In the early morning hours of July 4, torrential rain caused the Guadalupe River to surge over its banks. The flooding caused widespread devastation, claiming the lives of 119 people in Kerr County alone.
The rising water engulfed homes, RV parks and summer camps, cutting through communities without warning.
One dramatic rescue unfolded behind the home of Doug Robertson, a local landscaping business owner whose property sits approximately 30 feet above the river on Thompson Drive.
Robertson said he was on his way to start his workday around 4:40 a.m. when he crossed the Francisco Lemos Street Bridge, unaware of the raging flood waters that were on their way to Kerrville from West Kerr County.
“I went to my office to do some paperwork,” Robertson said. “I started hearing an abnormally high number of sirens, so I walked outside to see what was going on.”
As Robertson looked toward Louise Hays Park, he noticed the local officials had closed off the entrance, he said.
“I opened the back gate to our property and saw what I’ve never seen before,” Robertson said. “The river was already up to our back fence and just raging.”
Alarmed, he called his wife and asked her to wake their sons, who were visiting for the holiday.
“Despite all the rain, my landscaping crew showed up to work at about 6 o’clock,” Robertson said.
He and his crew were moving backyard furniture to higher ground when the group heard a cry for help.
“There was a guy on our fence, saying, ‘Hey, help! I’m here!’” Robertson said.
A man in his 40s, stripped of his clothing and visibly shaken, was clinging to a fence behind Robertson’s property.
“He was in shock,” Robertson said. “He didn’t have a stitch of clothes on him. It shows just how strong that current was.”
Robertson’s son, Ryan Robertson, tied a rope around his waist and made his way through the floodwaters toward the man, while the others anchored the rope from dry ground.
“We were yelling at the guy to jump, and my son caught him,” Doug Robertson said when recounting the rescue. “The rest of us just started towing them out of there with the rope to the point where my son had to tell us to stop, because we were dragging them on the ground and scratching them all up on the granite driveway.”
The Robertsons caught the rescue on their personal security camera at 6:10 a.m.
Unable to reach emergency services that were handling an inundation of calls already that morning, Ryan Robertson gave the man a pair of his shorts and drove him to Peterson Regional Medical Center.
For a few weeks after the flood, the Robertsons were unaware of the identity of the man who they had helped save.
“We had a hard time getting him to talk, he was in such shock,” Doug Robertson said.
On July 28, the United Cajun Navy streamed a live video on their Facebook page that featured an interview with a flood survivor named John.
In the video, John recounts the terrifying situation he found himself in on the morning of July 4.
After a late-night movie hangout with his brother, John wanted to err on the side of caution as he drove home in the rain at approximately 6 a.m., he said.
John attempted to take the Thompson Drive Bridge home at first, but as he drove up on traffic signs and other people, he changed his mind.
“I thought, ‘OK, this is a sign. Take Lemos and be very careful,’’ John said in the interview. “I got past where the Special Opportunity Center is, and as soon as I could think a thought, I hit the water.”
The violent floodwaters swept the car against the guardrails of the Francisco Lemos Street Bridge.
John attempted to kick out the window of his car. When that didn’t work, he reached for a pool cue in his backseat. The pool cue proved successful, but the flooded river current swept him even further downstream.
“I was swept about a half mile,” John said in the interview. “I ended up at this fence where there was just enough area where it wasn’t covered by water and pulled myself up onto it.”
He saw flashlights and heard chatter while clinging onto the fence, and he started yelling for help.
“I believe the man that rescued me, his name is Ryan,” John said. “I’m thankful to all of them.”
Doug Robertson, a Kerrville resident since 1969, said he had never seen flooding of this magnitude in this region of the Hill Country. However, he emphasized the importance of small victories in times of crisis.
“It was just a huge emotional release to be able to save that guy. Insanely intense,” Doug Robertson said. “I’ve never been to Niagara Falls, but I can tell you that it has to sound like that river did. That’s how fast it was going.”
This article was originally published in the Aug. 21, 2025 edition of the Kerrville Daily Times.
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