Flight 1989… coincidence? I think not. @taylorswift13 really just out here throwing easter eggs into my day-to-day life.
The devil works hard, but Taylor works harder.
Sorry it's been hard to talk about this stuff but we are not ok still in Kerrville, TX since the July 4th floods.
I got to drive through the whole area all the way past Hunt, TX and out past Camp Mystic yesterday with my team and am having trouble describing what I saw.
There was no escaping this for the campers and residents of Hunt. The entire river valley was swallowed up by 20-40 feet of fast moving water. I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing- how high the water got, how wide it went up the hillsides and cliffs. It looks totally different now- the riverbed is completely reshaped and devoid of trees that were there for hundreds of years. Every survivor that was in that area is a miracle.
My friend and business partner Dusty Block (Dealonomy's Director of M&A) is a volunteer firefighter that's swiftwater rescue trained and was out there while it was unfolding with his small team of rescue swimmer volunteers- he was there in the early morning hours in the pitch black before any reinforcements or helicopters arrived in the daylight, and he witnessed and experienced unimaginable things as he gave every ounce he had to save as many people as he could.
Him and his brother and a couple of their teammates lost their truck in a wall of water that came over the road and carried on on foot for 18 hours straight with no support, just throw ropes and their wits and adrenaline, swimming and hiking through the areas nobody could get to. They covered 60 miles running and hiking and jumping in and out of the river saving people and catching all they could.
There's 30+ people alive right now because of their heroism that they plucked from the river, but for every one they caught and saved they saw 2-3 others go by they couldn't reach, screaming and begging for help in the dark, or already dead inside mangled cars and RVs or in tree branches. They helped hundreds more get to safe areas and medical attention and get evacuated to safety.
I can't tell you all the details of the stories. I can't do it justice. But how do you deal with the emotions (as a dad of two young boys) of talking to a young boy 15 feet away, having a conversation, telling him it's going to be okay, and you're going to get him out, only to see an RV come out of nowhere and hit him broadside and take him out? Stuff like that X100 is what he went through.
Dusty did rescues 18 hours straight on the 4th, then 12 hours each of the next 2 days doing recoveries and swimming out bodies that were hard to get to, and has been out there helping most days in different ways the 2 weeks since.
Yet our business and client work continues and we have to keep working on business deals and doing calls and meetings and showing up to the office and acting like everything's ok, but man, it's not ok. We're covering for each other as a team and still getting our normal work done, but we're threadbare.
I'm grateful for the miracles and the survivors.
I'm grateful for the heroes.
I'm grateful for the outpouring of support and volunteers and donations.
But yeah I'm still really sad and heartbroken for all the losses and the trauma endured by the survivors and responders.
This has been one of the hardest months ever. We're just a small town, everyone knows everybody, we're not used to being on the national news. We've never seen anything like this.
3 weeks later everyone's moved on to the next story. But Hunt, Ingram, and the Kerrville river area still looks like a warzone- just total annihilation. I drove past miles yesterday of piles of rubble that used to be houses and cars and RVs just piled into mangled masses of splinters and sticks along the road. It's going to take many months or years to clean up, and our hearts are going to carry scars forever.
We'll never forget July 4th, 2025 around these parts.
Please keep us in your prayers, and if you want to donate to Dusty or the Mountain Home Volunteer Fire Department let me know. We're trying to help them replace their trucks, ropes, and gear they lost. They're a small group of dedicated volunteers that don't have the resources or attention of the larger communities.
I'll post some links below to news stories, some pics, and donation info.
But please continue to keep Kerrville in your prayers. This is going to take awhile and our hearts are very much still hurting.
If y'all don't like Katy Perry
Don't try to interact with her
Don't listen to her music
Don't watch her videos
You have several options to skip, block or stay away from her.
If there are only 10 fans left,
those 10 fans will be there for her whatever she does.