Terrifying firsthand account of a family’s experience of having their home ripped off its pillars by the Guadalupe river.
As we reassembled in the kitchen, the vinyl flooring under our feet started to bubble, and then water began to pool. My dad walked into his bedroom and saw the carpet floating off the floor. The river’s musty scent permeated the house, mixed with what smelled like freshly chopped wood. My sister sat Rosemary and Clay on the kitchen island countertop. We discussed whether we could get them higher, maybe even on top of the cabinets in the small space below the ceiling. Then the roof over the porch crashed down and we heard glass shatter in my father’s room, just off the kitchen.
Rosemary asked, “Why did the window break?”
Clay started to cry.
When the sliding-glass door opened and water poured in, Lance ran to it, shoved it closed, and held it shut. The pendant lamps began to swing wildly over the kitchen counter. The house was shifting. It lurched sharply, and we all struggled to stay on our feet. It felt like walking down the aisle of a plane during strong turbulence.
“We’re moving. We’re moving,” Patrick said. The realization was terrifying. The rushing, still-rising water had lifted the house off its pillars. It was afloat.
And then it wasn’t.