situation and very
(28:00):
vulnerable spot in the river out there. And then lastly,
of course, in the middle of the night. And just
like it Remberly, this happened in the middle of the
night where our warning communication systems to hit your cell phones,
they only work if you get it. Yeah, so cell
phone reception is a little spoty out there. If you're sleeping,
you may not hear it, and a lot of people
(28:20):
have turned those notifications off, and so the warning system
works only if you can receive it on the end
of it.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Yeah, online is it was the perfect storm. Yeah, it was,
you know, fourth of July holiday weekend. People who probably
were out there who were not that familiar with the
Guadaloubey and you know, couldn't imagine all right, even if
they knew there's a flash flood warning couldn't imagine twenty
six foot tall wall of water coming down the river. Yeah,
(28:52):
it's hard to imagine unless you you're familiar with that
area and you actually know, you know what it's capable
of doing. Again, if you would like to make a donation,
there's gonna be all kinds of you know, go fundbe
pages and everything else set up, but this one we
know is legit. It is a setup for specifically for
kirk County flood relief to help the communities in Kirr County, Hunt, Kerrville,
(29:18):
Centerpoint Comfort all along Guadaloupe relief funds. So we'll go
to local organizations involved and rescue relief and recovery efforts,
flood assistance for displaced families, and rebuilding efforts. So to
make a donation to that, go to Community Foundation dot net.
We have a link for you at KPRC Radio dot com.
Back with War in a moment, Jimmy Bart Show a
(29:40):
nine fifty KRC. So, as we've been mentioning kind of
throughout our show today, there's all kinds of people who
(30:04):
are currently in Currville, are close to Kurveville right now.
All the all the talking head shows in the morning
shows on TV are all there? Reporters are there, National reporters,
are there, state reporters, local reporters. You've you've got to
see it. People, many of them were probably just kind
of getting in the way when you get right down
to it, I you know it. I guess it's good
(30:26):
that all this attention is going to the Curveville area.
I just wonder how much of this attention will still
be around, you know, when this is no longer a
part of the news cycle. I think it's gonna be
part of our news cycle for a long time because
it's it's going to be very very difficult and very
very expensive to rebuild after this. We had AG Commissioner
(30:47):
Sid Miller on. He wasn't really ready to talk that
much about it, but he did say, by the way,
he can go to Texas Agriculture dot gov. Uh, they're
gonna be looking for things. They're gonna be looking for
fencing materials. I guess all a lot of the fences
were just washed out. You know that there's farm country there,
There's there's cattle country there. They're they're they're people who
(31:07):
are you know that that have family farms where they
raise cattle, and you know, they have to deal with
the devastation of losing you know, a good deal of
their herd to the flood. They have to they poll
barns and out buildings that have floated away. I mean,
even if it's just as simple as you you are
a family farmer here in the Greater Houston area, or
(31:28):
you have a you can get your hands on a
bunch of hay that you'd like to donate if you
go to h the a Commissioner's website Texas Agriculture dot gov.
There's ways there that you can help as well. All right,
chip Roy, you know, I will share a little audio
from Chip Roy because I mean, this is this is
basically home for him. This, you know, Kervill is right
(31:51):
in the midst of the of of his district that
he represents in the United States Congress. And here's a
little bit of what he had to say about the
devastation going on in that area.
Speaker 12 (32:04):
I mean, this is a pretty extraordinary and tough lot.
This is I always joke on the campaign front of joke.
I always say that it's the best part of the
best state, in the best country. The history of the
world is beautiful. There's a reason these eighteen camps are here.
But it's a strong group of folks. You know, there's
a lot of German heritage in this area. There's a
lot of you know, tex Mech's influence where cultures come together,
(32:25):
very proud of it, the live music scene. In fact,
we were all supposed to be here. My family planned
on being here right down on the river behind me
where we are every summer for the July fourth celebration
with Robert Urkeen, who's a local favorite, a well known
musician who's from Kerrville, and he's been great. He's been
out there posting stuff on social media. Everybody's coming together.
(32:45):
I know there'll be benefits, there'll be money raised, people
will step up and we're going to rebuild the area.
But right now, we continue to search and pray for
this families. You know, I met with the families last
night of those who are still not found their little
girls from Camp Mystic. It's one of the toughest meetings
I've ever had to have. And you know, Mary Lazieslam
was there and she was the camp director and her
(33:07):
father in law, Dick, he lost his life forty eight
hours ago of getting in a Tahoe trying to grab
three of those little girls from the camp and get
them up to safety. And he was been here for
years running that camp. There's stories like that, the heroes
that saved lives, camp counselors, another woman who lost her life,
who was one of the camp directors who saved little
(33:28):
girls' lives before she perished. You know, the prayers, the
church community that's been coming together. I can't put it
into words, the number of people. The President of the
United States who's reached out to me personally, the Secretary
of Homeland Security who came here yesterday, the governor who's
been here, has been a team effort.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
We'll come together. This is Texas. That's what we do. Yeah,
it is.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
It's what we do, and we do better than anybody else,
especially in taking care of our own. All right, However,
we do have a couple of bad eggs, and not
to leave today on a bad note, but I want
to give this woman all the publicity she deserves. Shah
Dave Perkins, who evidently at one point was appointed by
the mayor to be on the Houston some sort of
(34:10):
a Houston Food and Security Board, who evidently has been
studying the work of Jasmine Crockett and decided that she
wanted to make the flooding in the Hill Country about race.
Speaker 10 (34:24):
Listen to this.
Speaker 15 (34:25):
I know I'm probably going to get canceled for this,
but Camp Mystic is a white's only girls Christian camp.
They don't even have a token Asian, they don't have
a token black person. It is a all white, white
only conservative Christian camp. If you ain't white, you ain't right,
(34:46):
You ain't getting me in, you ain't going period. And
I think that context needs to be said in this matter.
It's not to say that we don't want the girls
to be found. Who would girls that are missing or
whatever right now? But you best believe, especially in today's
political climate, if this were a group of Hispanic girls,
(35:09):
especially with them being in East Texas, it should be
most likely Hispanic. If this were a group of Hispanic
girls out there, this would not be getting this type
of coverage that they're getting. No one would give a fuck,
and all these white people, the parents of these little girls,
would be saying things like they need to be deported,
they shouldn't have been here in.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
The first place.
Speaker 15 (35:28):
In YadA, YadA, yassa before y'all come at me before
y'all start leaving hate comments on my page about Oh,
these are just kids and they don't know no better.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Da da da da da.
Speaker 15 (35:36):
The parents of these children who are choosing, and it
is a choice in twenty twenty five, it is definitely
a freaking choice to go into East dam Texas and
to make a all white enclave exclusionary just for white people,
with all the black people in East Texas, with all
the Hispanic people in East Texas. Somehow, some way, you
(35:59):
have harmed out in all white, white's only enclave in
East Texas for your white children.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
What the yeah, I have a problem with that. I
have a big problem with that.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
I have a big problem with your inability to know
geography in your own state, East Texas. Darling, do you
know do you know where Hill Country is? It's in
Central Texas, It's not in East Texas. Do you think
there's there's a lot of black people being excluded from
this camp. It's a it's a church camp. It's it's
(36:34):
a it's a local church camp. It's not it's not
big city East Texas. Why in the world you know
the only thing you're doing there is open up your
mouth and showing people just what an idiot you are.
And yes, you're gonna get a lot of really bad
publicity for this, and that's good. You deserve to get
some really bad publicity. I hope that nobody's dumb enough
(36:57):
to appoint you to anything else. All right, listen on
that note again. You know, we've got the link at
KPRC radio dot com for the Community Foundation if you
want to help the flood victims, and I sincerely hope
you do. We will see you tomorrow morning, bright and early,
starting at five am over on news Radio seven forty
k t R H. Hope to have you back here
at four on Am nine fifty KPRC
Well, what we need is more common sense.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Common breaking down the world's nonsense.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
About how American common sense will see us through with
the common sense of Houston.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm just pro common sense for Houston from Houston. This
is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind
dot Com.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
We will uh, we will be talking today obviously about
what happened in Kerrville and Kerr County and in the
Texas Hill Country with the flooding of the Guadalubay River.
It is a it is a sad, sad story and
one I don't relish talking about a lot, but we're
going to We need to do that because we need
to pass the story along. Number one and number two
(00:53):
is we need to try to help raise some funds here.
There's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of cleanup
now to mention, a lot of funerals and a lot
of other things that we're just going to have to
have to deal with here that we really don't want
to have to deal with. But I'll give you I'll
give you some links that you can go to if
you if you would like to help for organizations that
(01:15):
you know you can count on in order to be
doing the right thing. Well, in fact, I'll give you
one of them right now. We have a link, we
should have a link at KPRC dot com KPRC Radio
dot com. For the Community Foundation of Texas Hill Country,
they've launched the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, specifically aimed
(01:36):
at helping those affected in Hunt and Ingram, Kerrville, Centerpoint,
and Comfort all along the Guadalupe. The relief funds are
being directed to vetted local organizations, so you don't have
to worry about it. We've already done that, involved in rescue,
relief and recovery efforts, flood assistance programs for displaced families
and individuals, and rebuilding efforts in the hardest hit areas.
(01:57):
We had the Egg commissioner on Sid Miller on the
Morning Show today, and he also has a website, Texas
Agriculture dot gov that has a variety different ways that
you can help as well. That's Texas Agriculture dot gov.
All right, we'll get back into the flooding story here
in our next segment, but let's open. Let's have a
(02:18):
little bit of fun today. We can't can't be all
doom and gloom here. We have to we have to
have a little bit of enjoyment. Like car names. Does
your car have a name, a nickname? Have you bestowed
a nickname on your car? Do you call your car
whatever you call your car, whether it's a person's name
(02:38):
or it's a sort of a descriptive thing. I had
one woman write me this morning and see she said
that she had this kind of a mossy green color car,
kind of looks like almost like a poop brown and
her brother called it the dung beetle, Which is is
(03:00):
the name? I guess that's stuck to it. But we're
asking this morning on our morning showing, Katie, I raged, yeah,
because one third of Americans evidently have named their car truck.
I do have a name for my truck. I've never
named a vehicle before I got the truck. It's my
first truck, and it seemed like the truck should have
a name. And it's a big red truck, so it's
big red. Nothing horribly creative about that. But I was
(03:20):
asking our listeners to tell me about the nicknames, whether
to vehicle you have now a vehicle that you used
to have. What was the vehicle's nickname and how did
it get its nickname.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
From Summerwood. My hell cat is named Baby. She's actually
Baby three. Supernatural was one of my favorite shows, so
I named instead of an Impala Dodge Charger Baby. And
I've also got Blucifer, which is my C seven Grand
Sport Corvette and she's blue, so hence the name Blucifer.
(03:54):
Y'all have a great day.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Lucifer's that's kind of creative. I like that any other ideas.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It's a marked from commerce. Yeah, the truck has nicknamed
the Red Raider, but it's not Texas Tech Red Raiders, Decatur,
Alabama Red Raiders.
Speaker 6 (04:08):
Good morning, Jimmy and Skylake. This is Michael in South Acres.
My current car is nicknamed April because I signed the
paperwork on April fifteenth. Just don't sell the irs.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Good morning, Jimmy. My decked out H three hummer is
named Sergeant Squirrel. I was a sergeant in the army
and I squirrel a lot now in my old age,
so we are a team and we both live in
(04:40):
Spring Texas.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Have a great day.
Speaker 7 (04:42):
Hey, Jimmy, this is carlos.
Speaker 6 (04:44):
Hey.
Speaker 7 (04:45):
My car was Zebra three. That's back in the seventies,
and I'm there. Any wanted to figure out why I
call the Zebra three, But I'll let you know why.
It was Starsky in touch and and their code was
z Bra three. So yeah, mylesmobile four forty two Broth three.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
That makes sense, you too, That makes sense. I get
that one. But hang on, I think our best nickname
is yet to come.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Good morning, Jimmy. This is gone from Spring. So I
have a travel trailer and a truck.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
So my wife named a travel trailer Willy.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Because of eight wheel or the six wheels.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
That are on it and the truck. If you've got
a Willie, you have to have a whaling.
Speaker 7 (05:30):
So I've got Whaling and Willie.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
I'm still working on getting the boys.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
This is Troy.
Speaker 8 (05:36):
I had a nineteen sixty six Dodge Charger back in
the late eighties and its nickname was Iron Horse. That
my brother named it, and it took Metallica's Injustice for
All to get it running in the mornings.
Speaker 9 (05:51):
This is Melanie from Belleville. The first car I went
after my divorce was a red Ford Escape and I
named her Sophie for no other reason than she just
looked like Sophie. And then last two years ago, I
had a Chevy Equinox and went through a hailstorm and
she was pretty banged up, so I called her dimples.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Hey, Jimmy, this is Chris from Rosenberg.
Speaker 10 (06:13):
Just want to let you know.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
There is a song with a car nickname in it.
Speaker 8 (06:16):
It is blinded by the Light by Man for man,
and it's talking about rapping up like a deuce, which
is a thirty two Ford.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Okay, but that's not a name, that's the model of
the vehicle.
Speaker 10 (06:28):
I do like the.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
What was that one oh one guy said he named
the car April because he bought it in April, on
April to fifteenth. I'm surprised you didn't name it like
refund or something like that, just like the lady who
bought a new vehicle after a divorce. I've surprised you
didn't name it like alimony or child support or something
(06:53):
like that. But anyway, a lot of you have nicknames
for your vehicle. And what is Spanish for blue? That's
what I'm trying to remember. What the word is the
Spanish word for blue is. That's what Elizabeth named, not
her current vehicle, but her vehicle before that. I don't
know she ever named this one. Anyway, we're gonna get
(07:13):
into the whole Texas flooding thing, more on how you
can donate, more on how you can help. I can
tell you this that everybody and their brother is there.
Every television morning show, national television morning show was there
this morning. All the politicians are there. You know, certainly
I understand why. You know, You've got Chip Roy there,
(07:34):
that's that's his district. You've got Senator Ted Cruz, he
was there this morning. So the place is basically being
overrun by media and politicians at this point.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I don't know, you know.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
The the good news is is that, you know, there's
a lot of a lot of help that's coming, especially
at the federal level, and the Feds did not wait
too long at all in order to get involved in
all this. In fact, Christy Nome was in Kerrville. I
want to say, like the day of before before the
fourth of July, it was over and done with.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
She was there.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
So there's been immediate attention. Declarations, disaster declarations already have
been signed. So there's there's relief and help coming. More
by the way, on the flooding and in some of
the some of the information that we were dispensing this
morning that you might find interesting this afternoon. Coming up
next Jimmy Bair Show here at the AM nine fifty KPRC.
(08:45):
All Right, so we're spending a little time talking about
the flooding. You know, the I don't want to do
too much on stats because the stats are constantly changing.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I mean, we went from like.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Yesterday, I want to say, it was up around sixty
people who had been reported dead. This morning, he got
up eighty two. And there are there was at least
I think thirty or forty people who were still missing.
And unfortunately, at this point four days into this, now
I think that it's pretty safe to say that the
likelihood of finding anybody else alive is relatively slim at
(09:23):
this point. So there's going to be more bodies found
than the death count is going to continue to go up.
But President Trump on top of the story, even though
the politicians, well this is Trump's fault. What hang on
a natural disaster flash flood in Texas is Trump's fault?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
How is that?
Speaker 10 (09:44):
Well?
Speaker 4 (09:44):
He yo, he got it. The National Weather Service, they
didn't have any warning. Well, first of all, the National
Weather Service has not laid off a single person. Yet
any cuts coming to the National Weather Service don't take
effect until October, so there's nothing that's not true. Number one.
Number two is that the warnings went out. There was
(10:06):
a flash flood warning three hours before the river rose,
so you know, over twenty six feet in a matter
of an hour, hour and a half there was flash
flood warnings.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
The problem.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Part of the problem is you're out You're out there
in hill country, right You're out there in a rural
area where you know, there's not normally a ton of
I mean, there's a lot of people there right now
for the summer camps and all these other things Fourth
of July weekend going on, but how many of them
are actually paying attention to what's going on with the weather.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Not a lot.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
So even if you're putting out warnings, it doesn't mean
that people are necessarily paying attention the way they should
to the warnings. And then of course everybody wants to
Cristal well, they should have gotten evacuated everybody. I don't
think anybody had for an inkling realized just how bad
this is going to get. But at least this time around,
the federal government is very much tuned in to the disaster.
(11:03):
President Trump got asked about a couple of things at
the airport. Apologize for the background noise, but it's worth hearing.
President Trump started with, you know, his thoughts and prayers
of course for the people of Texas.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 11 (11:14):
We've been in touch with Governor Abbot and very close
to Governor Aboit and everybody in Texas. Christine omas As
you have been there and they will continue to be there.
And we're working very close with representatives from Texas. And
it's a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible. So
(11:38):
we say, God bless all of the people that have
gone through so much, and God bless, God bless the
state of Texas.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Is incredible. Plus any questions, how are you still pray?
Speaker 11 (11:50):
To say, well, FEMA is something we can talk about later,
but right now they're busy working so well.
Speaker 12 (12:00):
Believe it.
Speaker 13 (12:00):
At that go ahead for the trade letters that you're
sending out on Monday, Secretary busins that it would be
a threeming extension and that race would go back up
to the April second level on August.
Speaker 11 (12:13):
First, is that we should sending letters out on Monday
having to do with the trade deals could be twelve,
maybe fifteen, you know, Secretary of Commerce right here, and
I guess Howard, I would say it could be maybe
as many as fifty or so. And they'll be going
out on Monday and jumb we'll go out on Tuesday
(12:33):
and Wednesday, and I'll and we've we've made deals also,
so we're going to have a combination of letters and
some deals have been made.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Actually starting a third party, I think.
Speaker 11 (12:47):
It's ridiculous to start at third party. We have a
tremendous success with the Republican Party. The Democrats have lost
their way. But it's always been a two party system
and I think starting a third party.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Heads to confusion. It really seems to have.
Speaker 11 (13:02):
Been developed for two parties. Certain parties have never worked.
So he can have fun with it, but I think
it's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Have fun with it, but it's ridiculous. So he covered
a couple of things that are including some more trade
agreements evidently coming out this week. All right, this morning
on the show on our morning show in KTRH, we
had Texas State Representative Wes Verdell. His fifty third district
office is in Currville, right in the midst of the action,
and we talked to him this morning about what he
(13:31):
had seen, got a lay of the land, how things
were looking. Here's my conversation with Texas State Representative West
Verdell seven to twenty one hour time here in Houston's
forty news News Radio seven and forty KTRH. We are
joined by Texas State Representative West Verdell. As they said,
his office for his district is in Kerrville. I can't
(13:54):
even imagine what life is like in Curveville right now.
Representative Verdell fill us in a little bit on what
you've seen. I'm sure you have toured around the community
to see the aftermath of this flooding. Have you ever
seen anything like this?
Speaker 14 (14:08):
Hey, Jimmy, you know I've seen some flash floods, but
I've never seen it like this.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Just giving you an idea.
Speaker 14 (14:13):
Right now, I'm standing and everybody's doing shift change right
now and search and rescue guys. There's probably I'm betting
two hundred guys here you know that are changing over
getting ready to go back out again to look more today.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
But it is hard to imagine until you see it.
Speaker 14 (14:28):
I had a guy with me yesterday, very well known
and I took him out to the river, and he
was shocked at what he saw.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I mean, he's seen a lot of things in his life,
and he was shocked at how bad this was.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Yeah, I don't I can't even begin to acount how
many vehicles. At one point time, I saw a video
of cars floating down the Guadalupe and it just looked
like it was one vehicle after another. There's probably hundreds
of cars that ended up in that river. And in
some cases we're hearing that not just not just vehicles,
but people were carried by that river, some of the
(15:00):
ones that were rescued twenty miles away from where they
went into the river.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 14 (15:05):
Yeah, that's uh, you know, that's actually not real uncommon
in flash floods like this for people will be carried
that far. We've seen somebody had ridden a door one time,
I think about twenty miles whenever Lando River flooded in Junction.
And it's I mean, it's amazing the strength people can
find to hang on and how long they could stain
a tree if if they managed to grab a tree
(15:25):
or something like that. So we're really grateful that there
were a lot of people that were able to be rescued. Unfortunately,
there are people that did not make it, and the
search and rescue teams have been working day and night.
A lot of people out there, really really working hard
to try to find everybody they can, and.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
We know the daily two have died so far. Do
you have any idea of how many are still missing,
how many people are they still looking for? No, that's
you know, I'm sure that there is a number. But
one of the problems we had is it was Fourth
of July weekend.
Speaker 14 (15:57):
They were going to have a lot of Fourth of
July festivities here, a lot of people came from out
of town and we're camping on the river and it's
possible that there are people that it's not even known
that they're missing yet.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Yeah, So do you have a feel yet for when
this becomes I know it's still considered a search and
rescue mission at this point, but we're in the day
four now. Do you have any sort of feeling for
when this becomes just a recovery effort at this point?
Speaker 14 (16:24):
Yeah, I think the reality is is we're probably at
that point. We're hoping that we find people alive. I mean,
you know, I'm just going to keep holding hope that
we find somebody that's made it through this. But the
reality is as we're shifting into a recovery recovery mode
right now, and then the other thing that they're also
now shifted over towards looking at infrastructure and trying to
(16:45):
figure out where the damage is throughout the river. It's
about thirty miles of river that comes through here, and
I've been out there several times. And there's a real
famous place a lot of people listen and probably know.
It's called the Hunt Store, and water was ten feet
above the roof of that. I mean, it's just it's
wiped entire houses away. It's it's pretty hard to imagine.
(17:07):
We're kind of havn't really gotten in that mode yet,
have we. It's awfully early here, But do we have
any sort of a feel for a price time for
this disaster? How many millions or how many billions of
dollars it'll take in order to get things right again?
You know, I'm just estimating, but I'm betting it's going
to be in the billion range. That's the number of
houses that are gone and fences. That's That's another thing
(17:30):
is a lot offenses have been wiped out to you know,
livestock getting out and everything else. And so county commissioners
are doing a great job trying to assess throughout the county.
I was out there with the county commissioner yesterday from
the precinct that got hit really hard in Ingraman Hunt,
and you know, he's grown up there. He just they
couldn't believe all the places that he used to know
(17:51):
were there and they weren't there anymore.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
It's been a lot of chris is from past administrations
as far as the response rate for these types of disasters.
I got the impression that the Trump administration has kind
of turned that around. The President was informed of this
right away. Christy Nome came to town right away. I'm
sure you're seeing federal assets at work in that community
right now. Yeah, we're starting to see them here.
Speaker 14 (18:16):
I want to, you know, I want to compliment state
the state agencies how great they've done, Text Parks and Wildlife, DPS,
several others. Team, which was extremely critical in this as
text Department of Emergency Management. You know, I rushed over
here as soon as soon as we found out what
was going on, and when I got here, the chief
of Tetam was already here on the ground and very
(18:38):
quickly he figured out what building we need to base
everybody out of, how do we get all the agents together,
and the amount of coordination. I think Texans have a
lot to be proud of how well their government was
able to get here quickly and respond to this.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
All right, Wes, thanks for joining us. Good to hear
from you, sir, glad you're well. Thank you.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
That is State Representative Wes forver Dell. And by the way, again,
if you'd like to make a donation that will go
directly to helping the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill
Country the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, go to Communityfoundation
dot net. We have a link actually at KTRH dot com.
The'll make it a whole lot easier. Just go to
KTRH dot com and click on that link and they'll
take you there and you can make a donation there.
(19:17):
And we have, by the way, the same link at
KPRC Radio dot com if you want to go there
to click on that. All right, quick will break back
with Jeff Linder in just a moment. We also talked
to him earlier this morning from a meteorological standpoint of
exactly what happened and why the flood flash flood was
so bad. More on that coming up next. You're a
name nine to fifty KPRC. You know, it's a familiar story, right,
(19:56):
much like we were just inundated by a rain system
that just wouldn't move in the name of Hurricane Harvey,
Karen Houston. They had the same sort of thing in
the Hill Country. Much smaller area, but the same kind
of thing, a system that just kept training and bringing
more and more rain. There are some places they got
(20:17):
up to twenty inches of rain. What's different about the
Hill Country, of course, is the topography. We're very flat
here in Houston. The Hill Country is just how you
would imagine it is. I mean, you've got hills, and
you know, I don't think any of them qualifies mountains,
but small, you know, you've got terrain that kind of
all feeds itself into the Guadalupe River. So here's my
(20:40):
conversation from earlier this morning with Harris County Flood Control
meteorologist Jeff Linder about what happened five to fifty one
our time here in Houston's morning news. The flooding along
the Guadalupe River in Kirk County, especially in Kerrville's currently
(21:00):
at eighty two. We still have people who are missing.
Probably the worst part I would think for any of
these search and rescue people is coming across the bodies
of children. And there has been a lot of kids
who have died as a result of this flooding. But
I think we're all still shaking our heads. If you've
(21:23):
seen any of the time lapse video of the Guadalupe
rising from the rain, it's just mind boggling how quickly
the river came up, and how high it got, and
just how powerful that water was. Joining us to talk
about guy knows a little bit about flooding. I mean,
(21:43):
he's seen plenty of it here in Harris County. I
was kind of having a little bit of a Harvey
flashback looking at some of the video on this stuff,
Jeff Lindner, because it kind of reminded me of that
We've had a storm system that basically parked itself over
a specific area of Texas and just cap Arini.
Speaker 10 (22:01):
Yeah, you know, this is the data's still coming in.
We had the gauge at Hunt, Texas and the gage
of Kerville, Texas, both taken out by the flooding, but
it looks like preminarily at the Hunt Texas gauge, this
is the highest floods surpassing the nineteen thirty two flood
out there that we've ever experienced in the Waterloope River,
(22:22):
and just you know, recently with the fatality counts what
it has got to, this appears to be now the
worst flood in the United States based on fatalities since
the nineteen seventy nine Big Thompson Canyon flood in Colorado.
Non tropical related, so not like Helleene or something like that.
But you know, I think it's very hard for a
(22:43):
lot of us in other parts of Texas that don't
live in that Hill Country flash flood Alley area that
I thirty five corridor west over to the Hill Country
to really try to wrap our heads around how the
water can come up so fast, because what we deal
with here in Houston is more slow rising water. You know,
the water comes up in the streets, it's not moving,
(23:04):
it's not really carrying cars away. But it's a much
much different type of flooding that they get out in
the Hill Country. And that I thirty five Austin San
Antonio Corridor and then a lot of it's the topography,
so they get the same type of rain that we
get here in Houston. And these really really intense rainfall rates,
you know, Saturday night and Friday night rainfall rates four
(23:26):
or five, six seven inches an hour up around marble falls.
Same types of stuff we get here.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
It's not the.
Speaker 10 (23:31):
Difference since they have these these limestone hills out there,
and it funnels the water off like a concrete parking lot,
and this water goes very quickly into whether these normally
dry creeks and river beds maybe low flowing.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And the water comes up.
Speaker 10 (23:46):
It funnels that water very quickly into these areas with
these steep cliffs and the water comes up very fast,
and that's exactly what we saw unfortunately on the upper
water with the river at Hunt, the North Fork and
South Fork of the Guadalupe kind of come together right
where the city of Hunt is. The South Fork is
where you have more of the population, the camp and
(24:08):
the RV parks and all that kind of stuff, And
unfortunately that's where the magnitude of the rainfall is greate.
It's about ten inches fell just the stream of Hunt,
and Hunt is very near what we call the headwaters
where the river starts, and so as that water came down,
there's just not a lot of time in these types
of instances, like you mentioned, twenty nine thirty feet of
(24:30):
rise of the water level in an hour or so.
And even if even if you could attempt to try
to move, for example, people and RVs and stuff like that,
it just comes up so fast that in those types
of situations, in a lot of cases, and we've seen
this before out there. This isn't the first time we've
seen this. It's just got to climb to safety. And
(24:53):
I know that's you're trying to wrap your head around
that at three o'clock in the morning, you're telling me
to climb to safety. It's exactly what do you have
to do sometimes these hill country areas to save your
life up in trees and up the hillside. It's just
a horrific, horrific event, and it kind of showcases what
(25:14):
can happen out there in that texicoeurr You know, the
same area was hit in July nineteen eighty seven, and
we had a bus of forty three kids at a
camp down in the Comfort area on the Guadalupea River
that was washed away and we had ten fatalities there.
So this area's prone to this type of stuff. They
get these big, heavy rains and the results can be
(25:37):
just absolutely devastating and tragic.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
That being the case, you know, the obviously, Jeff, there's'll
be a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking. After all, this
is Monday morning about warnings. When warnings were issued, whether
or not evacuation should occurred have occurred sooner than what
they did, knowing that this area is prone to this
type of flooding. Again, it doesn't happen every year, clearly
they call it. The last time happened at this kind
(26:01):
of level was probably the better part one hundred years ago.
But you know, it can happen. Do we need to
come up with a better evacuation system for these flood
prone rivers that can rise so quickly?
Speaker 10 (26:13):
You know, it's it's a good it's a good question.
It's a question that you know, we just went through
this almost ten years ago on the Blanco River at Wimberley, Texas.
Very similar situation that happened, and a lot of work
has been put in on the Blanco River at Wimberley,
Texas with gauging and flood warning systems and potentially sirens
systems and protocols in place of you know, for expecting
(26:37):
heavy rain or the gauge is rising, you know, you
put first responders to watch the river and do the
notifications and that type of stuff. I think the you know,
the problem we get into out in the Central Texas
area in the Hill country is that you just can't
gauge and put any warning system every single creek and
(26:57):
river out there. Yeah, there's certainly some obviously the Guadaloupe
the Frio that are much more populated and have much
more have a lot more visitors that probably could utilize
these systems a little bit you know better. But you know,
there's there's there's always gonna be these ungauged, dry creeks
that can turn. And that's exactly what happened in Marble
(27:18):
Falls and Laga Vista on Friday night. We're talking Cow
Creek and Hamilton Creek came up to record levels and
and even in there that the devastation is is tremendous
up of that area. But it's always going to be
some little creek or river out there that it hasn't
happened in one hundred years.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Or it hasn't happened recently, you know, in.
Speaker 10 (27:39):
This particular, since it just really was when you put
all the pieces together, the rainfall was in the right
exact location. You're talking about a holiday weekend where you
have a lot more visitors into this area than you
would normally have, you know, a tremendous amount of visitors
into this area in a very vulnerable situation and very
(28:00):
vulnerable spot in the river out there. And then lastly,
of course, in the middle of the night. And just
like it Remberly, this happened in the middle of the
night where our warning communication systems to hit your cell phones,
they only work if you get it. Yeah, so cell
phone reception is a little spoty out there. If you're sleeping,
you may not hear it, and a lot of people
(28:20):
have turned those notifications off, and so the warning system
works only if you can receive it on the end
of it.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Yeah, online is it was the perfect storm. Yeah, it was,
you know, fourth of July holiday weekend. People who probably
were out there who were not that familiar with the
Guadaloubey and you know, couldn't imagine all right, even if
they knew there's a flash flood warning couldn't imagine twenty
six foot tall wall of water coming down the river. Yeah,
(28:52):
it's hard to imagine unless you you're familiar with that
area and you actually know, you know what it's capable
of doing. Again, if you would like to make a donation,
there's gonna be all kinds of you know, go fundbe
pages and everything else set up, but this one we
know is legit. It is a setup for specifically for
kirk County flood relief to help the communities in Kirr County, Hunt, Kerrville,
(29:18):
Centerpoint Comfort all along Guadaloupe relief funds. So we'll go
to local organizations involved and rescue relief and recovery efforts,
flood assistance for displaced families, and rebuilding efforts. So to
make a donation to that, go to Community Foundation dot net.
We have a link for you at KPRC Radio dot com.
Back with War in a moment, Jimmy Bart Show a
(29:40):
nine fifty KRC. So, as we've been mentioning kind of
throughout our show today, there's all kinds of people who
(30:04):
are currently in Currville, are close to Kurveville right now.
All the all the talking head shows in the morning
shows on TV are all there? Reporters are there, National reporters,
are there, state reporters, local reporters. You've you've got to
see it. People, many of them were probably just kind
of getting in the way when you get right down
to it, I you know it. I guess it's good
(30:26):
that all this attention is going to the Curveville area.
I just wonder how much of this attention will still
be around, you know, when this is no longer a
part of the news cycle. I think it's gonna be
part of our news cycle for a long time because
it's it's going to be very very difficult and very
very expensive to rebuild after this. We had AG Commissioner
(30:47):
Sid Miller on. He wasn't really ready to talk that
much about it, but he did say, by the way,
he can go to Texas Agriculture dot gov. Uh, they're
gonna be looking for things. They're gonna be looking for
fencing materials. I guess all a lot of the fences
were just washed out. You know that there's farm country there,
There's there's cattle country there. They're they're they're people who
(31:07):
are you know that that have family farms where they
raise cattle, and you know, they have to deal with
the devastation of losing you know, a good deal of
their herd to the flood. They have to they poll
barns and out buildings that have floated away. I mean,
even if it's just as simple as you you are
a family farmer here in the Greater Houston area, or
(31:28):
you have a you can get your hands on a
bunch of hay that you'd like to donate if you
go to h the a Commissioner's website Texas Agriculture dot gov.
There's ways there that you can help as well. All right,
chip Roy, you know, I will share a little audio
from Chip Roy because I mean, this is this is
basically home for him. This, you know, Kervill is right
(31:51):
in the midst of the of of his district that
he represents in the United States Congress. And here's a
little bit of what he had to say about the
devastation going on in that area.
Speaker 12 (32:04):
I mean, this is a pretty extraordinary and tough lot.
This is I always joke on the campaign front of joke.
I always say that it's the best part of the
best state, in the best country. The history of the
world is beautiful. There's a reason these eighteen camps are here.
But it's a strong group of folks. You know, there's
a lot of German heritage in this area. There's a
lot of you know, tex Mech's influence where cultures come together,
(32:25):
very proud of it, the live music scene. In fact,
we were all supposed to be here. My family planned
on being here right down on the river behind me
where we are every summer for the July fourth celebration
with Robert Urkeen, who's a local favorite, a well known
musician who's from Kerrville, and he's been great. He's been
out there posting stuff on social media. Everybody's coming together.
(32:45):
I know there'll be benefits, there'll be money raised, people
will step up and we're going to rebuild the area.
But right now, we continue to search and pray for
this families. You know, I met with the families last
night of those who are still not found their little
girls from Camp Mystic. It's one of the toughest meetings
I've ever had to have. And you know, Mary Lazieslam
was there and she was the camp director and her
(33:07):
father in law, Dick, he lost his life forty eight
hours ago of getting in a Tahoe trying to grab
three of those little girls from the camp and get
them up to safety. And he was been here for
years running that camp. There's stories like that, the heroes
that saved lives, camp counselors, another woman who lost her life,
who was one of the camp directors who saved little
(33:28):
girls' lives before she perished. You know, the prayers, the
church community that's been coming together. I can't put it
into words, the number of people. The President of the
United States who's reached out to me personally, the Secretary
of Homeland Security who came here yesterday, the governor who's
been here, has been a team effort.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
We'll come together. This is Texas. That's what we do. Yeah,
it is.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
It's what we do, and we do better than anybody else,
especially in taking care of our own. All right, However,
we do have a couple of bad eggs, and not
to leave today on a bad note, but I want
to give this woman all the publicity she deserves. Shah
Dave Perkins, who evidently at one point was appointed by
the mayor to be on the Houston some sort of
(34:10):
a Houston Food and Security Board, who evidently has been
studying the work of Jasmine Crockett and decided that she
wanted to make the flooding in the Hill Country about race.
Speaker 10 (34:24):
Listen to this.
Speaker 15 (34:25):
I know I'm probably going to get canceled for this,
but Camp Mystic is a white's only girls Christian camp.
They don't even have a token Asian, they don't have
a token black person. It is a all white, white
only conservative Christian camp. If you ain't white, you ain't right,
(34:46):
You ain't getting me in, you ain't going period. And
I think that context needs to be said in this matter.
It's not to say that we don't want the girls
to be found. Who would girls that are missing or
whatever right now? But you best believe, especially in today's
political climate, if this were a group of Hispanic girls,
(35:09):
especially with them being in East Texas, it should be
most likely Hispanic. If this were a group of Hispanic
girls out there, this would not be getting this type
of coverage that they're getting. No one would give a fuck,
and all these white people, the parents of these little girls,
would be saying things like they need to be deported,
they shouldn't have been here in.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
The first place.
Speaker 15 (35:28):
In YadA, YadA, yassa before y'all come at me before
y'all start leaving hate comments on my page about Oh,
these are just kids and they don't know no better.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Da da da da da.
Speaker 15 (35:36):
The parents of these children who are choosing, and it
is a choice in twenty twenty five, it is definitely
a freaking choice to go into East dam Texas and
to make a all white enclave exclusionary just for white people,
with all the black people in East Texas, with all
the Hispanic people in East Texas. Somehow, some way, you
(35:59):
have harmed out in all white, white's only enclave in
East Texas for your white children.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
What the yeah, I have a problem with that. I
have a big problem with that.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
I have a big problem with your inability to know
geography in your own state, East Texas. Darling, do you
know do you know where Hill Country is? It's in
Central Texas, It's not in East Texas. Do you think
there's there's a lot of black people being excluded from
this camp. It's a it's a church camp. It's it's
(36:34):
a it's a local church camp. It's not it's not
big city East Texas. Why in the world you know
the only thing you're doing there is open up your
mouth and showing people just what an idiot you are.
And yes, you're gonna get a lot of really bad
publicity for this, and that's good. You deserve to get
some really bad publicity. I hope that nobody's dumb enough
(36:57):
to appoint you to anything else. All right, listen on
that note again. You know, we've got the link at
KPRC radio dot com for the Community Foundation if you
want to help the flood victims, and I sincerely hope
you do. We will see you tomorrow morning, bright and early,
starting at five am over on news Radio seven forty
k t R H. Hope to have you back here
at four on Am nine fifty KPRC
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.