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Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
That’s the sound that startled Houston-based Realtor Ricky Gonzalez out of his sleep in the wee hours of July 4.
“We were in Kerrville for the Fourth of July and to celebrate my friend Mark’s birthday. I arrived around 8 p.m. or 9 p.m., and it was just kind of drizzling. It wasn’t flooding or anything like that,” he said. “I stayed up pretty late, up to at least, like, two o’clock. We went to bed, and then Nash, the dog, was barking. He was pawing at the door. We noticed it was around 5:43 a.m., and we were like, ‘Oh, go to sleep, Nash.’ Eventually, my friend Bert woke up and checked on Nash, and when he opened the window, he saw his partner’s truck floating away.”
The drizzle that lulled Gonzalez to sleep just hours earlier had transformed into a raging river surge, carrying four of his friends’ trucks several miles downstream. The remaining truck was lodged into the lower level of the Airbnb, with a few load-bearing beams keeping it from breaking through to the other side. Upstairs, Gonzalez and his 12 friends were frantically gathering coolers, pool noodles and floaties — anything that could help them float in case the river began to swallow the second floor.
Ricky Gonzalez
“We just went into survival mode. We all started assigning each other different tasks,” he told Inman. “I said, ‘Okay, let me find an attic.’ The reason I was looking for an attic is because, obviously, Houston, we’re familiar with flooding due to [Hurricane] Katrina and all of that. I was scared that the water was going to rise, and I wanted to make sure we could get onto the roof. I was prepared to bust through the attic, if we needed to.”
Fortunately, Gonzalez located two large windows in the attic that his housemates could use to climb onto the roof. He kept the attic door open, directing everyone to be ready to evacuate if the water reached the balcony. Amid the calls to emergency personnel and the Airbnb’s owners, who narrowly escaped their RV during the surge, Gonzalez paused to FaceTime his sister and offer what could’ve been his last goodbyes.
“Next door to our house, there was a one-story house, and I didn’t see it anymore. It was gone. I could hear people screaming from the river. I don’t know if any of them made it,” he said. “I particularly called my sister on FaceTime several times just to let her know, ‘Hey, this is where I am. You have my location, but in case I don’t see you…’ I was kind of giving my goodbye.”
For more than two hours, Gonzalez and his friends were trapped on the second floor — waiting to be rescued.
Their ordeal finally came to an end when Gonzalez popped his head out of a window, attempting to show his sister via FaceTime what’d happened to the cinderblock fence that surrounded the backyard. By then, the surge had subsided, allowing a nearby family, Leo and Paula Garcia, to spot Gonzalez and help them leave the Airbnb, which was at risk of collapsing.
“They saw me hanging out the window, and they waved at me. I waved back and went to the front of the house,” he said. “They said the house was pretty beat up and that we needed to get out. Thankfully, by then, the water was waist-deep. Even though the water was still rushing, they helped us make a line of 13 people with five dogs, which we carried out.”
The Garcias drove everyone to their home, which had been spared from the worst of the flooding, and cooked breakfast. Afterwards, the Garcias drove Gonzalez and his friends 65 miles to the San Antonio International Airport so they could rent cars and find lodging for the night.
“We spent the night in San Antonio and the next morning, in our rental cars, we drove back just to assess the damage,” he said. “I left my keys inside my car, so I just wanted to see if I could find them. And thankfully, we found one of the cars about, you know, two, three miles down river, and then I was able to get my keys. It was just crazy to see all of what was underwater. The house was about 100 yards away from the river, so it was crazy that the surge went that far out.”
Gonzalez has had little time to decompress since returning to Houston, as he spent Saturday night doing two interviews with CNN — the network had noticed an Instagram video Gonzalez posted about his experience. Since then, another 60 to 70 global news outlets have reached out to Gonzalez for interviews, but he’s turned them all down.
“I just don’t feel like getting on camera and doing all that again,” he said. “It really didn’t hit me till [Tuesday]. I was lying in bed and just going back and looking at the videos I recorded during the flood. I could hear the fear in my voice. I was trying to stay calm, but I could hear the fear. I wasn’t even speaking correctly, and I was cursing a lot, just because I was like, ‘What is going on?’”
“And then seeing the death count go up to above 100, man, like, I don’t know … This, very easily, could have ended very differently for us,” he added. “There was another story that I heard of a group of friends who were on a balcony, just like we were. There were fewer friends, but they got swept away. And I told my group of friends, ‘This could have been us.’”
Despite the immeasurable loss, which includes nearly 120 deaths and 173 people still missing, Gonzalez said he still sees a sliver of light.
“Despite all the craziness around this world and the hatred, [that family] was quick to take us in. It proves that people still live their lives full of love and share that with others. There are people still doing the right thing,” he said. “My mom would always say, ‘You never go wrong by doing it right.’ I’m just grateful for the people who saved us.”
Gonzalez said he’s contacted the Airbnb hosts and the family who helped him and his friends escape. Both parties are safe and sound, and he’s figuring out ways to repay their kindness and help the wider Kerrville community.
“Having just recently gone through losing my mom, and I know search and rescue is happening, but there are a lot of people who will need to pay for a funeral. That’s something no one ever really talks about or prepares you for. And I want to help. My friends want to help. So we’re figuring out a good way to help those families because funerals aren’t cheap, especially when you may have to bury multiple people.”
In the meantime, Gonzalez said he trusts that the real estate community, as they’ve done many times before, will step up and support affected families.
“The real estate industry is very close-knit,” he said. “I’ve had amazing Houston Association of Realtors and Texas Realtors leaders reach out, check in and see how they can help,” he said. “The Texas Realtor Relief Program is a great place to start, but it’s going to be a long road to recovery. You can donate, you can share resources and, sometimes, just being a listening ear can mean a lot.”
