As historic flash floods swept through Central Texas over the July 4 weekend, helicopters from dozens of local, state, and federal agencies rushed to the skies. But in those early hours, communication was fragmented. With no centralized air-to-air or air-to-ground frequency, aircrews flew overlapping missions under heavy weather, low visibility, and mounting urgency — relying on instinct, training, and visual signals to reach those in distress.
“There was no clearly established ICS [incident command system],” Brandon Rose, assistant commander and chief aircraft pilot for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), told Vertical Valor. “Early responding agencies such as TPWD and the Texas Department of Public Safety were searching for rescues without a common air-to-air or air-to-ground frequency.”
That chaos quickly gave way to structure. A Joint Air to Ground Coordination Team formed in Kerrville, distributing very high frequency (VHF) channels and assigning aircrews to specific sections along the Guadalupe River. It was a turning point — not just for safety, but for operational effectiveness.
“After preliminary rescues, evacuations, and victim recoveries were made, there was a lot of clear tasking by aircraft units to search various areas and sections of the river,” Rose said. He credited Texas’s annual multi-agency SAREX exercise with strengthening interagency coordination and preparing responders to adapt quickly in real-world emergencies. “That training has helped immensely in preparation for disasters like this one.”
What began as a patchwork response evolved into a layered, high-tempo operation — with helicopters from the U.S. Coast Guard, National Guard, TPWD, Texas DPS, Travis County STAR Flight, and others searching for the missing, extracting the stranded, and delivering aid.
Camp Mystic: A defining mission
In the early morning hours of July 4, torrential rains pummeled Texas Hill Country — a steep, rocky region known as “flash flood alley.” Fueled by the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry, nearly a foot of rain fell in just a few hours, overwhelming the parched ground and surging into creeks and rivers.
The Guadalupe River, normally a popular tubing and camping destination, rose more than 26 feet (eight meters) in under an hour. What had been a tranquil holiday weekend turned catastrophic in minutes.
Campgrounds and trailer parks were swept away. Roads disappeared, and families were either carried downstream or forced to seek refuge on rooftops and in trees. The flood resulted in a significant loss of life, with many people still unaccounted for in the days that followed. Among the confirmed dead were 27 campers and staff from Camp Mystic — making it one of the deadliest flood events for children in U.S. history.
Entire communities were cut off as the river swallowed roads and bridges, leaving helicopters as the only way in — and the only way out. One of the most high-profile rescue efforts unfolded at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp for girls in Kerr County.
As the river overtook the property, nearly 200 campers and staff found themselves stranded — frightened, soaked, and isolated. Roads leading in were underwater, boats couldn’t reach the site, and air support became the only option.
The response that followed was a model of interagency coordination — with helicopters from the Coast Guard, TPWD, National Guard, and others working in unison.
Among the responders was a U.S. Coast Guard MH-65E Dolphin crew from Air Station Corpus Christi, including pilot Lt. Ian Hooper, co-pilot Lt. Blair Ogujiofor, flight mechanic Petty Officer Seth Reeves, and rescue swimmer Petty Officer Scott Ruskan.
What was expected to be a one-hour flight turned into a harrowing seven- to eight-hour ordeal, as severe storms forced the crew to divert, delay, and navigate around dangerous weather. When they finally touched down at Camp Mystic, they made the call to leave one of their own behind to help on the ground. Ruskan, just six months out of training, stepped into the center of the operation.
Finding himself as the only first responder immediately on scene, with others still en route or staged farther away, Ruskan was surrounded by nearly 200 terrified campers. He began triaging and coordinating efforts on the ground, working alongside Army National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk crews and Task Force 1 swimmers to establish landing zones and load children, 10 to 15 at a time, onto helicopters bound for safer ground.
“The real heroes were the kids on the ground,” Ruskan later told media. “They were dealing with some of the worst times of their lives and they were staying strong — and that kind of inspired me.”
In total, 165 people were evacuated from Camp Mystic. Hooper, the aircraft commander, later reflected on the emotional weight of the mission.
“I’m a father of two daughters — both younger than five years old,” he told media. When he saw the young girls being brought into the helicopter, some possibly having just lost sisters or close friends, the weight of the moment hit hard.
“One of them, I looked back at her and she’s got tears running down her eyes,” he recalled. “At that moment, I knew I was not only being a pilot, but I was being a dad, and we were going to bring these girls to safety no matter what.”
For their courage and coordination under pressure, Hooper and Ruskan were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by the Department of Homeland Security — an honor presented for heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight. Their crewmates, Ogujiofor and Reeves, each received the Air Medal for their actions during the mission.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Omar Alba, an aviation survival technician from Air Station Houston, was also recognized — along with his team — with the Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendation. The honor was awarded for a separate mission in which Alba hoisted multiple survivors and helped evacuate 230 flood victims.
Courage in the current
The Coast Guard’s heroic actions were just one part of the broader aerial response. Elsewhere along the Guadalupe, Texas Game Wardens from TPWD were conducting daring hoist rescues of their own — often in the harshest weather and most remote locations.
Deploying two Airbus H125 helicopters equipped with rescue hoists, thermal imagers, and night vision systems, their crews wasted no time diving into the heart of the flood zone. TPWD was among the earliest responders in Kerr County, hoisting victims from treetops and pulling people from the fast-moving Guadalupe River.
“Our first flight crew consisted of Lt. Robert Mitchell as pilot, Sgt. Brent Biggs as hoist crew chief, and Game Warden Jacob Crumpton as rescue swimmer,” TPWD’s Brandon Rose told Vertical Valor.
Rose himself piloted the second helicopter, joined by Lt. Tyler Stoikes as hoist crew chief, Game Warden Michael Serbanic as rescue swimmer, and Sgt. Doug White as crew chief in training.
Throughout the response, TPWD helicopters carried out search and recovery missions, emergency medical transports, and critical extractions — often in dense fog, driving rain, and darkness.
“The greatest challenges were poor weather and limited visibility, especially on July 4th and 5th,” Rose said. In some cases, deteriorating conditions delayed aircraft from reaching affected areas during the height of the flooding.
In addition to dozens of hoist rescues, TPWD crews evacuated 52 girls from Camp Mystic. One early mission that stayed with Rose unfolded when a Kerr County deputy flagged down the helicopter from the riverbank, urgently pointing the crew toward two people in distress — a man clinging to a tree limb in the current and a woman stranded atop a cypress tree near a 75-foot cliff.
“The winds were rough, there was a 75-foot cliff beside the tree, and the canopy was thick,” Rose recalled. With visibility so limited that the crew chief could barely see hand signals, the rescue swimmer was lowered to reach both victims. After securing them, he gave the signal, and the crew hoisted them to safety. Once back on the ground with the deputy, “she immediately collapsed in relief,” Rose said.
Despite the helicopter’s array of high-tech tools, Rose said the most critical asset wasn’t the equipment — it was the crew. “The biggest tool to effective rescues in these conditions was an effective hoist flight crew,” he said. “A pilot, a crew chief, and a rescue swimmer — all well-trained and working in sync.” In the chaos of fast-moving water, thick canopies, and near-zero visibility, it was that tight coordination and shared skillset that ultimately saved lives.
Strength in numbers
As Texas Game Wardens carried out critical rescues along flood-swollen riverbanks, other agencies were scaling up their own aerial responses. As the response ramped up, the State of Texas deployed thousands of personnel and more than a thousand vehicles and equipment assets to support flood relief operations.
The Texas Army and Air National Guard launched a massive joint operation, rescuing more than 525 people by July 8. Of those, 366 were airlifted aboard UH-60 Black Hawks, while another 159 were rescued by ground crews. The Guard’s helicopter fleet brought both power and precision to the mission, enabling teams to deliver supplies, transport personnel, and carry out long-range rescues in difficult terrain.
The UH-60 Black Hawks proved especially valuable thanks to their onboard hoist systems and infrared imaging capabilities, which allowed crews to operate in darkness and poor visibility. Many rescues occurred in heavily wooded areas or at night, when rising floodwaters had made ground access impossible. In those moments, aircrews relied on sensors, spotlights, and teamwork to locate and extract survivors.
The Texas Air National Guard wasn’t alone in the sky. Mutual aid poured in from across the country, with aircraft, personnel, and equipment arriving from more than a dozen states. Among them was the Arkansas National Guard, which deployed four UH-60 Black Hawks through a formal Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) request.
“Our hearts go out to those affected in Texas … We want to support however we can,” stated Brig. Gen. Chad Bridges, Arkansas’ adjutant general. The team’s deployment was planned with flexibility in mind to adapt to the rapidly evolving situation on the ground.
Meanwhile, Texas DPS Aircraft Operations crews also carried out numerous high-risk rescues at the height of the storm.
“Our first responders have shown remarkable strength and determination,” said Col. Freeman F. Martin of Texas DPS in a public statement. “Their combined work, day after day, speaks volumes about the spirit of Texans.”
As the response expanded, DPS Special Operations Group partnered with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to provide continued aerial surveillance over flood-impacted areas in Kerr County. Some CBP aircraft even flew with detection K-9s onboard — a unique pairing of aerial reconnaissance and scent-tracking capability to help locate the missing.
While DPS aircraft scanned the skies, personnel on the ground were equally engaged — conducting riverbank searches, clearing debris, coordinating traffic, and staffing communications centers in support of a unified command.
At the same time, Travis County’s STAR Flight provided broad support throughout the flood response — from urgent hoist rescues and aerial searches to critical supply missions. The agency operates Leonardo AW169 helicopters, twin-engine aircraft equipped for advanced medical care, swift water rescues, and technical extractions in difficult terrain.
STAR Flight crews are trained for complex environments — whether hoisting patients from flood zones, navigating cliffs and dense canopies, or stabilizing patients for transport. With advanced medical gear onboard, crews can initiate care in the field and continue lifesaving treatment in flight.
“Since before dawn Friday [July 4] morning, STAR Flight teams have been working side by side with all of our partner agencies across all of Central Texas in this historic response,” the agency shared in a Facebook post.
In addition to flight operations, STAR Flight also embedded leadership in local and state command centers to ensure seamless coordination throughout the multi-agency effort, helping integrate their helicopters into the broader emergency response.
Coping, reflection, and readiness
The emotional toll on responders has been significant. Both Ruskan and Hooper spoke openly to media about the weight of rescuing children and witnessing tragedy firsthand. For many teams, including those from TPWD, debriefings and peer conversations became essential in processing the intensity of what they’d experienced.
“Talking it out has helped relieve some of the mental toll,” TPWD’s Brandon Rose told Vertical Valor.
Looking ahead, Rose emphasized the need for stronger pre-staging protocols, particularly the ability to reposition aircraft ahead of forecasted flood events. But doing so, he noted, would require greater investment in infrastructure, including hangar space capable of protecting helicopters from hail and high winds. Continued, realistic training will also be critical, he said, to improve performance under pressure.
As floodwaters recede and the focus shifts to recovery and readiness, the response in Texas has underscored the importance of interagency coordination, training, and adaptability. When the margins for error were razor thin, it was well-prepared crews and cohesive operations that made the difference — and those lessons will shape the next response.
