With over a decade of swift water rescue experience, Lampasas County Game Warden Ray Milloway said the flooding events he witnessed in Kerr County on July 4 were the most severe he has ever seen.
Milloway was deployed to assist with the Llano River flood in 2018 that saw the river nearly reach 40 feet 30 feet above the flood level. However, those scenes don’t compare to what took place in Kerr County, he noted.
“I was on one of the first crews to get into the Llano flood when it hit, and I remember how big the Llano River was and how bad that was,” Milloway said. “I would say this is way worse than that. When we got there [to Kerr County], there were anywhere between 12- to 15-foot standing waves in the water, debris and cars being swept down. It was devastating.”
RESCUE SCENE IN KERR COUNTY
Milloway received a call at 4:30 a.m. July 4 to report to Kerrville to aid with rescue efforts. He arrived on the scene around 6:30 a.m. where first responders of all kinds were stationed.
“As soon as I got down there, there were first responders everywhere,” he said. “Local first responders, [Texas] Task Force 1, game warden units, and we were all trying to find where we could get in. Water was so big, so much debris -- it was hard to find where you could launch the boats.”
Milloway has been working with swift-water rescue teams for 12 years and now serves as a team instructor.
For the Kerr County flood, Milloway said he was stationed near the HTR RV Park between Kerrville and Ingram. He described the scene as catastrophic.
“When I pulled in there, there were multiple victims screaming,” the game warden said. “You couldn’t really tell them because it was still dark, but you knew they were in the trees or brush piles, or a car was stuck or something like that. Once the lights started coming up, you could tell mostly everybody was 15 to 20 feet up in the air in trees.”
Working alongside a crew of three game wardens, Milloway and others were able to assist those in need as the water slowly receded. He said some people in need had to jump 15 to 20 feet to find safety in the boat. Milloway’s team, aided by helicopter support, was able to rescue 10 residents near the RV park.
CALLED TO BURNET COUNTY
After the events in Kerrville on Independence Day, Milloway was called to assist in Burnet County on July 5. He said low-water crossings with high standing waves and washed-out bridges made it difficult to deploy a boat. Most rescues came from helicopter crews.
Milloway said a helicopter crew consists of a pilot, tactical flight officer controlling electronics and the machine’s hoist, plus a rescue swimmer. He has participated in helicopter crews in the past, which helped coordinate rescues.
“Nine times out of 10, you can give them coordinates, and they will come up with a plan on how they want to attack it,” he said. “A lot of the times, they don’t know what is on the ground. They can’t see everything, so having somebody on the ground directing them -- how far to come down, how to get in the tree the right way, if they need to get in a house – things like that.”
LAMPASAS RESCUE OFF U.S. 183
Milloway was asleep when he received a call at 3:07 a.m. July 13 from the Lampasas Fire Department, notifying him of a vehicle stuck in the water along U.S. Highway 183 North near School Creek.
Milloway immediately contacted his search and rescue captain to say he was enroute to the scene. He received backup from Mills County Game Warden Richard Whitt.
Although the initial call described a stuck vehicle, Milloway soon learned the vehicle had been swept away by rushing water.
“The whole car was swept off the road and somehow went through a culvert, a square culvert which was completely underwater, and it came out the other side,” he said. “That is when [the occupants] were able to get out of their vehicle on the other side.”
Milloway said the search to find the couple missing from the water-swept vehicle was a challenge in the rough terrain and dark, nighttime sky.
“It is such a tight area; it was about a 20-foot climb from the railroad tracks,” Milloway said. “We had to climb up and slide down the other side. And it came to a barbed-wire fence and a cedar break – a fivestrand barbed wire fence that was awfully thick as well. We had to fight our way through the cedar break, over the fence, and once we got to the other side there was so much water churning on the other side of that culvert you couldn’t hear anything.”
Eventually, Milloway and Whitt heard a man who was calling for help from 15 feet up in a tree. The game wardens entered the rushing water and worked together to eventually get the man to safety.
“I got five to six feet from the base of the tree, with the water up to our armpits, maybe a little bit deeper, still rolling pretty hard, so we didn’t want to go any farther,” Milloway said. “So I told the gentleman he needed to jump. He ended up jumping, and I caught him on my right shoulder. I was able to throw him over my right shoulder to my partner who was able to drag him up on the shore.”
Once Milloway and Whitt got the man to safety, they went looking for the female passenger who was still missing.
Milloway said he received a call from Precinct 2 Commissioner Jamie Smart who let him know his ranch was not too far from the creek.
Milloway and Whitt drove down a county road to Smart’s ranch so they could access another area of the creek a mile-and-a-half from the railroad tracks along a run parallel to the highway. Fortunately, Lampasas firefighters located the woman 50 to 100 yards from where the man was found.
Milloway believes the man was washed 100 to 150 yards away from the highway, while the woman was washed downstream 200 to 250 yards. Their vehicle was located a mile from the highway.