Feature Story Notes

1. What drew you to Wimberley and when?
"I married a woman who lived in Wimberley, and came up here in 1989, and we got divorced, and after that another woman showed up, and I ended up living in Wimberley over and over again. Its beautiful, I love living here."


2. What did you hear about flooding when you first moved to Wimberley?
"No I never thought of that, in 1997 there was the first flood I learned about and it killed tons people and cariied away a lot of propety, my wife Linda and I decided to do a benefit for it, we got a lot of musicians to come and play we made $25,000 and then the next year there was another flood and then we had another benefit. I live right on the creek, so I get to see a lot of floods but they never got into my house until the recent ones."

3. What were you doing when the house first began flooding?
"We were sound asleep, Linda woke me up and said "Is there someone in the house?" I didnt hear anyone in the house but I heard something on the porch, It was the swing beneath the porch, the water was knocking it into the post againt the house. I said it was nothing bad. Linda went out onto the deck and she saw how high the water was. I looked again and the water was just about to go over the deck where we were standing. We ran out the door and jumped in the car. We went to our Resturaunt. The water was up half a foot or so. The water was all over the bottum floor. It ruined all of our memories, photographs and such. At one oclock in the morning we were running. We went to go spend the night at Lindas cousins house, which was on the creek and I could hear the creek roaring because I couldnt sleep. We decided to go and then went back to the house and grabbed some important stuff. The water was half way up my calf. The next day so many of my friends homes had been washed away. My home was severely damaged."

4. If you had time, what did you grab from your home?
"Just what I had on me, we didnt have much time to get out. "

5. What was going through your head when the flooding first began?
"I just thought that we needed to get out. "

6. How much time did you have to get out?

"We barely had any time to get out, we just had to run out to our car and start driving. "

7. How high would you say the water was?
"Some parts were worse than others, at the creek it was all the way up to the porch which is around thirty feet. It was about a foot and a half on the road."

8. Did you know any of the people who went missing after the floods?
"No, but there were a lot of sad stories."


9. What did your house look like after the flood?
"It was destroyed, there was trash everywhere, and photos and our memories."

10. What help did you get to clean up afterwards?
"It was amazing right away, when we got up in the morning, Lindas dads house was worse it was full on antiques and the water was five six feet, so we were there cleaning up, but we went back and forth. Four or five groups of our friends came to our house to help clean up, we were pretty much in shock. We had to tear up half of our house, our friends carried loads and loads of stuff. All of the wonderful people were climbing up our stairs with bags and boxes and carts. My son was carrying trunks over his head. Even months after that disaster groups from all over the country came to help the clean up. They were wonderful. We just wanted support. There were these places to give away food and cleaning services. You could stop at places and get food. Our resturaunt gave away free food for flood victims. The government was helpful as well. People would come up to me and press a hundred dollars in my hand, five hundred dollars, even thousands. We are using it right now, rebuilding as we go. We had some really great people, they gave us their house to live in at a week at a time while they were out of town. Some people gave us their house for the whole summer. Thats the kind we had, lots and lots of help. "

11. How do you think the community will come back after the recent natural disasters?
"There were a lot of people who lost their homes, but after it all got quieter, all the groups started leaving and we settled in. Builders were booked up for a year in advance. The local businesses did well, like carpenters. It was good for the economy that way. Our resturaunt did very well, because people kept coming for food. Many bed and breakfast's lost some business. Over all everyone kept hopeful. The catchphrase that came out of it was 'Wimberley Strong'. It was really quite amazing."

12. Would you ever consider moving? Why or why not?
"Yes we did, consider moving away. But economically its hard to move away. We couldnt rent a place for as cheap as we pay now. And besides its a beautiful place, with a waterfall outside the window why would you want to move anywhere else. I have a river in my front yard and a creek in my backyard. It's gorgeous."

13. Was this the first time flooding this severe has occurred?
"No there had been floods before, but never as bad as this one. It was pretty awful, but everyone kept hopeful and it was just amazing."


14. How long were you displaced from your home?
15. How did the community react to the flood?
 Answered in question 11.
16. Did you ever think something like this would happen again?17. What is your plan if it were ever to flood again?
18. How was the town affected by the flooding?
Answered in question 11.
19. How long has it been since you've seen flooding similar to the two recent floods?

I didn't get to some of the questions, because we were short on time so I asked some of the more important questions.


Supporting Story Notes

Supporting interview #1: James Ash (Jimmy's son)

How did you help out after the flooding happened?
"I helped him move his furniture out of the flooded rooms, repair the damge, and move out of the flooded house."

If you were in the same situation, how would you react?
"I wouldve been really scared and been in a big hurry to get my family out of there."

What do you think the community is going to do about the reoccurring floods?
"Work together and be more prepared when it happens again, theyve come together in a big way to help the people effected in the last flood."

Can you describe what the flooding looked like?
"There was just trees everywhere and studff from peoples houses scattered to and fro; just generally chaos."

If this happens again, will you encourage Jimmy to move out? Why or why not?
"I've already encouredged him to move out. Its nice living on the river, but I dont know if it is worth it anymore."

How do you think that people have been reacting to flooding?
"People who were flooded were shocked and in recovery mode, the rest of the community was right there to help in any way posible.."

Have you been in a similar situation to this? If so explain it.
"Ive been in floods before and had to evacuate, but ive never seen destruction like what happened in this last flood."

How would you describe Jimmy?"He is a very happy person, he likes helping other people."