UVALDE COUNTY, Texas — At 3 a.m. Sunday morning, rain began to fall along Highway 55 and into the Nueces River, just northwest of Chalk Falls Bluff, where dozens of campers were asleep for the night.
"It's camping a family. Recreational area. Day camping as well as overnight camping. A beautiful swimming hole most the time," Uvalde County Judge William Mitchell said.
Soon, it would be anything but a nice swimming hole. At 5:00 a.m., the rain became heavy and the Nueces River began to swell. Video taken by Lonnie Davenport after daybreak showed the raging waters rushing under the bridge and downstream towards the campers.
At 7:00 a.m. the rain kept falling, and that's when it was at its heaviest, and the first call for rescue came in.
"This is not the first time this has happened. The Nueces River is quite a wild river. It does what it wants to when it wants to. With 10 inches of rain on top of it during the middle of the night, it'll do all kinds of things," Judge Mitchell said.
And that's exactly what happened. By the time the rains stopped after 9 a.m.. A total of close to 10 inches of rain had fallen! By late morning, 27 campers were in need of rescue. Some in trees, others were on top of vehicles. "The river kind of creates a little islands and whatnot. So some of them are on top of the islands, but the ones we were concerned about were the ones who were in the trees and also the ones in the vehicles," Judge Mitchell said.
Rescue workers from over a dozen agencies came to help out with Sunday's rescue efforts, and because of that, not one person was injured out of 27 that were rescued. Judge Mitchell said, "Everything from Texas Parks and Wildlife to the Uvalde Volunteer Fire Department to County Sheriffs Office, San Antonio Fire Department and EMS."
At least four cars were swept away, but everybody was accounted for. "We had a lot of people out there on the ground today making sure these people got rescued," Judge Mitchell said.