Dan Patrick blasts Kerr County judge for absence during July 4 floods

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick criticized Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly during a hearing Thursday for not being present on July 4 as devastating floods swept through the county, destroying homes and claiming over 100 lives.

"I don’t know where you were on Day One, on July 4, but you should have been here. You should have been here directing that response. That is your responsibility," Patrick told Kelly. "Everyone was here that day working their ass off, and you were nowhere to be found."

Kelly, who was on a panel of local officials, testified that he was at his Lake Travis home preparing for a family gathering when the flooding began. He said he received calls between 5 and 6 a.m. from Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha, and Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice.

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This was at least an hour after dispatchers received urgent calls from people at Camp Mystic and others along the Guadalupe River, which rose over 20 feet in some areas within 95 minutes.

Lawmakers also questioned Kerr County Emergency Management Coordinator W.B. “Dub” Thomas and Sheriff Leitha about their actions. Thomas said he was on paid leave due to illness on July 3 and was awakened at 5:30 a.m. on July 4. "Based on the data we had at the time, there was no indication that a catastrophic flood was imminent," he said. Leitha testified he was not awakened until 4:20 a.m.

"The three guys in Kerr County who were responsible for sounding the alarm were effectively unavailable. Am I hearing that right?" asked state Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston. She noted reports of "little girls with water around their feet" at Camp Mystic as early as 2 a.m. Twenty-five campers, two counselors, and camp leader Dick Eastland died in the flood.

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State Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, called the officials' responses "very disturbing," saying, "We have people dying, and yeah, we have people charged with responsibility for their protection—but they’re in their beds, they’re sick, they’re waiting for somebody else."

Kelly, responsible under Texas law for evacuation orders, said issuing them would have been "too late" and caused "one heck of a traffic jam." State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, questioned why alerts weren’t sent earlier, to which Kelly replied, "I agree."

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Testimony revealed that at 3:34 a.m.—over two hours after a National Weather Service flood alert—dispatchers received the first emergency call. By 3:57 a.m., Camp Mystic reported people "stranded on a hill seeking evacuation." Kelly said he returned to Kerrville after receiving calls, signed a disaster declaration, and later checked on his wife.

Patrick noted that when he arrived, officials including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Kerrville’s mayor were present. "And I wasn’t," Kelly admitted. After the hearing, Kelly declined to comment, calling the press "offensive and intrusive."