final Friday, when floodwaters tore through central Texas, the final thing a father did came to light. It makes me sad and scared.
When the Guadalupe River rose quickly, it sent a wall of water pouring across everything in its path. Jeff Ramsey, 61, and his wife Tanya, 46, were resting in their Airstream trailer at the HTR RV Park in Kerrville.
Jeff picked up his phone to call his two kids, Jake and Rachel, just before the flood hit their trailer. He knew they probably wouldn’t pick up. He nevertheless left them a voicemail that they will never forget.
“Hey there, friend. I really love you. It looks like we won’t be able to achieve it. Jeff said in the sorrowful message, “Tell Rachey I love her.”
Jake told the New York Post that he had never heard his dad’s voice sound so scared before.
After a while, Jeff sent Rachel another message. There was a lot of water rushing with Tanya’s horrified screams in the background:
“We’re dying, we’re dying!”
That was the last time anyone heard from them.
A tragic failure to warn.
This story is even worse because of when it happened.
The RV park sent Jeff an evacuation alert after the flood had already carried them away. Jake said that Jeff got the message just as he was saying goodbye to Rachel, which was too late to do anything about it.
He was really upset about the timing.
Jeff couldn’t save himself or Tanya, but he used the last few minutes of his life to warn Tanya’s brother and mother, who lived in a cabin nearby.
His call woke them up just in time. Later, they saw that the cabin was completely destroyed.
Jake said, “He saved them because they would have slept in and washed away.” “He saved their lives.”
Later, search teams found Tanya’s body. People could tell who she was by her unusual tattoos. Jeff still isn’t here.
“She was also our mother.”
Tanya was more than just a stepmom; she was family.
Jake said, “We were her kids.”
“We obviously have a mom, but we were her kids.”
Tanya owned a wig store in Dallas and had beaten breast cancer. Jeff had been selling insurance for a long time and was also highly involved with the Adaptive Training Foundation, a gym in the Dallas area that assists people with physical difficulties, like amputees, grow stronger.
“This man has a deeper sense of service than most.” Thanks, brother, for always being there for me and for all the other people you helped at Adaptive Training Foundation over the past ten years. That last huge hug we had last week will always mean a lot to me.
“Don’t worry, my brother. “We will carry your name on with love and light,” Morris Brossette, one of Jeff’s friends, posted on Facebook.
Chloe is alive, which is a small miracle.
The family got some great news in the thick of all the anguish. The couple’s beloved whippet, Chloe, was recovered alive at a neighboring animal shelter. Years ago, they saved her.
Jake is still unhappy by the tragedy and thinks it was wrong that the authorities didn’t tell him about it. He believes that more could have been done to save lives.
During a memorial service, he talked to Texas State Sen. Tan Parker, who is claimed to have told him that the alarm system will be fixed.
For Jake, though, it was too little too late.
“The only thing I know that happened was that my dad got a text after it was too late.” He had said goodbye to my sister and myself.
As the water goes down and the town counts its losses, Jeff’s farewell letter to his kids is a sobering reminder of how quickly lives can change or be lost when nature gets angry.
We are thinking of and praying for everyone who has been hurt by this awful event. I’m thinking of the Ramsey family and everyone else that was hurt.