Released 911 calls reveal desperate pleas and tragic outcomes during Texas Hill Country flood

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Many of the voices were frantic and desperate. A few were steady and calm amid mounting, frightening danger, and in some cases, inescapable doom.

They came from families huddled on rooftops to escape rising, swirling waters, mothers panicked for the wellbeing of their children and onlookers who heard people yell for help through the dark as they clung to treetops.

One man, stuck high in a tree as it began to break under the pressure of the floodwaters, asked emergency dispatchers for a helicopter rescue that never came.

Their pleas were among more than 400 calls for help across Kerr County last summer when devastating floods hit during the overnight hours on the July Fourth holiday. The recordings of the 911 calls were released Friday.

The sheer volume of calls would overwhelm two county emergency dispatchers on duty in the Texas Hill Country as catastrophic flooding inundated cabins and youth camps along the Guadalupe River.

“There’s water filling up super fast, we can’t get out of our cabin,” a camp counselor told a dispatcher above the screams of campers in the background. “We can’t get out of our cabin, so how do we get to the boats?”

Amazingly, everyone in the cabin and the rest of campers at Camp La Junta were rescued.

The flooding killed at least 136 people statewide during the holiday weekend, including at least 117 in Kerr County alone. Most were from Texas, but others came from Alabama, California and Florida, according to a list released by county officials.

One woman called for help as the water closed in on her house near Camp Mystic, a century-old summer camp for girls, where 25 campers and two teenage counselors died.

“We’re OK, but we live a mile down the road from Camp Mystic and we had two little girls come down the river. And we’ve gotten to them, but I’m not sure how many others are out there,” she said in a shaky voice.

A spokesperson for the parents of the children and counselors who died at Camp Mystic declined to comment on the release of the recordings.

Many residents in the hard-hit Texas Hill Country have said they were caught off guard and didn’t receive any warning when the floods overtopped the Guadalupe River. Kerr County leaders have faced scrutiny about whether they did enough right away. Two officials told Texas legislators this summer that they were asleep during the initial hours of the flooding, and a third was out of town.

Using recordings of first responder communications, weather service warnings, survivor videos and official testimony, The Associated Press assembled a chronology of the chaotic rescue effort. The AP was one of the media outlets that filed public information requests for recordings of the 911 calls to be released.

Many people were rescued by boats and emergency vehicles. A few desperate pleas came from people floating away in RVs. Some survivors were found in trees and on rooftops.

But some of the calls released Friday came from people who did not survive, said Kerrville Police Chief Chris McCall, who warned that the audio is unsettling.

“The tree I’m in is starting to lean and it’s going to fall. Is there a helicopter close?” Bradley Perry, a firefighter, calmy told a dispatcher, adding that he saw his wife, Tina, and their RV wash away.

“I’ve probably got maybe five minutes left,” he said.

Bradley Perry did not survive. His wife was later found clinging to a tree, still alive.

In another heartbreaking call, a woman staying in a community of riverside cabins told a dispatcher the water was inundating their building

“We are flooding, and we have people in cabins we can’t get to," she said. "We are flooding almost all the way to the top.”

The caller speaks slowly and deliberately. The faint voices of what sounds like children can be heard in the background.

Some people called back multiple times, climbing higher and higher in houses to let rescuers know where they were and that their situations were getting more dire. Families called from second floors, then attics, then roofs sometimes in the course of 30 or 40 minutes, revealing how fast and how high the waters rose.

As daylight began to break, the call volume increased, with people reporting survivors in trees or stuck on roofs, or cars floating down the river.

Britt Eastland, the co-director of Camp Mystic, asked for search and rescue and the National Guard to be called, saying as many as 40 people there were missing. “We’re out of power. We hardly have any cell service,” he said.

The 911 recordings show that relatives and friends outside of the unfolding disaster and those who had made it to safety had called to get help for loved ones trapped in the flooding.

One woman said a friend, an elderly man, was trapped in his home with water up to his head. She had realized his phone cut out as she was trying to relay instructions from a 911 operator.

Overwhelmed by the endless calls, dispatchers tried to comfort the panic-stricken callers yet were forced to move on to the next one. They advised many of those who were trapped to get to their rooftops or run to higher ground. In some calls, children could be heard screaming in the background.

“There is water everywhere, we cannot move. We are upstairs in a room and the water is rising,” said a woman who called from Camp Mystic.

The same woman called back later.

“How do we get to the roof if the water is so high?“ she asked. “Can you already send someone here? With the boats?”

She asked the dispatcher when help would arrive.

“I don’t know," the dispatcher said. “I don't know.”

Associated Press reporters Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Ed White in Detroit; Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; and Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed.

FILE - Camper's belongings sit outside one of Camp Mystic's cabins near the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area, July 7, 2025, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Eli Hartman, file)

FILE - Damage is seen on July 8, 2025, near Hunt, Texas, after a flash flood swept through the area. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, file)

FILE - Rain falls as Irene Valdez visits a make-shift memorial for flood victims along the Guadalupe River, Sunday, July 13, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

FILE - A lone tree stands in the debris from structures that were wiped out after a massive earthquake and tsunami hit Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — From a surprising heatwave in California to blizzards burying parts of the Midwest and storms rolling into the East Coast, chaotic weather on Monday put more than half the nation’s population in the path of extreme conditions.

Airport delays and cancellations piled up in some of the nation’s largest airports, with more than 4,700 canceled across the U.S., and many schools closed early in the mid-Atlantic states, where high winds were in the forecast.

Torrential rains flooded homes and washed out roads in Hawaii while dry and windy conditions were charging the largest wildfire in Nebraska’s history.

In Washington, the House and Senate postponed votes, and federal agencies told workers to go home early. But by late afternoon, the expected rough weather had failed to develop and a tornado watch expired.

The private weather service AccuWeather calculated that more than 200 million people were under threat Monday of some kind of dangerous weather.

Those range from extreme heat and wildfire advisories to flood and freeze watches from the National Weather Service.

The storm system that dropped snow by the foot in the Midwest, causing whiteout conditions in some areas, barreled toward the East Coast, dropping heavy rain, threatening high winds and prompting multiple tornado warnings.

The biggest threat for severe weather stretched from New Jersey to Virginia.

In New York City, officials warned of the potential for swift wind gusts overnight that could knock down tree limbs.

Four people, including a child, died Monday afternoon in New York City after a fire in a three-story apartment building spread during heavy winds.

The National Weather Service confirmed four tornadoes in Missouri on Sunday that caused roof and tree damage. No injuries were reported.

Blizzard conditions continued in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes on Monday after the storm walloped parts of Wisconsin and Michigan with several feet of snow.

Since Saturday, nearly 3 feet (61 centimeters) had fallen in the northern Wisconsin town of Mountain.

Another round of snow and gusts on Monday could bring another foot of snow across Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

A heat dome over the Southwest will push temperatures well into the triple digits in Arizona most of the week, much earlier than normal.

California is starting to feel like summer too. The San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento will see temperatures pushing toward 90 F (32 C) by midweek.

“This is technically still winter,” LA Mayor Karen Bass said Monday. “This is not normal for March, obviously, but it is a sign of how climate change is impacting our city.”

While temperatures are expected to reach 100 F (37.8 C), the threat of wildfires around Los Angeles is relatively low because winds will be light.

Phoenix is expected to have five straight days of triple digit temperatures this week — only once before, in 1988, has the city recorded a 100 F day in March, DePodwin said.

“This is a heat wave that we have not seen before in recorded history in the Southwest,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Dan DePodwin.

Dry and windy conditions were charging the largest wildfire in Nebraska’s history. Three fires in the state have consumed more than 1,140 square miles (about 2,953 square kilometers) of mostly grassland.

“Mother Nature is throwing a doozy at us,” Gov. Jim Pillen said Monday.

Unrelenting rains triggered landslides, washed away roads and flooded homes and farmland in Hawaii over the weekend.

All of Hawaii’s islands had spots with more than 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain while parts of Maui were overwhelmed with double that amount, the weather service said.

While the worst of the storm has passed, more heavy rain is expected later this week. Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said there were no reports of injuries or deaths and crews were assessing damage.

Forecasters said the East Coast storms were expected to leave sharply colder weather in its wake.

The storm will stick around parts of the Northeast until Tuesday morning. By then, wind chills below freezing were expected to reach the Gulf Coast and the Florida Panhandle with warnings in effect across the Southeast and in part of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas, forecasters warned.

To the north, rain was expected to change over to snow behind the cold front with heavy snow possible in the central Appalachians of West Virginia.

__

Brumfield reported from Cockeysville, Maryland, and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu; Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; Julie Walker in New York; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; and Gary Fields in Washington contributed.

Debris covers a beach in Kihei, Hawaii, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (Eli Pace/The Maui News via AP)

Visitors carrying umbrellas during heavy rain walk past the U.S. Capitol on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, March, 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Visitors take cover during heavy rain near the U.S. Capitol on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, March. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

People watch as storms roll over the U.S. Capitol Monday, March 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)

Morning traffic is seen on Lake Shore Drive, after the overnight snow, Monday, March 16, 2026, in downtown Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

Dense fog and low clouds cover parts of the George Washington Bridge as seen from Fort Lee, N.J., Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

A person bundles up and fishes on a breakwater by Montrose Harbor, Monday morning, March 16, 2026, in downtown Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

A man shovels snow after a snowstorm Monday, March 16, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Snow is plowed after a snowstorm Monday, March 16, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Victor Alomoto who is from Ecuador cleared the sidewalk for the River Valley Church in the North Loop Pedestrians during the snow storm in Minneapolis, Minn., on Sunday, March 15, 2026.(Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)

Ogo Akpati and his son Brycson Akpati, 3, braved the strong winds and had fun sliding down a hill in Central Park Sunday, March 15,2026 in Brooklyn Park, MN. (Jerry Holt/Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)

Fans walk through snowy streets before an NHL hockey game between the Minnesota Wild and Toronto Maple Leafs, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in St. Paul. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

People drive on a snow-covered freeway during a snow storm Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Minnesota Star Tribune via AP)

Workers clear snow off the ground Sunday, March 15, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)