On the morning of July 5, when the Rev. John Onstott walked through the back door of Grimes Funeral Chapels in Kerrville, Texas, the receptionist approached him and said, “John, will you pray with these parents? They’ve lost their daughters.” He prayed for them right then and there, he said. The husband had also lost his parents.
It was the day after the Texas Hill Country flash flood, which killed 135 people, including many children. Of that number, 107 died in Kerr County (Kerrville is the county seat), the area most affected by the flooding. The disaster was caused by a surge in the waters of the Guadalupe River, which swelled by 20 to 30 feet in a matter of hours.
The areas near the river’s banks were dotted with summer camps, including cabins where children were sleeping when the flash flood occurred, hours before daybreak.
Onstott, a semi-retired priest who served at St. Michael and All Angels Church, an Anglican Church in North America congregation in Kerrville, also works as a part-time funeral director. He lives 10 miles outside Kerrville and tried to come to work at Grimes on July 4, but the bridges were underwater and parts of his property were flooded. When he came to work the next day, he stayed every day until July 12. Without providing specifics, he said the funeral home was called upon by several families.
“A lot of what I saw wouldn’t bear to be repeated, other than to say it was a terrible tragedy, in sheer number and in sheer force of nature,” Onstott told The Living Church. No one had any idea what the extent of the tragedy was when numerous government agencies, volunteers, and other organizations came together to help in relief, rescue, and now rebuilding efforts.
“Most of the fatalities were people who are from out of town, visiting for the 4th of July weekend,” he said. “There’s a wide variety of stories and reasons people were here in town for that weekend.”
For husband and wife Bill and Alyson Crouch Hardin, and their daughter Josephine, their presence in the area was rooted in a tradition that spanned two generations.
Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, is an all-girls Christian summer camp established in 1926. Alyson loved it so much as a child that she became a counselor. Soon, Josephine would attend the same camp for nine summers and become a counselor herself. They were at Hunt for the holiday weekend—staying in a home Alyson’s family built in the 1970s—when the flash flood occurred.
According to Elizabeth L.T. Moore of the San Antonio Express-News, as the family was trying to escape the flood, awakened by furniture “battering around in the rising water” downstairs, water rose to waist height on the second floor where they were. Josephine tried to escape through the window.
“But the house collapsed around them,” Moore reported. “Bill clung to a tree and was rescued by helicopters seven hours later.” Both Alyson and Josephine are presumed dead, but their bodies have not been found.
The Hardins are parishioners at All Saints in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where Alyson served as senior warden. Bishop Peter Eaton of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida spoke to Bill on the evening of July 5 and led the Eucharist at All Saints that Sunday.
“Our church family is grieving the loss of two shining lights, and will continue to pray for Alyson, Josephine, and their family, and all those affected by this catastrophic flooding,” Bishop Greg Rickel, clergy in residence at All Saints, told TLC in a statement. The parish continues to offer support to Bill.
The Hardins’ experience is one of what Onstott referred to as the “many, many stories of great loss.” But for the funeral director, who has been in the industry for 52 years, he also witnessed “great empathy and a great love and care shown to these people by everyone in this community, and around the United States, and the world.”
Onstott said he has never seen anything like it—people coming together across various denominations and creeds, including those who have experienced loss, showing love and care for one another.
When the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas sent email about the flooding and offered ways to donate, the diocese received over $35,000 in 24 hours, Bishop David Read said. Katie Mears, senior technical specialist for U.S. disaster and climate risk at Episcopal Relief & Development, said it is working with the diocese to support locally led disaster relief efforts in Kerrville.
The diocese said via email that it has received a $24,000 grant from the humanitarian arm of the Episcopal Church to meet the immediate needs of those affected by the flooding.
“We are also supporting a trauma-informed children’s mental health organization to help children and families process what has happened,” Mears said in a statement to TLC.
During the 10 a.m. Eucharist at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Kerrville on July 6, the parish’s rector, the Rev. Bert Baetz, spoke of a call he received from the Very Rev. Canon Jerry Kramer, an Anglican missionary based abroad at the time. Kramer and a parish he led in the Broadmoor community of New Orleans were instrumental in rebuilding one of the poorest communities in the city after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Kramer told him that weekend that he was preparing to leave for Kerr County. On July 21, Baetz told TLC that Kramer and his wife, Stacy, have been in the area for a while and are “working closely with St. Peter’s in launching their new ministry, Help and Hope for the Hill Country.”
The ministry coordinated by the parish, which has lost at least seven parishioners to the flooding, has already provided a local fire department with essential supplies, including box cutters, coolers, ice, and even a Polaris—an off-road vehicle that will help firefighters navigate tight spaces to deliver food to families.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
