() With the search for victims in the Central Texas floods now already a few days old, stories of volunteers racing to the communities to do whatever they can to help have made the rounds.
Among those volunteers are two men, Greg Froelick and Brooks Holzhausen, both a part of the group “300 Justice Road.” Froelick is a former Navy SEAL, and Holzhausen is the father of two of the former camp counselors at Camp Mystic.
Camp Mystic was ravaged by the incident and lost 27 people in the process, with several still missing.
“When we got out here Saturday, we cleared a lot where we were,” Froelick said. “But, you’re talking cars wrapped around trees split in half, debris piled up 20 feet high, guardrails twisted up. I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s pure destruction.”
The challenges facing volunteers like Froelick and Holzhausen are also just witnessing the carnage of entire areas being destroyed and working through the terrain.
“Debris, construction debris,” Holzhausen added. “Houses that are decimated by the impact of the power of Mother Nature. There’s people in there, that were in there that night. So, you try to get your head around that. And just seeing the terrain certainly, and all the huge nests. Our guys are taking those apart to see, to see what’s inside to try and get the kids home, try to get brothers or sisters, uncles, aunts. So many people are affected by it.”
Holzhausen added that he and his team have zeroed in on searching around the Camp Mystic property, having spent two days just below the Mystic Dam.
“We’re working both sides of the river,” he said. “One side of the river, the west side of the river, is a bluff. It’s all got to be sifted through. So that’s been our focus. And with the cloth these men are cut from, our team is cut from, we don’t do anything haphazard. It’s important for us to do it the right way. We have a lot of guys really hustling and trying hard to accomplish that.”
In terms of how long it will take for areas to be thoroughly searched, both men unequivocally said it could take months. One woman was found alive 20 miles away from her last known location due to how strong the current was, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
“If you start from the camp until where this person was found, you’re talking about 20 miles,” Froelick acknowledged. “You’re talking about a span of 400 yards across that you’re searching at the heart of it. It’s worse than this. The amount of earth that moved down from wherever this started, now the ground is at a different level.”
As of Monday evening, 104 people were confirmed dead, and many were still missing in the aftermath of the floods.
