Texas flooding (CBS News)
KERRVILLE, Texas (KFGO PRAIRIE PUBLIC RADIO) – Killdeer Mountain Manufacturing Vice President Kristin Hedger lives part time in Kerrville, Texas – and was there during the historic and deadly floods. Kristin Hedger was born in Bismarck – but says her dad married a Texan, so she has split her life between Dickinson, North Dakota and Kerrville, Texas.
She serves as Vice President at her family business, Killdeer Mountain Manufacturing – which has locations in Killdeer and Dickinson, in addition to Kerrville. She was in her fifth floor condo in Kerrville overlooking the Guadalupe River when the historic and deadly floodwaters roared through on the 4th of July.
“The nature of the hill country is such that flash flooding is a phenomenon that can really overtake communities in a very rapid sense, and that’s unfortunately what we suffered from on the 4th of July.”
More than 100 people have died.
Hedger says Kerrville and Dickinson are very similar communities in size and atmosphere – the residents just have different accents. And she says the Guadalupe River, which serves as a water source for Kerrville, is typically tranquil and clean. She says it’s usually a refuge for people looking to get away from the bigger cities and slow down for a minute – and that’s why so many were there this weekend. She says the hill country of Texas is no stranger to flash flooding along its rivers, but what occurred was something no one could have foreseen.
“We literally went in the span of about 35 minutes, 27 feet. So, even on the 3rd, I saw some signals that there might be some flooding, but this was much more aggressive. We just couldn’t see. There’s two, what we call the North Fork and the South Fork headwaters up above a small town called Hunt, and they both got socked with rainstorms that basically sat over those two spots and really just kind of fed into the Guadalupe, and we just had a wall of water that just surged.”
Hedger says her pontoon, named “Bullfeathers,” was washed away in the flood. In the aftermath she’s been doing some volunteer work helping to feed first responders. She says the community is a faith-filled area, and is tough – jumping in to respond and lift each other up out of the disaster.
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