Areas of northwestern Travis County that had been pummeled by floodwaters from Big Sandy Creek over the weekend were bustling Monday with volunteers and residents organizing support for those who had been affected.
Volunteers brought food and bottled water to residents, some of whom didn’t have running water in their homes. Watching the community along Big Sandy Drive near Leander come together has been amazing, said Kaleena Schumaker.
Schumaker was sleeping when her daughter called her about 1:50 a.m. Saturday to tell her about the flooding. Schumaker lives with her boyfriend in a trailer home on her mother’s property, where Schumaker’s daughter and grandchildren also live.
Schumaker burst out the door of the trailer. She had to save the goats. In hindsight, she realized that probably was a bad idea. By the time she reached their pen, the water had risen from her calves to her hips. “I got stuck kind of,” Schumaker said.
She had to turn around, leaving the goats.
The family at the house, four adults and seven children, escaped to higher ground and their two cats and nine kittens survived as well. The goats floated away.
Now, trying to figure out where to start with recovery is overwhelming. They don’t have running water. The air conditioning unit was flooded. She can’t go to work like this, she said. Her mother’s home also doesn’t have flood insurance.
“Our bills are gone, our papers are gone,” Schumaker said.
Along Big Sandy Drive, officials warned residents to cross the creek at their own risk. Because they couldn’t drive a car across, Robin Bates and her daughters carted out belongings from Bates’ home in wagons and wheelbarrows.
Bates and her daughter, Wren, lived in a home just over the bridge and had evacuated at 2 a.m. to a friend's house when the water started pouring in. They’d returned an hour later when the Big Sandy Creek’s waters had receded and found the neighbors’ homes slammed into their own.
They’d saved some personal documents and some home goods. But many momentos of Robin’s husband, who died in January, are missing.
“All of his inherited tools, toolbox, the toolbox he used since he was like 20, the toolbox he gave to me, it’s gone,” Wren said. “We found the toolbox. It’s just buried and it’s heavy and it’s in a lot of mud. Even if we could lift it, I don’t think we could carry it out.”
Nearby on Sunday afternoon, Steve Mogden carted debris from his home on Windy Valley Road into a pile.
The storm woke up he and his wife, Virginia, early Saturday. They watched as the flood waters rose around their home, which is up on a cliff and survived. But the water rose up the cliff edge through 3 a.m.
“We stood there and watched it and I was screaming and crying and praying it would not come anymore,” Virginia Mogden said. “Is it going to keep rising? You already see people swept away in the dark.”
Their neighbors’ homes washed away. Many were rescued from their trailers, some of which had washed into the Mogden’s yard. “It’s just shocking,” Mogden said. “I’m still in shock.”
Also on Sunday, volunteers had begun bringing water, food, clothing and other needed goods to people cleaning up their devastated properties.
Georgetown residents Matt Judice and his wife Elyse Long had driven to the Big Sandy Creek neighborhood to help with cleanup Sunday. A church was overwhelmed with volunteers, so Judice and Long, along with Judice’s sister-in-law Daniele Durham, joined a group of volunteers helping search crews look for signs of missing people.
They walked through people’s washed-out properties, piled high with mountains of tree limbs. Christmas lights, fishing rods, golf clubs and other items were tangled in the debris. Durham pulled water-logged photographs from between tree branches — from a birthday party, someone on a motorcycle.
Judice had helped out in previous flooding disasters.
“This is something else,” Judice said. “What is is going to look like, cleanup-wise? There’s tons of stuff.”