Of the nine years Lynn Bizzell has been leading the Fredericksburg Fire and EMS Department during his 50-year career, he’s managed four major events, including Winter Storm Uri, the total solar eclipse, the Crabapple Fire and the Fourth of July floods. It’s the Kerr County flood that will leave a lasting impression.
“That day will be etched in my mind forever,” said Bizzell during an emotional update he gave to the City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 5. “It was heartbreaking. It was exhausting. It was a great team effort from people I’ve never even met before, much less even knew.
“But they were all there for all the right reasons, and those reasons included one goal, and that was to reunite those loved ones with their families.” Bizzell said as his voice broke.
Bizzell and city of Fredericksburg water, electric, police and fire and EMS departments were in Kerr County from July 4 through July 25, according to City Manager Clinton Bailey.
“It was the perfect storm, so to speak. A lot of rain fell in the middle of a holiday with a lot of people on the river. The campgrounds were full. The RV parks were completely full,” Bailey said. “Hunt saw a record 38-foot rise in the Guadalupe River. Kerrville experienced a 35-foot rise. Ingram faced devastation as the flood waters came through.”
Across the broader Central Texas region, the disaster claimed at least 135 lives, with 107 deaths in Kerr County. Camp Mystic near Hunt lost 27 campers, counselors and children, most under the age of 18, he said.
“At least 237 individuals were rescued via boats, helicopters, off of trees, rooftops,” Bailey said. “One lady clung to a refrigerator in the river going down 20 miles that was recovered out of a tree. It was just unbelievable. The total number of rescues by July 8 was 440 and the City of Fredericksburg assisted in the search, rescue and recovery efforts.”
Bizzell was the incident commander at the Ingram Fire Station on Texas 39. His crews were in charge of search and rescue and recovery efforts along 8 miles of the Guadalupe River, according to Bailey.
“He’s the steady hand that gets us through these events, whether we’re talking about fires or ice storms or assisting another community,” said Bailey about Bizzell. ”He’s the guy that a lot of us rely on during these events to get us through, and he did a great job down there.”
Bizzell said his Fourth of July started at 6 a.m., when he received a call from Kerrville about mutual aid that was needed for the flood event occurring.
Thirty minutes later, Frank Stead, emergency management coordinator for the city, called a meeting at the fire station to put resources together.
“We actually formed a team that morning and started sending additional resources to Kerrville from a rescue perspective,” Bizzell said. “We got our as-signment and stayed in a mini emergency operations center (EOC) in the (Fredericksburg) training room all day and night Friday.”
One Fredericksburg volunteer ended up in Ingram and told the EOC back home they needed a lot of help. Bizzell drove to Kerr County Sunday morning and said he met with the chief, then asked to be put to work.
“I made a few suggestions that we may be able to get this operation going to get a little bit more organization to the overall event and we literally just took the Ingram fire district,” Bizzell told the City Council.
“We had about 350 people that would show up every day. It was about 202 average that we had per day throughout those 17 days,” Bizzell said. “You can imagine trying to manage all this.”
“We divided the 8 miles into four sections, which we called A, B, C and D section, and each of those groups would get assigned a crew leader,” Bizzell said about how they tackled rescue efforts early on and recovery efforts later.
Fire Marshal Reagan Rabke was operations coordinator and gave out assignments to crew members each day. The Ingram crew also divided volunteers up by experience whether it was military, rescue or heavy machinery operators.
“We couldn’t have done it without all of the city crews and all the county crews that came and helped us,” Bizzell said. “Every one of the fire departments in the county were at this location and helped out daily, as well as the sheriff’s department, our electric department, our water department. I mean, we just couldn’t have accomplished all this without all the people that came together during a very bad situation. I want to thank each and every one of them. I hope I didn’t leave anybody out.”
