
Grieving daughter says mother’s death in flood was avoidable
Clip: 7/11/2025 | 10m 32sVideo has Closed Captions
Grieving daughter says mother’s death in Texas flood was avoidable
Thousands of responders from multiple states and Mexico spent another day scouring river banks in central Texas in search of flood victims. No new survivors have been found this week and families are coping with enormous losses. Special correspondent Christopher Booker reports on the devastation some are dealing with well outside of Kerr County.
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Grieving daughter says mother’s death in flood was avoidable
Clip: 7/11/2025 | 10m 32sVideo has Closed Captions
Thousands of responders from multiple states and Mexico spent another day scouring river banks in central Texas in search of flood victims. No new survivors have been found this week and families are coping with enormous losses. Special correspondent Christopher Booker reports on the devastation some are dealing with well outside of Kerr County.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipThousands of responders from multiple states and from Mexico spent another day scouring riverbanks in search of victims.
No new survivors have been found this week.
In the meantime, families and friends are coping with enormous losses.
Special correspondent Christopher Booker has a report on the devastation some are dealing with well outside of Kerr County.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: For Deliah Greenslet, both the reality and the horror of this week is still coming into focus as she sorts through the recovered belongings of her mother, 64-year-old Sherry Richardson.
DELIAH GREENSLET, Daughter of Flood Victim: What could I have done?
What more should I have done to tell her I loved her that week or have spent more time with her?
Everything that you -- everything you can think of is where my mind has gone.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: On Saturday, a day after the floodwaters ripped through Central Texas, Greenslet began her day as she often did, by calling her mom.
DELIAH GREENSLET: I was just going to talk to her about, oh, my God, those poor families, oh, my God, those poor kids, and then I couldn't get ahold of her.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: But you had no idea that there had been floods there.
DELIAH GREENSLET: No, no clue.
Greenslet assumed her mom was safe.
She lived with her beloved Yorkies Omi (ph) about 45 minutes outside of Austin, Texas... WOMAN: No, you can't have this.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: ... and an hour-and-a-half away from the worst flooding in Kerr County.
But what she didn't know was that floodwaters had swept away her mom's home early that morning, not long after she frantically called 911.
DELIAH GREENSLET: It sounded like he could tell my mom was getting very afraid.
He said that she was saying the water was starting to come up the stairs.
And then he told us that the house had taken on 30 feet of water.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Richardson is one of more than 120 confirmed deaths, a woman that her daughter remembers as a creative force.
DELIAH GREENSLET: So this is a fairy tale blanket.
She made blankets for just about everybody that she cared about in her life.
She'd even made my daughter a wedding gift in advance because my daughter's 8 and she was 64, and she knew that she may not be there for her when that day comes.
DAVE GOULD, Executive Director, Hope House: It's the first time I have been back here.
It just brings it home in a different way.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: This is what remains of Sherry Richardson's home.
Dave Gould was her boss at Hope House, a nonprofit that provides round-the-clock support for adults and children with profound disabilities.
Richardson lived on the property, working as an office manager for more than three years.
Gould says she was like a mom to the entire team.
DAVE GOULD: When Sherry came on, she was -- she needed a place to live.
And she was such a find that we're like, OK, let's get you in here.
This is something that we can help with rent and make sure that you're close.
I had no idea.
But at the end of the day, it's my responsibility to make it right.
And I don't know how we're going to do that.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Gould also remains worried about the 13 nonverbal kids who lived just 50 yards away on the property and were under the care of two overnight staff members who Gould was in touch with that night.
DAVE GOULD: And as water started to rise, we kind of moved from one wet room to the driest room, to the driest room.
And our kids don't understand what's happening.
But what they get is that we're scared.
And then they're scared.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: With bridges flooded out, several of the children were evacuated by helicopter.
DAVE GOULD: Seeing those guys carrying my kids off of that helicopter, at the same time, just so heart-fulfilling that these heroes are taking care of us and so terrifying that that's what it needed.
And they were there.
TINA GOULD, Treatment Director, Hope House: That's dry.
I thank God that's our CPR stuff.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Gould's wife, Tina, is the treatment director at Hope House.
She says it's hard to know how the kids are doing today.
TINA GOULD: You don't know the trauma that they went through because they're not going to be able to tell you the trauma that they went through.
Some of them got a helicopter ride.
There's no telling how they processed that.
Some of them probably were processing what the staff were feeling, you know, like, they're scared too.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: This week, a small army of volunteers has helped clean up Hope House.
How difficult do you think it will be to kind of get back to normalcy?
TINA GOULD: It'll take some time for us to process everything, like Sherry's death and how scared everybody was.
But I think once the kids get back here, it'll be -- everything will fall into place.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Dave and Tina Gould believe they will be able to reopen their doors soon and welcome children back to their home at Hope House.
But 80 miles southwest of here in Kerr County, an area that was hit particularly hard, is a different story entirely.
TONY DICKEY, United Cajun Navy Chaplain: Probably Saturday would be a good day, I would think.
These families are living minute by minute, and last night that minute came to one of our families, that they had recovered two of their four missing family members.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Chaplain Tony Dickey and Amanda Nixon are part of the United Cajun Navy.
You will often find them at mass casualty events around the nation meeting with grieving families.
AMANDA NIXON, United Cajun Navy: I think a lot of people don't know how to sit in other people's pain, and if I can sit in somebody else's pain with them, then I can help them begin to navigate it.
TONY DICKEY: We're there to hold them.
We're there to cry with them, as a parent, talking to them, letting them know that you will never, ever get over the pain of losing this child.
People talk about, well, we want to give them closure.
There is no closure.
You lose that loved one, you learn to live with the pain of that loss.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: And Dickey and Nixon say that the trauma from these events will linger, not only for families, but for the first responders.
TONY DICKEY: Put yourself in their shoes, going down this riverbank, in a debris pile.
You pull a limb back.
There's the child that you just discovered, and you're going to be recovering that child's remains there.
And it's a community trauma, traumatic event that just rips at everybody's heart, knowing that there's this many fatalities here.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Back at Hope House, Dave Gould is only beginning to process all that's been lost.
Was there any way to prepare for something like this?
DAVE GOULD: I have honestly not had time to contemplate the wood-haves at this point.
I have divided things up.
We have two projects going.
We have get the kids safely back in the house, and hen everything else.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Yes.
DAVE GOULD: So we're focused on project one right now.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: But Deliah Greenslet says her mom should have been warned, especially 24 hours after the devastation in Kerr County.
DELIAH GREENSLET: I go through a range of emotions on a day-to-day basis.
It goes from waking up crying to -- because I know my mom's not here, to I have to be strong.
It was devastating.
It took my mom's life away, and it just could have been prevented.
And there's no way that we didn't know that that much rain was going to come in that area.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Deliah Greenslet: says she's speaking out because it's become her mission to make sure other families won't have to go through what she's just gone through -- Amna.
AMNA NAWAZ: Christopher, such a powerful report.
I do want to follow up on something you mentioned.
Sherry Richardson, the woman you profiled there, you said she died 24 hours after the flooding in Kerr County.
Are we to understand that there were no other warning systems for people in other parts of the state?
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: You know, it's safe to assume that Sherry Richardson had certainly heard about what had happened in nearby Kerr County.
And when she went to bed, she wasn't worried about the small creek in front of her cabin.
The cabin itself sits about 70 feet above where the creek is and the creek is not connected to any major body of water.
Dave Gould told us that the flooding was the result of just the continuous rain that came after the flooding in Kerr County.
Sherry was one of three people who died in her county.
And her daughter, while is in the middle of the nuances and complicated feelings that come with grief, she's angry.
She said that if she knew that such flooding was possible, she would have picked up her mom on Friday and brought her to come stay with her in Austin.
AMNA NAWAZ: Meanwhile, Christopher, you and the team have been on the ground in Texas all week.
Just reflect for us, if you will, on what you have seen over that time and the people you have talked to.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Yes, this has been a week of extreme contradiction, a week of darkness and light, immeasurable loss alongside scores of volunteers helping strangers try to work through that loss.
We have watched as hundreds of people have walked up and down the debris fields, cooked meals and helped people clean out their homes.
This is the light.
But the darkness is getting a lot more complicated as the questions continue to grow about just how this happened.
Why wasn't there a siren system on the river?
Why were cabins built and R.V.s parked in a floodplain?
This weather didn't come out of nowhere.
When hurricanes come, residents are given ample time to get out of the way.
And why, 24 hours after this historical flooding, wasn't Sherry Richardson and the kids of Hope House told they need to move to higher ground?
It's clear that the local residents will continue to be able to help one another.
You can see in the memorial behind me a small sliver of the outpouring of love.
But just who in power will have the bravery to try to answer those complicated questions and find solutions is unclear.
AMNA NAWAZ: That is special correspondent Christopher Booker reporting once again from Kerrville, Texas, for us.
Christopher, thank you to you and the team.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Thank you.
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