John Burgess Texas dad swept to his death in flood after refusing to let go of his two young sons while camping as he clung to a tree with them. Dad along with the boy’s mom, Julia Anderson Burgess also swept to her death as the couple’s two young sons remain missing.
A dad was tragically killed in the Texas floods while ‘holding onto his babies’ as residents implored the parent to ‘toss the kids,’ before they were all swept away.
John Burgess, who lived in Liberty, Texas, was camping along the Kerrville river banks with his wife and their two young sons when flash floods descended on the area just after 2 am, Friday morning.
The family had traveled to the RV park in Ingram, Texas Hill Country, for the 4th Of July, when flash floods suddenly ran amok as the family were sleeping, KWTX reported.
All 28 RVs that had been parked at the park were destroyed and swept away after torrential rains arriving shortly after midnight leading to the Guadalupe rising 27 feet in just 45 minutes and overflowing, leading to structures and anyone caught in the area being swept away by raging waters.
It was at this moment that Lorena Guillen, owner of the Blue Oak RV Park, where the family had been camping, recalling the father desperately clutching his two sons while clinging to a tree.
“My husband was in the water trying to ask them, ‘Please throw me your baby!’ The man was holding tight to his babies, and he just got swept away,’ Guillen told the nypost.
‘The kids were so excited to be here,’ Guillen told the nypost.
‘We heard people screaming throughout the night,’ she said, adding, ‘The cabins from the RV park next door came floating, and they were getting smashed against the trees.’
“‘Help me! Help me!’ — that was the main thing. You heard a lot of screaming, it was just too much,’ Guillen said, according to the nypost.
Tragically, the bodies of John, a graduate of China Spring High School in the Waco area, and his wife, Julia Anderson Burgess, a former teacher at Belton’s Lakewood Elementary, have since been recovered, including the father’s on Monday, WLUC reported.
‘Everything was gone, every single RV and vehicle, it was gone, they got washed away after the waters rose quickly,’ Guillen told WOAI. ‘The screaming was unbearable.’
The coupe’s two sons remain missing. A third child, a daughter who was staying at another camp in higher ground remained safe.
The death toll from the floods reached at least 104 on Monday. Searchers are working around the clock in challenging terrain to try and find the dozens still missing.
