A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
We have the story now of a survivor of the central Texas floods. I caught up with 19-year-old Taylor Bergmann on Tuesday. He was on his way to survey damage to his home in Hunt, Texas. And he recounted how things unfolded in the early hours of Fourth of July.
TAYLOR BERGMANN: I woke up at about 4:45 to my mom coming down the hallway screaming, we're flooding, we're flooding, we're flooding. And as I was throwing my backpack with my computer on top of my bed, I could hear the glass back door start to shatter. And then I walk in the living room. The glass back door shatters, and 5-plus feet of water flood into our house. And, I mean, it flipped our kitchen island with granite countertops upside down. It moved fridges, the washing machine, the couch. Everything was moved. Nothing was where it should've been.
MARTÍNEZ: So this is one of those things where water, it all came all at once, it sounds like.
BERGMANN: Once the glass back door broke, within 10 seconds, our house was filled with 5 feet of water.
MARTÍNEZ: Wow. So when you're trying to get out of this situation, out of your house right there, are you trying to look for your mom and anyone else that you need to look for?
BERGMANN: We were all together once we got out the back door. And then we had tried to get up on the roof. But my mom, she couldn't get on top of the roof. We ended up letting the current take us to our neighbor's house. And me and my mom held onto a tree for an hour and a half, and my stepdad and our dog got swept away. And he ended up at a neighbor's house about three houses down, and he was able to get on top of the roof. And we just had to wait it out there. I had to turn around, make sure there weren't any cars that were going to crash into us.
MARTÍNEZ: So you saying you let the current take you a little bit. I mean, that sounds like something that could be really disastrous if that current all of a sudden gets stronger.
BERGMANN: Oh, yeah. I mean, I didn't have any shoes or anything on, but I've got big feet because I'm, like, 6 foot. But, I mean, you're having to grip onto the ground and make sure you're not going to go anywhere. I mean, we were basically swimming. We were essentially swimming.
MARTÍNEZ: Wow. Now, could you see your stepdad at all in this situation? Or was he in a point where you couldn't see him?
BERGMANN: It was pitch-black outside.
MARTÍNEZ: It was pitch-black. So, I mean, are you screaming out for him?
BERGMANN: I mean, everybody was screaming. Our neighbors had kids who were screaming on their roof. I mean, so many elderly people live in my neighborhood and families. Everybody was screaming for help. We had heard him whistle once about two minutes after he had floated away, but we didn't hear anything else from him after that. And then he called us from the neighbor's phone and told us that he was alive with the dog. And then we had to wait for the waters to go down, and then we were able to make it to dry land to a neighbor's house.
MARTÍNEZ: So right now, you're on your way back to your home?
BERGMANN: Yep, I am on Highway 39 right now.
MARTÍNEZ: What are you seeing around there right now?
BERGMANN: I mean, it doesn't look like my home. The road, there's no tree line to the river where there used to be. There's nothing.
MARTÍNEZ: Have you been back to the site of your house yet, or is this the first time?
BERGMANN: Yeah, we've been.
MARTÍNEZ: You have been. OK. What does it look like there?
BERGMANN: I mean, it's mass chaos. There's dumpsters in people's yards to throw our things into. Our shed is in our neighbor's house because it floated away.
MARTÍNEZ: Have you been able to salvage anything at all?
BERGMANN: Nothing that's dry. The stuff that we have salvaged was wet. I mean, there was one sign that I made my mom that said Erin's kitchen that was, like, above, very high in our kitchen that I made her for Christmas a couple of years ago. But, I mean, that was really the only thing that was dry. We were able to get a lot of family pictures out of the shed and dry them out at a friend's house, but I mean, not everything, obviously. There was over a hundred years' worth of family memories.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Taylor, thank you very much for even speaking with us. I mean, that has to be awful. But thank you, Taylor.
BERGMANN: Yes, sir. Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOGWAI'S "LETTERS TO THE METRO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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