As floodwaters rushed in on the Fourth of July, most people did their best to get away from the Guadalupe River.
But a group of Kerrville Independent School District bus drivers did the exact opposite, putting themselves in potential danger to evacuate campers along the Guadalupe.
Many parents are calling the bus drivers heroes.
The bridge was damaged, and the water was still rushing, but Amanda Nicholson and other drivers from Kerrville ISD were determined to get to the children waiting ahead.
“Our family was in trouble, and we were able to help in the best way that we could,” Nicholson said.
On July 4, Nicholson, who has a commercial driver’s license to take her Tivy High School volleyball team to games, found herself behind the wheel in a rescue mission instead. She and other Kerrville ISD bus drivers were called in to help evacuate campers stranded along the Guadalupe River as floodwaters tore through Hill Country overnight.
“That’s all you needed for that day, is to be able to drive a bus. And so those of us that could just hopped on,” Nicholson said.
Her first stop was Camp La Junta, but drivers realized there were already enough buses to evacuate the campers. The buses were moving single file through the treacherous conditions.
Nicholson and a few other drivers were asked to continue into Hunt to evacuate campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, who were waiting at a local church. More than a dozen campers and counselors were swept away that morning.
“We picked up a bunch of the Mystic girls that they had [driven] in from camp,” Nicholson said. “All we knew is that we had a bunch of young girls holding each other’s hands waiting to get on our buses.”
Many of those girls were still in pajamas, some without shoes, clutching each other in fear.
“Some of them, I think might have been transported through from a helicopter. … They had nothing but each other,” Nicholson said. “That was a hard view in itself, that this happened while they were sleeping.”
As girls rode to safety in another bus, many of them began singing to calm each other, a moment captured in a now-viral video seen by millions around the world. But for Nicholson, the drive was somber.
“They were very anxious, looking out the window. They were ready to get out of the war zone,” she said.
The first stop was Ingram High School.
Nicholson says each girl had to be medically evaluated, processed, photographed and they were given a wristband. The final stop was the high school, where parents were waiting.
“It was extremely difficult to have some of those parents ask you, when everybody got off your bus, ‘Is that it?’ because they didn’t see their child,” Nicholson said. “That was really hard.”
When asked if she considers herself a hero, Nicholson shook her head.
“I think we just wanted to help,” she said. “Our first responders, anybody that was chest deep, the family members who saved their family, those are heroes, the counselors, the people that gave their lives to save these kids. I mean, those are your heroes.”
Kerrville ISD Director of Transportation Ken Noles, disagrees.
“They’re heroes,” Noles said of the drivers and coaches. He was on a cruise as floodwaters surged on July 4.
When he got back to Galveston, Noles says his phone was inundated with messages. He was surprised to see the extent of damage in Kerrville and along the Guadalupe River, but he wasn’t surprised to hear about how quickly his team jumped into action.
“Faster than I could possibly have imagined, we had buses on the road ready to rescue kids,” Noles said. In total, 10 district buses evacuated about 900 campers to safety.
Noles said he’ll have a new policy when those drivers return tin August.
“There’s a saying I’m going to ban from our department: ‘I’m just a bus driver,’ ” Noles said. “Every one of them — bus drivers, coaches, assistant superintendents — were more than just a bus driver that night. They were comforters, they were rescuers, and in my mind, they’re all heroes. They’ll never claim that title for themselves, but I’m telling you, every one of them is one of my heroes.”
At the bus barn, green bows now hang on a bulletin board next to each driver’s name.
Noles says the plan is for drivers to wear them when the school year begins as a tribute to those lost in the flooding and to honor the drivers who stepped up to help.
Nicholson says the community will never be the same after this tragedy, but they will get through it.
“The saying we use for our school district is TFND. Tivy Fight Never Dies. Tivy Faith Never Dies. It’s just something we’ve all learned and grown to live our life on. We leaned on each other, and nobody hesitated,” she said. “It didn’t matter if they were from the school district, if they lived in this area, it didn’t matter how old they were, how capable, what they had, everybody jumped in.
“And it was really amazing to see this community just pick each other up.”
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