44 lines
2.4 KiB
Plaintext
44 lines
2.4 KiB
Plaintext
SOURCE:Associated Press – Business
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Jane Towler was up late in a small cabin along the Guadalupe River as thunder boomed through a thrashing rain. It was 4 a.m. and water was pooling on the floor. Suddenly, her phone rang. It was her friend from a nearby cabin.
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“Jane, we’re f—ed!”
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Brian Keeper said frantically.
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“The water’s in my house! Get out!”
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Towler’s grandfather bought the property in Texas Hill Country in the 1930s, and she’s lived through many floods in her 70 years, losing a canoe or chairs here and there. But last Friday was different.
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The river would swell 26 feet (nearly 8 meters) in 45 minutes and lay waste to homes and buildings, sweep away cars and trucks, and claim the lives of more than 100 people, including many summer campers.
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Towler didn’t know how bad things would get, but the fear in Keeper’s voice kicked her into flight mode.
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Pulling shoes onto bare feet, she ran in her pajamas toward the nearby house where her son, Alden Towler, and family friend Shabd Simon-Alexander were sleeping, along with Simon-Alexander’s toddler daughter.
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Towler, her son and Simon-Alexander chronicled their harrowing survival in several videos and hundreds of photos shared with The Associated Press.
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When her son awoke to Simon-Alexander’s desperate screams, the water was already ankle deep.
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“Who do we tell? We have to tell someone,”
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Simon-Alexander said in one of the videos.
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“Everything in our yard has floated away,” Jane Towler said as her video captured the muddy water rising in the kitchen. Simon-Alexander’s daughter was quiet, strapped to her mother’s chest.
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“Okay, I want us to be prepared to go up in the attic,” Jane Towler said.
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Alden Towler got busy stacking belongings on a bed in another room to keep them dry. But Simon-Alexander pointed out the futility.
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“When your mom got here, there was no water on the ground,” she said.
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With the water now at his knees and him still in just underwear, Alden Towler shifted priorities and grabbed a bottle of water and peanuts.
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“What if we go up hill?” he asked.
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“We cant get out! The whole area is flooded! OK, do you want to go see? I don’t want you to get flash flooded away, Alden!” his mother said as she opened the hatch to the attic.
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As the fridge toppled over with a splash, their narrowing options crystalized.
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“What do we do to be safe? Go on the roof?” asked Jane Towler.
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“I guess we go on the roof,” her son replied. |