Every day, hundreds of rescuers cross the banks of floodwaters looking for victims. But every time they pass each day, local officials say it’s difficult to remain optimistic.
Heroic efforts by the Kerrville police save lives in fatal floods
Officers Carville risked their lives to rescue residents during the fatal Texas flooding and save others in the community.
- As the days go by, searching for flood victims in Texas becomes more and more difficult.
- Moving to recovery is one of the most difficult decisions, said the search and rescue veteran.
- “There’s no way to explain how to tell your family that you’ve finished your search,” said Chris Boyer, executive director of the Search and Rescue Association.
Carved time. The days have been transformed into long and painful weeks. It then goes through pain for months.
Still, Lysa Gindinova stuck to hope. Somewhere in the intertwined mountains of muddy mountains along the Toe River south of western North Carolina, hope was found that the remains of 13-year-old cousin Yevhenii Segen and grandmother Tatiana novitnia would be found.
The two were wiped out last year by floods created by Hurricane Helene. Rescue teams found the bodies of their aunt and uncle who were missing. But not Yevhenii and Novitnia.
Almost ten months later, there are no signs of them yet. And families who fled the fighting in Ukraine due to the calm mountains of North Carolina are wrestling with the fact that they may never see them again.
“It’s not the real thing,” Gindinova told USA Today.
Gindinova and her family are among countless US residents who are estimated to be dead but were never discovered months or years after natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, landslides and earthquakes.
Texas families are beginning to face the same unforgettable realization after the flash flood of a deadly hill country as volunteers continue to scrutinise the area for their disappearance.
At least 120 bodies have been recovered since heavy rains transformed the Guadalupe River into a destructive rapids early on July 4th.
The devastating floods along Guadalupe have risen over 35 feet in several locations, pushing homes out of foundations and erasing campsites and RV parks like dynamite.
Authorities said on July 10 that more than 160 people were still missing, and that the number is decreasing with each day they wish to find survivors. County officials say they have not done “live rescues” since the flood day.
Just like the North Carolina floods last year, Texas floods left piles of debris. A pile of crushed trailers and cars, stacks of down Cypress trees, and hardened mud walls make recovery difficult.
Every day, hundreds of rescuers (many volunteers from the state and the country) cross the flood-hit riverbanks looking for casualties. However, the amount of debris and destruction slowed down the tough tasks and taxed them.
“There could be a casualty in that pile of fragments,” said Police Chief Kerrville. Jonathan Lamb spoke to reporters earlier this week, urging residents not to touch the wreckage mound before making a proper search. He said it is “increasingly difficult to be optimistic.”
“One of the most frightening experiences”
Chris Boyer, executive director of the Search and Rescue Association, said past disasters leave families who have been waiting months, decades, and even decades to recover their loved ones.
He pointed out Hurricane Helen. Hurricane Helene was not found at least five people, including Yefenni and Nobitonia. And 20 years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005 and killed more than 1,800 people, about 30 have yet to be identified, said Jason Melancon of the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office.
For ground authorities, especially in more rural areas, it is a “very emotional decision” to decide whether to cancel search parties or shift them to full recovery mode, Boyer said.
“We will not explain how you are looking for their loved ones and how to tell families that they may never recover the ruins,” said Boyer, who led the crew recovered from an air disaster.
For the search and rescue organizers, he said, “It’s one of the most frightening experiences you have.”
“More violent”
Troy Tillman, 34, is an intense sheriff detective from just outside Lubbock, Texas.
He arrived in Kerr County on July 6th to help search for missing persons. He’s done this before. Tillman was stranded at home after a flood in Bidor, Texas in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, where more than 100 people were stuck at home and joined the mission in last year’s wildfires in the Texas Panhandle.
One of his first searches in Texas Hill Country revealed how different this disaster was. He and his crew faintly noticed at a rocky bank along Guadalupe, in the heart of Carville about 10 miles from Carville.
As they delved into the object, they realized it was a Ford F-250 pickup – completely submerged in mud and rocks.
If such a three-ton truck is buried, what else can Tillman be buried at his feet?
“(Hurricane) Harvey didn’t move people 10 miles from where they were,” he said. “This was more violent.”
On July 10th, Tillman and others were scrutinizing a series of riverbanks at a central point when they came across a field of crumpling RVs, cars and camper trailers that had stretched about 200 yards. They put radios in for heavy equipment, including excavators and skid steer loaders.
He planned to keep it until he was told to go home.
“If you find a child or someone’s mother or sister, that’s the family closure,” Tillman said.
Another volunteer looking for the shard was Jonathan McComb. He knows firsthand what a disaster of pain can bring.
McComb was on vacation with family and friends at his Riverside home in Wimberley, Texas, about 80 miles east of Kerr County over the 2015 anniversary weekend.
Macomb was the only surviving of nine people in his home.
The bodies of his wife, Laura, and son Andrew, 6, have been recovered. However, his four-year-old daughter, Leighton, was never seen again. Later that year, McComb joined Texsar, a search and rescue volunteer group that deploys disasters around Texas.
He arrived in Kerr County on July 4th, helping with searching for missing people and has been doing so every day ever since.
“We haven’t been able to recover our daughter for 10 years, but we know how it feels,” McComb told USA Today. “I want to do something that I can help.”
In a disaster, this is big and not everything was found
Boyer said in his decades of experience, flood survivors are almost always found within hours of the disaster, even if they swept miles from where they entered the water.
He said survivors were unaware of the massive flood of similar scale that was discovered after the first 24 hours. He noted that the forces of rushing water and large pieces of debris (cars, trees, mobile homes) were carried in raging rapids.
“If you get caught up in that, your chances of survival are very minimal,” Boller said.
So many people have gone missing, so not everyone will be found – at least not soon, Boyer said.
“In a disaster like this, there’s a high chance that no one will be found,” he said. “There are 50 feet of dead trees, rocks and silt walls, and people could be below. These areas may not be exposed again until the next major flood in 50 years.”
In Texas, state officials and scientists are trying to identify recovered bodies using rapid DNA testing, a commonly employed tool in the wake of natural disasters.
As of July 9, at least 15 adults and 13 children remain unidentified in Kerr County alone, Sheriff Larry Lasa said.
The Texas Rangers are responsible for collecting DNA from their families and the deaths and flying them to the University of North Texas near Dallas for analysis, Colonel Freeman Martin of the Texas Department of Public Safety said this week.
Advances in DNA technology have greatly improved the ability for authorities to identify casualties, Boyer said, as it made it easier for drones to stare closely at areas that are difficult to reach.
It takes much less material to find DNA matches, and rapid testing allows the lab to return results in days rather than weeks.
“Since Katrina, that technology has exploded and moved light years away,” he said.
New floods revive old memories
But to identify someone, you need your body first.
Mitch Hampton, a longtime river guide and volunteer in western North Carolina, spent weeks leading a search team in an inflatable raft down the Broad River in France, first leading the rescue of 11 people at flood heights and recovering three of the five bodies found in the county.
Four weeks later, he and his raft rescue team shifted their focus to the Southwest River and its neighboring tributaries of Yancey County, where for another two weeks they searched the riverbanks, stabbing a mountain of debris, searching for missing Ukrainian families.
They were never found.
Hampton said images of Texas’ disturbed disaster revived painful memories. In particular, one photo of the first responder next to a towering pile of shrapnel, his face buried in his hands – remembering the frustration of working 12 hours along the wide toe and south toe rivers of France, reminiscing about how often he seems to do nothing, how flood hair removal swallowed people, and how rescues cried out in his raft.
“It reminded me of the feeling of feeling helpless at the same time that I want to do something,” Hampton said. “My mind is torn apart to see what’s going on there. It’s hard to deal with.”
“I don’t think there’s a closure.”
It took Zindinova to find out that her aunt and uncles, Anastasia and Dmitry Segen, were found dead on the Southtu River. She traveled from New York to Micaville, North Carolina, to identify the remains.
Without saying anything about Segens’ son Yevhenii, Gindinova wanted her young cousin to be rescued. For several days she continued searching the riverbank herself, continuing in close contact with a group of volunteers scrutinizing the mountains.
However, after a while, the search party broke up. The call has stopped. Authorities said her Yevheni and her grandmother were probably gone forever.
A few months after the storm, Jindinova said she leaned against her faith and reread Job’s book for guidance. She found some comfort in the vibrant memories of her loved ones, including the way Yevhenii made small animals using 3D printers and the colorful cross stitching of her grandmother.
But the pain of their absence remains.
“I don’t think there’s a closure,” Jindinova said.
Once the body was recovered, the family cremated Segen and spread the ashes across the mountains of the blue ridge near the house.
If Yevhenii and Novitnia are discovered, they will receive the same ritual.
Follow Jervis and Cann on X: @mrrjervis, @chris__cann.
