'We sang them church songs': Survivors, volunteers reflect on deadly TX floods

Kalina Silverman, the creator behind Big Talk, took her mission to “skip small talk” and “make meaningful connections” to the Texas Hill Country after the deadly July 4 floods. 

Silverman told MySA that when wildfires ravaged the Pacific Palisades in her home state of California, she reached out to GoFundMe to tell victims’ stories and support their fundraising directly. Silverman posted videos on social media featuring interviews with survivors, telling MySA that when the posts blew up, “I swore to myself that if I had the opportunity to help out in future disasters, I would.”

Silverman said she was celebrating the Fourth of July weekend when she heard the news of the devastating flooding in the Hill Country, noting to MySA that her heart was broken, and it felt wrong not to be doing something to help. 

With support from GoFundMe and Direct Relief, Silverman flew into San Antonio on Monday, July 14. Before leaving that Thursday, she was able to tell the stories of four families and a team of female rescuers. Here’s what they told Silverman that made her feel “uplifted” and “proud” to be in Texas. 

Penny Deupree, 83, helped her family of nine escape their house in Hunt by carving a hole in the attic to climb through. The family lost the house, which Penny called the “family gathering place,” in the flood. But through it all, Deupree told Silverman she was not scared. 

“Got out, I jumped in the water, then you had to swing your body up onto the rooftop,” Deupree said. “That’s what we ended up with — nine people on the roof, two babies. And the babies were rocked to sleep. We sang them church songs. So the mama and daddy rocked their babies up on the rooftop and got them back to sleep.”

A GoFundMe for the family created by Penny’s son, Tad, has raised nearly $100,000. 

One family remembered their father, Jose Olvera, who ran a ranch called Fairweather for 40 years. His daughter remembered his love for the family and his grandchildren, and his son called him a hero and remembered his friendliness. Another son said Olvera taught him “love, respect and how to work.”

“Probably my dad and his wife were taken by the flood,” Olvera’s daughter said in the video. “But we still had that one percent of hope it would not be true. Around 11:30, his body was found close to the property, almost on the property down a creek. My sister-in-law found my dad. We were thankful that he died on the same property he loved.”

Nearly $30,000 has been raised through GoFundMe for Olvera’s children. 

“Life is a dream. It goes quick,” one of Olvera’s sons told Silverman. “A lot of people lost their families, and it’s hard for everyone. One day, we’ll be together again.”

Woody Chambless, a veteran, told Silverman he retired from the VA hospital in Kerrville. A GoFundMe benefiting Chambless and his family said the flood caused “catastrophic damage to the cabin on their property where their daughter and grandchildren lived, severely damaged their primary residence, and completely destroyed their truck, trike, and RV.” Nearly $40,000 has been raised. 

“We decided to live here, and this is where we want to be until we die,” Woody said in the video. “We were used to the river coming up. No one knew it was going to be like this. One kid got stuck in a tree, and he ended up, you know, getting rescued by a boat. He was, of course, naked almost, so I gave him a shirt, a blanket. We had a blanket in the car. Came back to our house and there was debris, and the cabin I built for the grandkids had floated up about eight or 10 feet.”

Paws on the River is a dog resort located on two acres of land along the Guadalupe River between Hunt and Ingram, some of the hardest-hit areas. It is now temporarily closed after the floods, but more than $25,000 has been raised through GoFundMe.

Brian Olsen, who runs Paws on the River, told Silverman that the dogs were “really quiet,” and remembers his dog, Casper (who is deaf and blind), “sitting perfectly still” on a barstool for hours. 

“We put the little dogs up on the countertops and shelves,” Olsen said. “The big dog, I was able to put on a bar stool, and we got Clutch on this crate that we had turned, and everything went pretty well until it got waist high. And that’s when the countertop had floated up that one of the dogs was on, and we had to stick them on a higher bar.”

He described the night of the flood, saying that when the power went out around 1 a.m. When they left, a senior dog named Clutch had to swim alongside him, Olsen said. “I had the flashlight in my hand, and I’d shone it across the river, just to see how high the river was, and I instantly knew — hundreds of people are losing their lives,” Olsen said. 

In the end, he was able to save all seven dogs that were on the property that night. 

Texas Search and Rescue (TEXSAR) was one of the groups working to recover missing people after the floods. Silverman spoke with an all-female TEXSAR team, one of whom told her that finding someone gives her the knowledge that “you have helped another family and done the job to the best of your ability.” After being “moved” by seeing the aftermath of the disaster, another rescuer told Silverman her message to the world is to “never give up hope in situations of despair.”