🌊 “We Held the Tree and Prayed”: One Family’s Terrifying Survival Story in the Texas Flash Flood Nightmare 🙏💔

“It’s flooding! It’s flooding! It’s flooding!” Bergmann remembers Erin Burgess, 42, shouting early in the morning on July 4.

Burgess had taken Bergmann, a friend of her daughter’s, into her home when he was a teenager.

Now 19, Bergmann considers her to be his mother.

Still sleepy, as Burgess was yelling “it’s flooding,” it didn’t occur to Bergmann that she was referring to the Guadalupe River just across the street.

“A flash flood warning is so common for (this area),” he says, referring to a forecast he had seen before going to bed.

But now that the river had broken through the glass doors at the back of the house, Bergmann was standing in the middle of rising water.

“We had a really big kitchen island with granite countertops,” he says.

“It flipped upside down.”

The water moved all of the appliances like “Jenga pieces.

” The refrigerator blocked the door of the bedroom that Burgess and her boyfriend shared, trapping her inside.

“She just sat there screaming for help but we couldn’t do anything because the water was so high,” he says.

Eventually Bergmann and the boyfriend were able to push the refrigerator out of the way.

Then a decision had to be made.

Bergmann thought the best plan was to get everyone in the house to the roof.

But he did not think Burgess could make it, and he was not going to leave her behind.

Before he could act, the river’s current carried the three of them and their dog across the backyard, and pushed them into a nearby tree.

(The family cat managed to climb onto a floating mattress.)

“That’s where she was bear-hugging the tree,” Bergmann says.

“I was just standing up with my broad shoulders trying to make sure that nothing swept her away because she was as tall as the flood water.”

Despite holding on, the strong current of the Guadalupe River eventually swept Burgess’ boyfriend as well as the family dog away.

He believed they were likely dead.

Bergmann and Burgess clung to the tree.

“I thought my mom was going to die in front of me,” Bergmann says.

It was pitch black.

Bergmann couldn’t see much.

“We could hear our neighbor and his kids and his mom screaming for help,” he recalls.

Bergmann says he and Burgess prayed.

After about an hour, the water receded.

It was now daylight.

Burgess’ boyfriend and the dog had landed on a roof about four or five houses away, and were safe.

All were

accounted for, even the cat.

“Nobody realized how many cuts we had on us until the next day,” he says.

“We were sore.

I realized I had so many microcuts all over my foot.”

Burgess had bruises all over her body.

But they had all survived.

“None of this sits right with me,” says Bergmann.

“None of this sits right with anybody who lives here at all.”

As the sun set over the quiet town of Llano, Texas, on what was supposed to be a normal summer evening, the Smith family—Jason, his wife Melissa, and their two young children—had no idea their lives were

about to be turned upside down in the most violent way imaginable.

A flash flood warning had been issued earlier in the day, but they, like many others, assumed it was just another false alarm.

Rain had been heavy, sure, but nothing that screamed catastrophe.

That illusion shattered in seconds when the creek behind their home turned into a violent river, swelling to ten times its normal size and crashing through fences, sheds, and eventually homes.

The Smiths had barely managed to get to their car when the water overtook the road.

Within moments, the SUV was lifted off the pavement and carried downstream like a paper boat.

Jason, behind the wheel, tried to steer, but the flood had its own agenda.

“We hit something hard and the car flipped onto its side,” he later recalled.

“That’s when I knew—we weren’t getting out of this in the car.”

In the chaos, windows shattered.

Water poured in from all sides.

Melissa clutched their 4-year-old son, Ethan, while Jason struggled to unbuckle their 7-year-old daughter, Lily, from the back seat.

With adrenaline pushing them beyond their limits, they managed to crawl out through a broken window just as the vehicle slammed into a tree and stopped.

That tree—sturdy, tall, and barely rooted—became their lifeline.

They climbed.

They screamed for help.

But there was no one.

The storm drowned out all sound.

In the pitch-black night, with water rising and debris slamming into the trunk below, the Smiths had only each other and their fading strength.

“We wrapped our arms and legs around that tree like our lives depended on it—because they did,” Melissa later said.

“I just kept praying out loud.

Over and over.

‘Please God, keep the tree standing.

Please don’t let go.”

Hours passed.

The wind howled.

Branches snapped.

At one point, a piece of roofing metal flew past just inches from Jason’s head.

The children were crying, cold, soaked to the bone.

Hypothermia was setting in.

And yet, miraculously, the tree held.

The family rotated positions, taking turns keeping the children elevated on the highest branch they could reach.

“I honestly didn’t think we were going to make it,” Jason admitted.

“I thought we were going to be found like that—just holding each other.”

Around dawn, as the rain began to slow and the floodwaters receded slightly, Melissa spotted a faint light in the distance—a search-and-rescue boat, navigating the remains of what used to be a residential street.

She screamed until her voice gave out, waving a piece of Lily’s pink jacket.

Against all odds, they were spotted.

Within fifteen minutes, a team of firefighters pulled them down from the tree, one by one.

The children were barely conscious.

Melissa had deep gashes in her legs.

Jason had dislocated his shoulder.

But they were alive.

First responders described the rescue as one of the most difficult and emotionally intense they’d ever experienced.

“We honestly weren’t expecting to find survivors in that area,” one firefighter said.

“We thought we were looking for bodies.

” The Smiths were taken to a nearby hospital in Austin where they were treated for exposure and minor injuries.

All four are expected to make a full recovery—but emotionally, the scars will linger forever.

The family’s home, meanwhile, was completely destroyed.

Everything they owned—furniture, photos, keepsakes—washed away in the night.

The SUV was found two miles downstream, partially buried in mud.

But despite losing nearly all their possessions, the Smiths say they’re grateful just to be breathing.

“That tree saved our lives,” Melissa said through tears.

“God sent us that tree.”