- [Aaron] Our lives are completely altered and it's reflected in the landscape that's around me.

- What happens when victims have disappeared and what's left is their belonging.

- This isn't just picking up and cleaning things.

It feels like sacred work.

Grief is a strange thing and we're holding space for it.

- [Aaron] That was the beginning of our life after the flood.

(suspenseful music) (keyboard keys clicking) (tense music) - What happens when you lose everything?

What happens when victims have disappeared and what's left is their belongings?

I think, I just never realized how much objects meant until this moment, because I didn't think about how a necklace could give somebody strength, or finding a photo might be the only thing they have left.

And when I think about Dondi, I think about somebody who was helping us reclaim people's dignity, reclaim their value, saying, "We're not forgetting you.

We're not even gonna forget your clothing."

My name is Peter Holley.

I'm a senior writer at Texas Monthly, and I wrote, "Found on the Guadalupe".

(washer whirring) (somber music) In the early morning hours of July 4th, a historic storm washed over the Central Texas hill country, unleashing a massive amount of water in the Guadalupe River, which swelled and broke open and ended up killing 119 people in the process.

One of the problems with this particular storm was that there wasn't a lot of reliable information coming out.

Partly, because there was no cell service, and people in the area were devastated and doing recovery efforts.

So, Saturday morning we actually had a meeting and we said, "What do we do about this?"

And one of the results of that meeting was, I was just gonna hit the road.

(water rushing) So, that afternoon I hopped in my car, and by the afternoon of July 5th, I was on the ground walking around the flood zone as rescuers and search and recovery people were still looking for people who are dead or alive.

You know, one of the first things that struck me when I got out there was that the flood zone itself was so incredibly massive.

It was hard to wrap your head around.

(water rushing) I saw an entire landscape that had been flattened by the water.

I covered Hurricane Harvey, I covered Sutherland Springs, I covered some of the worst events in the state's history, and this was by far the worst thing I'd ever seen.

(sober music) (washer whirring) Somebody mentioned that there was a group that was taking items out of the Guadalupe and cleaning them and then attempting to return them to family members.

- Check this out.

- I was immediately touched by that idea and couldn't believe that people were going out of their way to take such care of belongings.

And I immediately decided, I've got to write about this group.

This is incredible.

Where are we exactly?

- We're right now at the laundromat on Water Street in Kerrville, Texas.

We're soaking things, we're spray them in sanitizer, We're pre-soaking.

The clothing, the stuffies, and the photographs, we want to try to get to them as quick as we can so they don't mildew, because time is of the essence.

- Yeah.

The group was started by a woman named Dondi Persyn.

She's incredibly like warm and down to earth, and she has a huge amount of energy.

And those two things combine to create somebody who was willing to give all of herself to the flood recovery.

- And Peter, you know, they're bringing more, which is just, this is just the beginning.

Yeah, I thought that was the hardest part.

(people chatting indistinctly) No, there wouldn't be.

- [Peter] The disaster zone is more than 100 miles long.

And so, there's items that were deposited all of down along that river.

So, it's not surprising that people are still pulling stuff out of the river and still bringing it to Dondi, even months later.

- You just never know what piece you're handling, and who it's attached to and what meaning it may have for somebody.

So, that's why we pick it up, because you just never know what somebody wants back.

(items thudding) - In the beginning, things were brought to us way worse condition, big bags of mud.

It's starting to get a little better, but the amount of things really hasn't changed.

It hasn't changed.

(somber music) - [Peter] Dondi started at this laundromat in Kerrville, but by the end of the summer, her operation had expanded to a warehouse in Ingram.

She had many volunteers and the whole thing had blown up.

- Back here is the main warehouse area.

- [Peter] The warehouse in Ingram is full of plastic bins where Dondi has organized belongings that have been pulled onto the river.

- I think, it's overwhelming to come here and see all these items, especially, if you've lost your home.

- [Peter] People can actually go to the warehouse and be reunited with belongings that they might've lost.

Oftentimes these are family heirlooms or objects that belong to missing people.

(water splashing) - This has been soaking since Wednesday.

This looks like some sorting needs to be done.

Yeah.

The camps dress up in costumes.

That's why we see a lot of costumes.

- One of the first things I noticed was that a bunch of the clothes had the word "Camp Mystic" on them.

And I knew that I was looking at clothes from the camp, possibly clothes that belonged to some of the children who were still missing.

Camp Mystic is a place where 25 little girls and two counselors lost their lives on July 4th.

It's a historic camp, one of the most popular and well known in Texas.

And at this moment, it's the place that people associate with tragedy, I think.

- We have a closet back here.

It's specifically, for Mystic items.

So, we keep it closed up and protected in case people are visiting.

A lot of times there's the little names on there.

So, we wanna make sure that, that has privacy just to like buffer the families as much as we could.

- [Peter] You know, she's handling these items with incredible care, because she knows how much that means to the parents.

Who'll never get their daughters back, but they might get a little piece of their daughters in an item of clothing, or a teddy bear, or a photo.

(somber music) (crickets chirping) - If they're in one of these baskets, it's because they belong to someone deceased.

And it was really important to me to not send things home in plastic bags.

I wanted to just let the loved ones know that, if it came to found on the Guadalupe River, that it was cared for and treated with love and respect.

(somber music) When I think about this work, I think, this isn't just picking up and cleaning things.

This is so much more.

It's something else, I don't know what you call it, but it feels like sacred work.

It feels like a huge responsibility.

It feels like an honor.

It just feels like way much more than washing clothes.

(somber music) (packet rustling) - Our home was spared, but the storage unit and everything underneath our home was destroyed.

Ours has a pretty happy ending.

You know, most people that lost things may have had a more tragic story, but we were all safe.

Our kids were even able to come and help with some of the cleanup.

And I think, it was healing for all of us.

It was some tough days.

(Paula sniffing) (packets rustling) Wow, this is a lot of stuff.

(packets rustling) Oh my gosh, this was a wedding gift.

- No, that's yours?

- This is.

- Oh, Paula.

- Oh my gosh.

- Oh, I'm so glad - Wow.

- that's yours.

- Look at it.

I cannot believe this.

- The ladies here are going to be so thrilled.

This was handmade by a friend's mother that was in the wedding.

That's all in perfect condition really.

What?

That is crazy.

(somber music) Okay, well.

What do I, where's my bin?

- Let me go get you a bin.

- It's surreal when you find things that, and know them.

We know our stuff.

- And I got to say the hill country isn't healed.

I think, it's gonna take a lot more time for people to rebuild their relationship with the river and to move past this moment.

And so, Dondi has a current project where she's taking these textiles out of the river, and those that can't be reunited with owners, Dondi and her team are turning into a giant quilt that they're going to use to memorialize the lives that were lost in last year's flood.

- It's gonna be really special, and emotional.

All of this is pretty emotional.

- [Interviewer] Why do you still keep going and continue the work?

- [Volunteer] We're very emotional.

- We don't know.

I think, you know, grief is a strange thing, and trauma and disaster and all of this is things that thank God we're new to, but it is a process.

It's unfolding, and we're holding space for it.

You know, as long as I have text messages from parents saying, "Did you find my daughter's," whatever it is, I'll be looking and trying to find it.

(somber music) (suspenseful music) (car engine purring) - On July 4th, I was out at my family's river house along the Guadalupe River.

(somber music) It's on a really beautiful stretch of the river.

We were there to celebrate the 4th of July.

I was with my dad, my husband, my sister, her husband, and their two kids.

All I know is that I'm supposed to turn right here, but this was all trees, and it's just really, really unrecognizable.

We went to bed on July 3rd as a happy family and we woke up early on the morning of July 4th and we realized very quickly that we were trapped inside this house.

My name is Aaron Parsley.

I wrote the magazine feature the first few days after the flood.

And there was still a lot of emotional chaos going on around me at the time.

I started hearing from people who'd read it.

And understanding that it had reached so many people, I started to think about what was next.

This story is still unfolding and that's why I wanted to continue reporting on the aftermath of these floods through a second story and a podcast, interviewing my family and other survivors to discover "Where the River Took Us".

Three months after the flood, I took a trip back out into the hill country to go back to the property where our river house had been.

Oh, yeah, I mean, this used to be our five-bedroom house.

We could sleep a lot of people here on a big weekend.

I mean, this is really sort of like the ground zero of this flood.

We went swimming in the afternoon, made dinner, we played games, and we went to bed about 09:30.

I woke up about 03:30 and I could hear the rain and the thunder and my only thought was about whether or not I could go running in the morning, 'cause there's some really cool runs out here.

And then about an hour later I woke up, 'cause I heard my brother-in-law, Lance, shouting for my sister.

And I woke up and went out into the main living area of the house and my dad just said that we're in big trouble.

Our cars were already under 20 feet of water and it was as high as the house.

And it all just happened really quickly that the house got lifted up off the pillars.

And my husband, Patrick, said, "We're moving, we're moving."

The next thing I know I was underwater.

I heard my husband shouting for me and I couldn't see him, but I could see in the lightning and the middle of the night I could see this silver piece of roof.

And I just remember screaming at him, "Are you on the roof?"

And he said that he was.

And I tried to go towards the roof and I felt him grab my hand just for a second.

And then I just was carried down river.

And then I was just in the water and I don't know, everybody else got scattered.

And I ended up in a tree way down the river.

Stayed there for a long time and just waiting for the water to go down, waiting for the rain to stop.

I didn't know what had happened to the rest of my family.

And then I heard some screaming and it turns out that it was my sister and she was in the tree with her daughter, Rosemary.

And she had had both kids kinda in her arms when the house fell apart, and my nephew, Clay, was lost.

Once the water finally did go down, all of a sudden I saw Patrick walking up the riverbank.

(somber music) (birds chirping) That was like when I thought, you know, I think, we're gonna be okay.

And it was just really a mix of feeling relief and gratitude that we had survived, but this intense sorrow and just really afraid for Clay.

It was just an impossible situation.

So, that reality started to sink in, and so, that was the beginning of, you know, our life after the flood.

And like I said, there's a lot of reasons to be thankful, but there's a lot of reasons to be sad and angry and all the difficult big feelings that come with grief.

(water rushing) (birds chirping) Going back out, there was a chance to understand a little bit more about what happened that day.

To put some more pieces of the puzzle together.

You know, I was just looking for more understanding and to see how the cleanup had progressed, to see how the community had changed.

(gentle music) (traffic droning) (engine purring) There was so much attention, national news attention for the story that I wrote in the days and weeks that followed.

But then people move on.

People are eager to look to what's next.

But I know from my own experience and from the experiences of my family members, that we're still very much living in the aftermath of this event.

This flood is still very present.

(somber music) While we were out there, I had arranged to meet with our neighbors, Jim and Tess Tolliver, whose home was on the property next to ours.

- [Jim] Let's go do a walk through.

- Wow.

It is completely a construction zone.

- [Jim] Yeah, exactly.

- [Aaron] Part of the reason I wanted to talk to the Tollivers was to hear what they had gone through the night that the Guadalupe rose.

- You can still see splatter marks where it was up here.

That's a good seven feet.

We had no idea what was going on around us.

You know, whether the water was going to rise more or where was it coming from, what was it doing?

- [Aaron] He said he knew right away that they needed to get into the attic.

- I had Tess go up first.

I put her up and she went up.

Then I started following behind her.

Water came down through here, took out this door, took her car and turned it around into my truck in the garage.

- [Aaron] And it all happened really fast.

- [Jim] And I'm climbing just as fast as, you know, this.

And by the time I get up here, the water's already hitting seven feet.

(somber music) - [Aaron] On the morning of July 4th, we were taken down river.

So, I didn't get to see what was left of our house on the property.

And so, the first time that I saw any images were Jordan Vonderhaar's photographs that he took for Texas Monthly to illustrate the story that I wrote.

What's left after the water comes down is right there in those pictures, and it was beautiful, but terrifying.

(somber music) It's just a sense of disbelief all over again at how terrifying and how powerful Mother Nature can be.

When you got down from the attic, it was hard to imagine being able to live here anymore.

Is that right?

- It was hard.

Yes.

I mean, your first reaction is, what do we do?

The house is just flooded.

Do we rebuild?

Why would we wanna rebuild?

And so, he was the logical person and he said, "Let's just take it one day at a time."

We had strangers the first couple of days show up and say, "I have a chainsaw, can I help you?"

We had a plumber come in from Bernie that says, "I'll be glad to do anything for you," and free.

They were just showing up, 'cause they wanted to help.

(machines whirring) - Having all these people show up and start taking care of business, I'm sure it was sort of like the decision was made for you in a way?

- Yes.

The life here, the community, is what has been the blessing for us.

It's reminded us of what we love about it up here.

It's the people up here that we love.

It's a smaller town.

You get to know people on a very personal level and you go help them when they need help.

They help you when you need help.

It's just phenomenal.

- I gotta wonder like, do you worry about the river coming up again and do you have people that are worried about y'all out here?

- Yeah, they are.

Our youngest daughter told me that she didn't know if she could let her daughter sleep here.

Mainly, because of Clay.

- Yeah.

- They're the same age.

And I said, "I respect that."

So, you know, we'll just cross that bridge when we get to it.

- Yeah.

- We'll come to Houston and see you.

- Yeah.

You understand that decision.

- I totally understand.

I respect any kid's decision, and I think, over time people will feel different.

(bird chirping) - [Aaron] Y'all are expecting in the next month or so to be able to move back in or?

- Yeah, I would say, and in about the next six weeks, hopefully, we'll have it.

- Six weeks?

- When we can move in.

- Wow.

- That is the big thing.

- That's exciting.

I bet y'all are ready to be back home.

- We want to be home.

It'll be... (Tess sobbing) Sorry.

- It's all right.

- It'll be hard, I think, sleeping here the first night.

I told him that just the other day.

So, we'll I have to move through those emotions?

- Yeah.

- When we get to this stage, but it's a milestone we're looking forward to.

But I think, in itself it will bring some emotions forward too this way.

- For sure.

Talking with Jim and Tess about their decision to stay out there and rebuild their house, it helped me understand their thinking.

It helped me understand how the support of a community and the help from strangers made them feel like this is something that they could do.

I don't think it affects the way I think about being out there and whether or not I want to stay out there, but obviously, we're dealing with the aftermath of a loss of the intense grief that we've experienced in my family.

- [Interviewer] Can you imagine ever spending a night out here again?

- I can't imagine ever spending a night out here again.

You know, I don't know that I'd wanna stay the night near any river that could become what this river became that night.

My family is not the same that it used to be.

Our lives are completely altered and it's sort of reflected in the landscape that's around me as part of this stretch of devastation in the floodplain.

(somber music) But spending time out there again, exploring the new normal that we all are facing, is what I'd like to do with this podcast.

You did see, you know, some more debris had been removed.

We saw some new growth coming up.

You know, these little tree saplings were already coming out of the dirt.

When I think about the future and these communities that were affected by the flood, there's gonna be a lot of sorrow and a lot of pain that's gonna last a long time.

But at the same time, I have seen firsthand how the communities out there have come together.

And you know, I have no doubt that, with time, this part of Texas will be beautiful once again and that people will want to be out there and want to enjoy the river, the beautiful surroundings.

- I think, about the hill country and I always thought about it as like this tight-knit, communal place.

And I think, the flood has reinvigorated that spirit.

- Thank you.

(both chuckling) - [Peter] It's brought people together, it's forced neighbors to love neighbors.

It's forced people to give of themselves in ways that, I think, maybe we've forgotten how to do.

And I hope that families can return to that river and we don't have to associate it with one of the most tragic days in the state's history.