Mr. President, Texas is grieving. Our hearts are shattered on what transpired in the early hours of Friday, July 4. In just a few hours, over 1.8 trillion gallons of rain fell upon central Texas. The Guadalupe River--ordinarily a…
Mr. President, Texas is grieving. Our hearts are shattered on what transpired in the early hours of Friday, July 4.
In just a few hours, over 1.8 trillion gallons of rain fell upon central Texas. The Guadalupe River--ordinarily a beautiful, peaceful, calm river--rose nearly 30 feet in less than an hour. The result was utter and complete devastation.
As we stand here today, there are over 100 Texans confirmed to be dead, and that number is still expected to rise. We have 27 girls and counselors confirmed dead from Camp Mystic, and that number, likewise, may well rise.
Many in this body may not be familiar with the Hill Country where this happened. I want to tell you a little bit about it. Hill Country is in central Texas. I love every part of our great State, but I think Hill Country is, by far, the most beautiful part of our State.
As the name suggests, there are rolling hills, beautiful rivers, and for a century, the Hill Country has been a place where young people across Texas have gone to summer camps. There are some 40 summer camps just in Kerr County.
And it has been a place where young girls, young boys go to make friends, to learn independence. Camp Mystic is one of the most storied camps in Texas. It is 100 years old, founded in 1926. For 100 summers, Camp Mystic has hosted girls.
It is a Christian camp, and it trains young girls in teamwork and camaraderie, in independence. And it produces some of the most incredible friendships--lifetime friendships--you have ever seen.
Many Texas summer camps, at the end of what is often a monthlong session, there is a closing ceremony that is typically 1 or 2 days. And I will tell you, it is an incredible thing to see Texas women coming back to these girls' camps, because you will regularly see a grandmother and a mother and a little girl, all of whom attended the same camp.
It is a tradition that has stitched together thousands of Texans all across our great State. I will tell you, for me, this is not abstract and theoretical. This crisis hits very, very close to home for me.
For a decade, my daughters have gone to camp in Kerr County, in Hunt, TX. They have gone to camp just a couple of miles away from Camp Mystic.
Just last week, my wife Heidi was in Hunt picking up my youngest daughter Catherine. She picked her up from camp. It was a wonderful time; it was joyful. This week, hundreds of little girls were dropped off at camp--this previous week--to start their next session, and in the early hours of July 4, the waters came rushing in, and it cost their lives.
I spent all of yesterday in the Hill Country. I met with first responders. I met with people who demonstrated extraordinary heroism. I met with people on the ground.
When this flood first started occurring and we were getting reports of just how bad it was, within hours I was on the phone with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. I was on the phone with Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. I was on the phone with Nim Kidd, the Texas Director of Emergency Management, and then I called President Trump.
And I told him: It is still early, but the reports we are getting of what is happening in Texas are utterly and completely devastating. This has the
potential to have an enormous loss of life. And I said: It is critical that we have every Federal resource and asset.
I will tell you what President Trump told me, he said: Ted, whatever Texas needs the answer is yes.
And the Federal Government responded. In the hours after the flooding began, there were over a dozen helicopters in the air, coastguardsmen and National Guardsmen, Texas Department of Public Safety. They performed over 850 rescues.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet Coast Guardsman Scott Ruskan. Scott Ruskan saved 165 girls. He helicoptered into Camp Mystic, landed on an open field in a very dangerous landing terrain where many of the girls had gone because it was the highest ground in the camp.
Scott spent 3\1/2\ hours in the dark of night with torrential rain pouring down upon him with little girls surrounding him, many of them in their pajamas, many with one shoe. They had been pulled out of bed. Little girls crying, weeping, scared, terrified out of their minds. Some girls singing hymns together.
Scott stayed on the ground with them and helped 165 girls into helicopters. Each helicopter could carry roughly 15 girls, so one after the other, helicopters came in and landed, and he helped the girls get on the helicopter and helicopter out of there.
When I talked with Scott yesterday, he said he had just got off the phone with a mom and dad and a little girl who was one of those 165. And Scott, like many Coast Guard swimmers--if you have had the opportunity to meet Coast Guard swimmers, I describe them as a combination of a Navy SEAL and a California surfer. Coast Guard swimmers are some of the most incredible heroes we have.
Scott told the press this week, he said: I am just a dude. Which is very fitting for a Coast Guard swimmer. It is what many of them would say. But he told me those parents were crying and saying: You saved our daughter's life. And they said: You held our daughter's hand as she was scared and as you helped get her on the helicopter.
Yesterday, I went to Camp Mystic. I walked the grounds. It is the most horrible thing I have ever seen in my life. I have never seen devastation like this.
The river sits--and yesterday it was quiet; it was beautiful. The Guadalupe River, I have floated on dozens of times. The Guadalupe River, girls, boys, they go to swim and canoe, to have fun. It was calm and peaceful yesterday, but the morning of July 4, it rose with a ferocity that the cabins at Mystic, just about every one, was 8 feet deep in water.
I could see the water where it rose. It shattered out the windows. The force of the water pulled furniture out of the cabins. I cannot imagine the terror those girls experienced. One cabin, a cabin with the youngest campers, it was called Bumble Inn, a sign on the outside with a picture of a bee.
Outside that cabin were 17 lone white Latin crosses. On each one of them was written the name of someone who lost their life. That entire cabin is either confirmed dead or missing. And the names of those little girls, all third graders, two of those names are girls who go to school with my daughter, third graders from Houston. One of them lived a block away from me in Houston.
The final cross on the right has the name Dick Eastland, who is the director of the camp. He graduated from the University of Texas 50 years ago. He has been running the camp for 50 years. And in the early hours of July 4, he was driving his Suburban trying to rescue girls, and he drowned, just a couple hundred yards away from where I was, in deep water. He had a lifetime of caring for young girls. It is not surprising to those who knew him that he gave his life trying to save the lives of those girls.
I will tell you, I stood in front of those crosses and just wept. While I was there, there was a mom and dad who came and knelt in front of one of those crosses. They leaned over and kissed the cross, and then the mom walked to the cabin and looked in the window. And the cabin, everything had been cleaned out by the force of the water. She just stood there and wept. You looked across the cabin, and there were multiple families, moms and dads going through belongings. Throughout the camp, you could see foot lockers with glitter names put on the foot lockers. You could see pillows. You could see flip-flops and Crocs, and you could see hundreds of stuffed animals. These were little girls.
I tried to leave the families alone and respect their grief. I don't know how many of them were moms or dads who were collecting the belongings of their daughter who had lost their life. There were some girls who were walking around going through the belongings. I assume they were either campers who had survived or siblings of those who had lost their lives.
For the past several days, I have spoken to multiple family members whose daughters had been missing, and the panic that any father, any mother feels when you don't know where your child is; that hole in their heart that will never be filled.
Texas is grieving from a wound unlike any I have ever seen before, but I also want to bring a word of hope. In the face of all of this despair, in the face of all of this suffering, we saw extraordinary acts of heroism. I have spent 13 years in the Senate representing Texas. Texas is a large State--31 million people. Many natural disasters have struck Texas, from hurricanes to tornados to wildfires, and consistently, over and over again when you go to a disaster, you see the same thing, which is Texans coming together just helping each other.
I talked to you about Scott Ruskan, the coastguardsman. I met yesterday the parents of another teenage boy. He was 14. He was at La Junta Camp, which is another boys camp there in Hunt. He was 14. He was awakened at about 3 in the morning. Water was rising. The camp was flooding. And his counselors told him come help rescue the little boys. So he went to the younger boys' cabin and helped them swim through the water.
These parents that I talked to yesterday, they were in tears. I asked them: Is your son OK? He was. Thankfully, the La Junta campers survived. And I said: Listen, he will always live with this trauma; you will always live with this trauma. But I said: To the extent it helps, he will also always know that at age 14, he helped save the life of 7- and 8- and 9-year-old little boys. And there will be boys and, one day, men who were living because that teenage boy risked his life for theirs.
I heard another story of a counselor who was in water up to his neck, holding with both hands mattresses on the water, on top of both mattresses was a camper. All three of them survived.
At the end of the day, I drove by a store called Hunt Store. The Hunt Store is an iconic store right there. It is a store we always stop by. It is a store Heidi and Catherine stopped by last week at the end of camp. The Hunt Store has been completely gutted. The floodwaters just cleaned it out.
The sign up top that reads ``Hunt Store'' had been changed. And now it reads: ``Hunt Strong.'' It is a beautiful statement.
In the parking lot of the Hunt Store, there were people gathered eating. There was a giant trailer with a barbecue smoker and grill. From several Texans--big dudes with beards. They looked like ZZ Top. They weren't from Hunt; they were from Rockport, TX. Rockport, TX, is down on the gulf. And back almost a decade ago, when Hurricane Harvey hit, Rockport was devastated. And those folks from Rockport said they remembered that when their houses were destroyed, people from Hunt, TX, came down and offered them food and prepared them food. And I have got to tell you, I remember when Hurricane Harvey happened. I was in Rockport multiple times, and I was at those food trucks. I didn't know the folks providing them were from Hunt.
But the folks from Rockport said: They helped us out when we were in need; we have got to help them out. That is who Texas is.
In the parking lot of the Hunt Store, there was a car that had written on it on the windshield: Isaiah 43:2. When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you.
I will tell the Presiding Officer, there are many Texans right now who just need love; they need prayers. I would ask everyone to pray for the moms and dads who are grieving, who are missing their baby girls; for friends and family, hug them, love them. They need your support. They just need a shoulder to cry on. There is nothing you can say
that will bring their babies back. Just down the street from the Hunt Store is a church. It had in front of it a sign: ``Free lunch and dinner, barbecue. All are welcome.''
I have to say, that is the responsibility of the church to care for those in need, to feed and clothe and help those who are suffering. The church should do that every day but especially in the face of a crisis.
Texas will come through this. Kerr County will come through this. On my street at home, almost every house has a tree in front of it with a ribbon to mourn the girls from Camp Mystic. There was a video on the internet that was posted of a schoolbus full of girls from Mystic after the flooding. And they are driving along, and one of the girls is filming the disaster, the devastation along the side of the river. And the girls are singing hymns. They are singing Christian hymns rejoicing.
I have to tell you, if you can listen to those hymns, you can see those girls singing those hymns and not be reduced to tears, I can't imagine that you can.
Our State is hurting, but we will come through it. For all of our colleagues who have reached out and said: We love you; we are standing with you, thank you. We need that support. We will come through it. And we will come through with a spirit of what is on the sign above the Hunt Store, ``Hunt Strong,'' ``Texas Strong.'' We will come through this together.
I yield the floor.