The Texas floods washed away their possessions. Volunteers are helping reunite them.
From jewelry to a heart-shaped summer camp sign, these are some of the objects found in the wake of this month's devastating floods.
Matthew Rafferty was scouring the flooded riverbanks of Texas Hill Country last weekend when he stumbled on a mud-soaked baby quilt. Rafferty, a Virginia firefighter who was deployed to hard-hit Kerr County to help with search and recovery efforts, folded it up and took it back to his hotel. He rinsed it off in the bathtub. He worried the drain might clog because of all the filth, tree roots and rocks that came out.
But the tub survived and, after a trip to the laundromat, the quilt was virtually good as new. He posted a photo of the blanket on a Facebook group where people across central Texas are keeping track of things they’ve recovered from the devastation: waterlogged clothes, stuffed animals, Barbie dolls, marriage licenses, family photo albums. Rafferty eventually connected with the quilt’s owner and hand-delivered it to her.
“I’m a father of 3-year-old twin boys. I know if I’d gone through something like these quilts, I’d want it back,” said Rafferty, 34.
Rafferty is part of a loose network of first responders, volunteers and good Samaritans who have fanned out across the region to help reunite Texans with the cherished belongings, family heirlooms and everyday household knickknacks that were swept away when floods ripped through Kerr County over Fourth of July weekend, killing more than 130 people and leaving at least 100 missing.
This week, NBC News spoke with people in the region about the objects that have turned up in the floods’ aftermath — and why they matter. In some cases, seemingly trivial items have taken on far greater emotional significance in the wake of the deadly floods. These are some of their stories.
The jewelry
Patty Hyatt was inside her mobile home with her 8-year-old grandson and her new beagle puppy early July 4 when her son called. The floodwaters were rising fast and they needed to get to higher ground as soon as possible, he told her. Hyatt, a 67-year-old retired teacher, loaded everyone into her Toyota Tacoma and headed to her son’s house, leaving most of her things behind.
When she returned to the Old River Road RV Resort the following morning, her 42-foot Forest River home was gone, washed away by the floods. She was heartbroken. “I just lost stuff, not loved ones,” she said — but most objects in her home were associated with special “memories” and she was sorry to see them go.
That’s where Dondi Persyn stepped in.
Persyn, 54, posted a photo of some of Hyatt’s jewelry on “FOUND on the Guadalupe River,” a Facebook page she created that she runs with the help of friends. The jewelry had turned up in Center Point, roughly 10 miles from Kerrville.
Persyn, who used to own a vintage store, spent a night untangling and cleaning Hyatt’s necklaces and bracelets by hand, restoring some of their luster.
It turned out that during the flash flooding, Hyatt’s orange clamshell necklace and other pieces had been fortuitously held together by a pink string — a bracelet that a student had made for Hyatt more than a decade ago. In that, Hyatt saw rich symbolism. “The children have always held me together,” Hyatt said. “They’re still holding me together.”
The totem pole
Ten years ago, Shelby Johnson bought something on a lark from a merchant in San Antonio: a hand-carved and painted totem pole. She named it “Oonka Oonka.” The totem pole was a highlight of her annual spring break parties, and it stood proudly on the back porch of her boyfriend’s house, located on a secluded stretch between Center Point and the town of Comfort.
Flash-forward to the chaos of July Fourth: Johnson, 53, and her boyfriend, J.R. Haas, fled to higher ground in their trucks before the floods deluged his house. When they returned, they discovered most of their possessions were destroyed, the house reduced to a “disgusting, muddy mess.” They found the remains of one of her three cats, a kitten named Fancy, and realized Johnson’s Volkswagen Jetta had floated down the road.
Apparently, so had Oonka Oonka.
The totem pole was found off a riverbank in Comfort by Cory Nicholson, a 40-year-old volunteer searcher and roofing contractor who posted his discovery on the Facebook page. The wooden sculpture had emerged intact and mostly unscathed.
“It was in close to perfect condition,” Nicholson said.
Oonka Oonka has been returned to Johnson, who sees her 10-year-old purchase in a different light. “He’s turned into a symbol of survival now,” she said.
The camp sign
Brandon Hamrick and his wife, Shanndel, volunteered to help search for bodies just a day after raging waters tore through the region. They were combing through a riverbed near their home in Center Point on July 5 when they found a 2-by-2-foot wooden sign in the shape of a heart.
It was a remnant of Heart O’ the Hills, a summer camp for girls in the flood-battered community of Hunt.
Hamrick, 47, wiped mud off the face of the sign. The white paint was torn and chipped in some spots, but he could make out inscriptions from campers — including one apparently dated 1992.
“I could see the names of all these girls on there. I felt joyous, in a way, because I knew I could bring it back to them,” Hamrick said.
He believed returning the sign to Heart O’ the Hills could bring a small measure of solace to a community mourning the loss of Jane Ragsdale, the camp’s co-owner and director, who died in the floods. (The camp was not in session during the disaster.)
Brandon and Shanndel, who build custom pickup trucks for a living, found children’s toys along the riverbed, too — a tiny doll with long blond hair, a “Paw Patrol” stuffed animal. They gathered up as much as they could.
The Hamricks plan to drive out to the camp to hand-deliver the sign to the surviving owners.
The memorial bench
Four years ago this month Patricia Jernigan’s daughter Shannon died from breast cancer. She was 50. The two women lived together in Texas Hill Country. They enjoyed their lives in the area; Shannon was a material program manager for the supply chain at A7 Defense & Aerospace and in her spare time admired Kerr County’s population of white-tailed deer.
In honor of Shannon’s life, Patricia installed a commemorative bench at Lehmann-Monroe Park, a 27-acre patch of land west of the Guadalupe River.
The park was thrashed during the floods, and the bench was apparently swept away to nearby Louise Hays Park. That’s where it was discovered by Orlando “Orly” Ayala, a 38-year-old volunteer searcher. Ayala was digging through piles of debris when he spotted the bench at the base of a cypress tree on the night of July 10.
“I cleaned it off and I realized, ‘Wow, this is really something,’” said Ayala.
Patricia, 77, said she wants the bench to be reinstalled in Kerrville after the area is cleaned up. The plaque that had been affixed to the bench has gone missing, but she hopes it is found. That way, passersby and animal watchers can read the poem under Shannon’s name — five rhyming lines Patricia wrote in her daughter’s memory:
When it comes to God’s critters big or small
she wanted to feed them one and all
But when it came to deer, such gentle souls
she loved to feed them with hands and bowls
Forever we will love the heart of this baby girl.
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