Man recounts finding young boy’s body while searching for missing daughter amid devastating Texas floods
HUNT, TEXAS: A father searching for his missing adult daughter amid the Texas flood came face to face with a heartbreaking moment. Ty Badon, the father of 21-year-old Joyce Badon, revealed that during the search operation, he found the body of a child.
Speaking with CNN, Badon said, “My son and I were walking and I thought it was a mannequin. It was a little boy, 8 or 10 years old, and he was dead.”
Ty Badon hopes to find his daughter and her friends soon
“We were just walking, doing the same thing we were doing when we stumbled across him. Hopefully we can find our children, my daughter and her friends alive,” Badon added.
Joyce and her college friends, Ella Cahill, Aidan Heartfield, and Reese Manchaca, went missing after flooding struck the Texas Hill Country on Friday, July 4.
Badon further shared, “It’s been four o'clock yesterday morning that we were told that they were on the phone with Aidan's dad, who owns the house where they were.”
“Aidan said, 'Hey I've got to go, I've got to help Ella and Reese, they just got washed away,' and then a few seconds later the phone just went dead, and that's all we know,” he said, before adding, “We pray that all four of them are still alive.”
Ella Cahill’s sister asks people to help the missing
According to Cahill's sister, Mackenzie Hodulik, their last known location was near 1769 State Highway 39, across from Japonica Hills Road in Hunt.
On Facebook, she posted, “PLEASE HELP. My little sister, her boyfriend, and their two friends are missing due to flood. Last we heard from them was at 4 am.”
“They were trying to escape home to get to higher ground. Hunt, TX Near 1769 SH-39 across from Japonica Hills Rd,” Hodulik added.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that Hunt received over six inches of rain in just three hours on July 4, considered a “1-in-100-year event” and believed to be “more than an entire summer's worth of rain.”
Donald Trump plans to visit flood-hit Texas later this week
Besides, the flooding has taken the lives of at least 82 people in Central Texas, including 68 in Kerr County.
President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, “GOD BLESS ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE GONE THROUGH SO MUCH, AND GOD BLESS THE STATE OF TEXAS!”
He also told reporters in New Jersey, “We wanted to leave a little time. I would have done it today, but we’d just be in their way. Probably Friday.” The POTUS also claimed that the devastation was not due to earlier cuts to emergency services budgets.
“If you look at that water situation, that was really the (Joe) Biden setup, that was not our setup, but I wouldn’t blame Biden for it either. I would just say, this is a (one in a) hundred year catastrophe and it’s just so horrible to watch,” Trump asserted.
