JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The search for flood victims in Kerr County, Texas, drags on today. The cleanup will take months. But as NPR's Frank Morris reports, some residents are trying to look past all that toward rebuilding.
FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Like most people who lived through the early hours of July 4 in the path of the raging Guadalupe River near Hunt, Texas, Karen Taylor has a harrowing survival story. Floodwater blew down her back door and filled the house.
KAREN TAYLOR: I realized that I needed to try to get out. And so I grabbed the dog, and I just went under. I dove under and threw the dog on the roof. And so that's how I got out.
MORRIS: She had to leave her 95-year-old mother alone in the room. She couldn't open her mother's bedroom door because the water pressure was too great, but later found out that her mom's mattress served as a life raft.
TAYLOR: And her mattress floated up here...
MORRIS: Oh, yeah.
TAYLOR: ...And she was in that air pocket. And then after it was over, she floated right down. And I thought the whole time she was dead.
MORRIS: Amazingly, her mother survived - the dog, too. But Taylor's house and everything in it is ruined.
TAYLOR: It was a little disheartening yesterday watching them fill - take your stuff and putting it in the first dumpster (laughter). But it's nothing to cry about.
MORRIS: With lots of help from volunteers and hopefully enough money from insurance, Taylor is planning to rebuild right here. The nightmare flood hasn't slacked her love for the Texas Hill Country and her shady lot near the river.
TAYLOR: I love it here. I've made a life here, you know? And this is my community. And I feel like I'm back in the country. Look, it's gorgeous.
MORRIS: But the Guadalupe River is a mess of broken trees and mangled debris for miles and miles. You can see some of it from a park overlooking the river in Kerrville.
AUSTIN DIXON: We are looking at Louise Hays Park, which has been so badly damaged it's not recognizable at this point.
MORRIS: Austin Dixon runs the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country in Kerrville, which means he's raising money and doling it out as fast as possible to jump-start rebuilding along the river.
DIXON: It's hard to wrap your mind around the scope of what we have ahead. I'm at a loss for words. I see so many decades of investment of money and volunteer time.
MORRIS: The foundation's making headway. It already collected more than $30 million and disbursed 5 million to families, local businesses and first responders. The area also needs houses. Affordable housing was short here before the flood took out hundreds of homes and RVs along the river. Mary Campana, director of Habitat for Humanity in Kerr County, says about 400 families have been displaced.
MARY CAMPANA: So Habitat's been gathering our Habitat community, and we'll be out there doing repairs and rebuild as much as we can.
MORRIS: The scope of that effort will depend on donations and people willing to volunteer their time - two things that have been plentiful so far in this disaster. It's not clear how new guidelines might shape the rebuilding. Kerrville residents say they don't expect the city or the county to forbid building close to the river. For one thing, Texas state law severely limits zoning authority. And longtime Kerrville resident Rosario Munguia says being close to the river is important.
ROSARIO MUNGUIA: I don't know that anyone's ever going to stop building next to the river because that's the river. That's what we do (laughter). We want to be near the river.
MORRIS: Frank Morris, NPR News, Kerrville, Texas. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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