Flash flooding in the Guadalupe River earlier this month has killed at least 135 people in central Texas. Three people are still unaccounted for. Flood survivors, like Julia Hatfield, are still trying to make sense of the catastrophe.
Hatfield is a musician who lived in the Blue Oak RV Park in Ingram, Texas, until the flood washed the park away. Hatfield may have lost her home, but she said she’s grateful to be with her husband and the rest of their community in the aftermath.
“The perspective shifted really quickly after the flood,” Hatfield said. “In that moment, you’re so concerned about a lot of things, but afterwards you just realize if you have your person, you’re good.”
Still, Hatfield said there are scenes and sounds from the flood that she can’t stop thinking about.
“[I’m] still hearing the screaming and the sound that trees and RVs make when they’re being engulfed by that much water and kind of crashing together,” Hatfield said. “It’s a sound you really can’t get out of your head.”
7 questions with Julia Hatfield
The floods started in the early morning of July 4. How did you first realize what was happening?
“I was asleep. My husband had stayed awake to check for leaks in our RV, and around 4:30, he started to hear screaming, and when he looked out the window, he saw that the water was already coming up to the doors on the lower level of the RV park. And that’s when he woke me up. And within about 15 minutes, our RV was underwater.”
What did you do then?
“We grabbed what we could, threw it in the car. And at that point, there was a lot of screaming, a lot of people crying out for help, a lot of trees and RVs that you could just hear crumbling.
“There was a little boy I heard screaming — I was sitting up or standing up on the deck trying to see what I could see — and then all of a sudden saw him start to get washed down river, and there just was nothing that anybody could do.”
Did that boy survive?
“Yes, he did survive. I just felt like my prayers were answered in that moment, because that was the worst feeling of my life, to just feel so helpless and know that little boy needed help.”
What is the most urgent need you and your neighbors are facing?
“We’ve been going back just trying to help our neighbors as much as we can. We were thankful that we had insurance on the RV, so although it probably isn’t enough to replace it, at least it’s something, because that was our home.
“But we were in the same boat as a lot of our neighbors. They all lived in their RVs, and many of them didn’t have insurance. So their needs are a lot greater, but people have been so generous.
“[They] just come from all over the world, all over the country and state, and have been generous with their time and their finances, and I’m just hopeful that a lot of those families will be able to get back up on their feet again sooner rather than later.
“But there were several neighbors who were missing loved ones. A friend, Luke, he is a veteran. He lived at the park for a long time, and both his mom and dad were staying next door, and they’ve both been accounted for, but unfortunately, didn’t make it.
While living along the Guadalupe River, did you ever think this was possible?
“When we moved to the park, I knew that the Guadalupe floods, but they said it only ever flooded at the bottom level of the park. And so I said, well, ‘I definitely want to be at the top level.’ And I thought, ‘There’s no way that water could get all the way up here.’
“I’d been kayaking on the river for a couple months, pretty much every day. And there were so many parts of the river you couldn’t even kayak through. You’d have to get out and walk and drag your kayak because it was so low. And so for it to go from seven feet at its depth to 30-something feet within about 45 minutes, that just, that was more than I think anybody ever expected.”
There was no local warning system in Kirk County. Is that something that needs to change?
“It’s unfortunate that this much life has been lost to initially start getting these sirens put into place, but at the same time, when you have that amount of water, I just don’t think there was anybody who understood what was coming.”
You’re a singer and a songwriter. How does music help you or others in this moment?
“I personally started writing at a really young age, songwriting, and it was kind of a therapy for me to start out, just to work through things in my mind. And from day one of this happening, I’ve been writing quite a bit, although I’m not able to really finish a thought yet. I think that’ll just take some time.
“The first evening I was sitting on my parents’ porch with a guitar and writing a line: ‘It was just a bunch of junk in a plastic box.’ And I think that realization was hitting me a lot that first day, because you’re walking past people who are looking for loved ones, and you realize it’s just stuff. It is sad. There is sentimental attachment to different things, but you’re walking past people who are looking for loved ones, and then you go out and start trying to help them look for loved ones, and you realize it really was just a bunch of junk in a plastic box.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Peter O’Dowd produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Kalyani Saxena and Todd Mundt. Grace Griffin produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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