{"id":58466,"date":"2025-07-12T02:36:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T02:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/58466\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T02:36:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T02:36:14","slug":"a-texas-family-clung-to-life-on-their-roof-capturing-the-terrifying-flooding-in-photos-and-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/58466\/","title":{"rendered":"A Texas family clung to life on their roof, capturing the terrifying flooding in photos and video"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY JESSE BEDAYN<\/p>\n

Jane Towler was up late in a small cabin along the Guadalupe River<\/a> as thunder boomed through a thrashing rain. It was 4 a.m. and water was pooling on the floor. Suddenly, her phone rang. It was her friend from a nearby cabin.<\/p>\n

\u201cJane, we\u2019re f\u2014ed!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brian Keeper said frantically.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe water\u2019s in my house! Get out!\u201d<\/p>\n

Towler\u2019s grandfather bought the property in Texas Hill Country in the 1930s, and she\u2019s lived through many floods<\/a> in her 70 years, losing a canoe or chairs here and there. But last Friday was different.<\/p>\n

The river would swell 26 feet (nearly 8 meters) in 45 minutes and lay waste to homes<\/a> and buildings, sweep away cars and trucks, and claim the lives of more than 100 people,<\/a> including many summer campers.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

Towler didn\u2019t know how bad things would get,<\/a> but the fear in Keeper\u2019s voice kicked her into flight mode.<\/p>\n

Pulling shoes onto bare feet, she ran in her pajamas toward the nearby house where her son, Alden Towler, and family friend Shabd Simon-Alexander were sleeping, along with Simon-Alexander\u2019s toddler daughter.<\/p>\n

Water floods the kitchen of the cabin of Alden Towler, Shabd Simon-Alexander, and her one-year-old daughter in Hunt, Texas at 4:12 a.m. on Friday, July 4, 2025. (Shabd Simon-Alexander via AP)<\/p>\n

Towler, her son and Simon-Alexander chronicled their harrowing survival in several videos and hundreds of photos shared with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

\n Realizing the situation
was worsening\n <\/p>\n

When her son awoke to Simon-Alexander\u2019s desperate screams, the water was already ankle deep.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho do we tell? We have to tell someone,\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Simon-Alexander said in one of the videos.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything in our yard has floated away,\u201d Jane Towler said as her video captured the muddy water rising in the kitchen. Simon-Alexander\u2019s daughter was quiet, strapped to her mother\u2019s chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, I want us to be prepared to go up in the attic,\u201d Jane Towler said.<\/p>\n

Alden Towler got busy stacking belongings on a bed in another room to keep them dry. But Simon-Alexander pointed out the futility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen your mom got here, there was no water on the ground,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

With the water now at his knees and him still in just underwear, Alden Towler shifted priorities and grabbed a bottle of water and peanuts.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Cars<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if we go up hill?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cant get out! The whole area is flooded! OK, do you want to go see? I don\u2019t want you to get flash flooded away, Alden!\u201d his mother said as she opened the hatch to the attic.<\/p>\n

As the fridge toppled over with a splash, their narrowing options crystalized.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do we do to be safe? Go on the roof?\u201d asked Jane Towler.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess we go on the roof,\u201d her son replied.<\/p>\n

Simon-Alexander consoled her daughter. Five days earlier, they celebrated the girl\u2019s first birthday with pancakes, balloons and a canoe ride.<\/p>\n

Now, Simon-Alexander stood with her baby, the water up to her thighs. Looking back, she said at that point she was sure they would drown, either where they were or in the attic. But in the video, she calmed her daughter in a gentle voice, telling her, \u201cYeah, it\u2019s a lot. It\u2019s a lot, baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then darkness.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my god!\u201d said Simon-Alexander.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe electricity went out?\u201d said Jane Towler. \u201cThat\u2019s good.\u201d No electrocution.<\/p>\n

At 4:16 a.m. and with the furniture floating, Jane Towler called 911 from atop the kitchen counter.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to help us,\u201d Simon-Alexander pleaded into the speaker-phone. \u201cWe are going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dispatcher, calm and kind, couldn\u2019t promise rescue anytime soon, but urged them to get as far away from the water as they could, and stay alive. They then pulled themselves into the attic.<\/p>\n

Through the hatch, they watched water silently rise in the kitchen below. Then they heard the eerie clinking of plates and glasses as it swirled around the cabinets and neared the ceiling.<\/p>\n

Alden found a vent to the roof, punched it out, and they eventually climbed through. Water licked the roofline. Screams pierced the thunder as people called for each other across the valley. Car horns blared nonstop and vehicles floated past them, lit by lightning. The river smelled of sewage.<\/p>\n

Huddled on the roof, Simon-Alexander sang to her daughter. It was a song from Mexico called \u201cLa Ca\u00f1a\u201d that she\u2019d sung through pregnancy.<\/p>\n

Shabd Simon-Alexander holds her one-year-old daughter on the roof of a cabin to escape floodwaters from the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, at 5:27 a.m. on Friday, July 4, 2025. (Jane Towler via AP)<\/p>\n

There was a boom, and then a drawn out splintering noise that carried through the cacophony. The house quivered.<\/p>\n

Their neighbor\u2019s house, buoyed by the swollen river, appeared to have smashed into the cabin Jane Towler had been staying in and torn it from its foundation. It then slammed into the house they were huddled on and a tree between the two structures before coming to a stop.<\/p>\n

Alden thought of loved ones \u2014 his ex-girlfriend of eight years, her father \u2014 like flipping through final prayers.<\/p>\n

Simon-Alexander sang another tune.<\/p>\n

They were preparing to spend days on the roof, conserving their water, peanuts and the flashlight\u2019s battery, switching it on only every so often to check the river level.<\/p>\n

It had dropped 4 inches (10 centimeters). Then later, a foot (30 centimeters).<\/p>\n

The sun began to rise at around 6:30 a.m., illuminating the transformed world around them. They shouted to cars that were driving on the road up the hill, and were eventually helped off the roof and driven to a church where others were gathering.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s really where the real horror begins,\u201d said Alden Towler, who is certified as a wilderness first responder.<\/p>\n

With their medical training \u2014 Jane Towler is a retired labor and delivery nurse \u2014 they helped two doctors tend to the injured.<\/p>\n

Alden Tower helped a 5-year-old boy whose shin was split open to the bone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent the night in a tree!\u201d he recalls the boy saying.<\/p>\n

The boy\u2019s 3-year-old sister was still missing. So was his father, two of his grandparents and his aunt. The aunt arrived hours later, missing fingertips after a house crashed into the tree she was clinging to.<\/p>\n

To the Towlers and Simon-Alexander, the scene was a mix of horror and generosity. A man asked Alden Towler if he had his wallet, which he didn\u2019t, and the man handed him $300.<\/p>\n

Residents drive past debris as they are transported to a shelter from Hunt, Texas, at 6:34 p.m. on Friday, July 4, 2025, after floodwaters from the Guadalupe River devastated their town. (Shabd Simon-Alexander via AP)<\/p>\n

Five days later, Alden Towler\u2019s voice still cracked with emotion when he described in the community the \u201cunstoppable drive to help people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BY JESSE BEDAYN Jane Towler was up late in a small cabin along the Guadalupe River as thunder…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[50,358,38094,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-58466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-texas-hill-country-floods","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114837938823691275","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}