INGRAM, Texas – The tragedy in the Texas Hill Country has drawn the nation and the world’s attention.
On Sunday, Pope Leo XIV expressed his condolences in a post to X, formerly Twitter.
“I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters, who were at the summer camp, in the disaster caused by flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States,” Pope Leo XIV posted. “We pray for them.
The Hill Country also received an unexpected helping hand from Fundacion 911 Mexico, a search and rescue team from Mexico.
Ismael Aldaba, who was born and raised in San Antonio, works for the organization.
“We have a coordination with Equusearch, which is a horse search and rescue team,” Aldaba said. “We assisted them in Del Rio, Texas, last year for a U.S. citizen that overturned in his boat. We were there for days and helped them and we created a relationship with them. Just as the same as we are creating a relationship with the local departments like Mountain Home, which is our sponsoring fire department right now.”
Aldaba said 15 volunteers with Fundacion 911 Mexico are helping search teams in Kerr County.
“(We are) mainly searching within the water and the river banks,” Aldaba said. “Some of the removal process to try to find, obviously, cadavers. We’re trying to assist the local teams. They did one recovery today. That was helpful.”
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