Real Estate Photographer in Wimberley, TX

PHOENIX — The death toll is climbing, and many are still missing in the devastating floods in central Texas. In the heart of search and rescue efforts, one volunteer has lived this nightmare firsthand.

Jonathan McComb lost his entire family in the Wimberley flood of 2015.

Now McComb is opening up to ABC15 from central Texas, where he is putting his life at risk to save others, performing swift water rescues and taking part in search efforts.

He says anyone can train to respond to a natural disaster and help save lives.

On Memorial Day weekend of 2015, McComb was on vacation in Wimberley, Texas with his wife, Laura, and two little kids, Andrew and Leighton. They were staying at a vacation home along with five family friends.

McComb is the sole survivor of that group. Late on Saturday night of that weekend back in 2015, the Blanco River rose, and a wall of water swept the entire vacation home away.

This year, McComb marked the solemn ten-year anniversary by returning to Wimberley to honor his family, and spread the ashes of his faithful yellow lab Maggie, the only other one to survive that horrific night.

Seeing a similar, frantic scene play out almost exactly ten years later, makes McComb think of his family.

“Every second, every day,” he said.

McComb escaped the flood waters with several broken bones and a punctured lung.

“I can remember being, laying in the hospital bed myself, you know I said, when I get out, I'm going to be a part of this,” McComb remembers.

He helped with the search then, and he is doing it again now.

On another holiday weekend, with more than 80 dead and more missing due to the catastrophic flooding in central Texas, McComb set out to do what he personally vowed to do; rushing from his home in Corpus Christi up to Hill Country to help.

“You go through two different emotions, that's one, of heartache and pain and hurt, and suffering for the for the parents, for the individuals missing loved ones. And then on the other side, you know, you work your tail off, and you don't stop,” McComb said.

“I've said there's a time to cry, and it's not during the day,” he added. “Go home and do that at night. And get here and focus, and do what we can to help those that can't help themselves right now.”

After losing his family, McComb felt compelled to get certified in swift water rescues, training as a volunteer with Texas Search and Rescue, known as TEXSAR.

“There's a lot of work and effort and time into it, but anybody can do it if you put your mind to it,” McComb said. “Just reach out to local search and rescue organizations in your area, in your county, in your state.”

In Arizona, volunteers can train with Central Arizona Mountain Rescue Association, or CAMRA. The program is run by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. There are also other volunteer rescue groups across the state associated with other county sheriff’s offices.

CAMRA reports a dramatic increase in swiftwater rescues in Arizona, writing on its website: “This is in part due to the continued influx of new people who are unaware of the dangers presented by Arizona's flash floods.”

Captain Bobby Dubnow with the Phoenix Fire Department is one Special Operations professional who trains the volunteers new to these programs. He says they will also learn from the highly skilled volunteers they will be working alongside.

Much of the flash flood risk is in the state is in northern Arizona, Captain Dubnow says, where small creeks and tributaries can feed into a wall of water that creates the flash, with little warning to those nearby. In the Valley, he says dry river bottoms can pose a risk, especially for the unhoused population who may use those spots to live and sleep.

Yet, Captain Dubnow tells ABC15 that Arizonans are fortunate because there are fewer residential areas up against rivers, like there are in Texas’ so called “Flash Flood Alley.” In the early hours of Friday morning, the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in just 45 minutes, according to state officials.

“We're here to just have one common goal, and that's to get some closure for families,” McComb said about his work with TEXSAR.

Now remarried, with a young daughter, McComb leaves his family this week to help impacted friends, and strangers, search for missing loved ones.

Having lived through his own immeasurable loss, he also brings perspective.

“Rely on your faith, and lean on your friends, lean on your families and get through this,” McComb said. “Don't let the tragedy define you, but you define the tragedy, and how you deal with it, and how you come of it.”

McComb, taking his second chance at life, as an opportunity.

“I know I'm here for a reason,” he said. “And I'm here to help.”

The devastating floods in central Texas have left families and communities in urgent need of support. Scripps News and the Scripps Howard Fund are partnering to provide critical relief to those impacted. Every dollar donated here will go directly to helping victims recover.

This campaign is a Scripps News initiative in collaboration with the Scripps Howard Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization. Contributions to this campaign are tax deductible.

WIMBERLEY — One person is in custody following a June 27 fire that has been labeled as arson at Savage’s Hill Country Bar & Grill in Wimberley.

At approximately 5 a.m. on Friday, crews responded to a fire at 9595 Ranch Road 12, Wimberley.

Wimberley Fire Rescue, South Hays Fire Department, San Marcos Fire Department, Canyon Lake Fire Department, Hays County Fire Marshalls Office, Wimberley EMS responded to the scene.

Ultimately, the structure was destroyed in the fire.

According to the Hays County Fire Marshal’s Office, Aiden Dwyer, 24, of San Marcos was arrested, with the assistance of the Texas Rangers and the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, on a charge of arson Monday, June 30.

According to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, one person was also injured in the fire, although Wimberley Fire Rescue Interim Chief Christopher Robbins said there were no injured parties on location when fire and EMS units arrived.

This comes days before the business was set to close, according to a June 3 Facebook post: “With tears and a heavy heart, we are very sad to announce that Savage's Hill Country Bar & Grill will no longer be in business effective July 1st, 2025. We love you Wimberley, and we need you......We need you to come celebrate the life that is still in us throughout the month of June. It has been my great honor and pleasure to serve you! Thank you for helping my dream come true.....even if only for a short while!”

Acoording to Robbins, there have been no other reported damages to adjacent business. The investigation into the fire is still ongoing.

This is an ongoing story. The News-Dispatch will release additional information as it becomes available.

The American Journalism Historians Association Service Awards Committee selected Patrick Cox, Ph.D. as the 2025 recipient of the Sidney Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement, AJHA’s highest honor.

Cox is retired from the University of Texas at Austin where he was associate director of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History and taught at the UT Austin College of Journalism. He is a Distinguished Alum of Texas State University. Prior to his academic career, he was an award-winning journalist at The Wimberley View newspaper in Wimberley, Texas. Currently, he is the president of Patrick Cox Consultants, LLC.

He is the author and editor of 10 books, including The First Texas News Barons, Picturing Texas History and Ralph W. Yarborough – the People’s Senator. He was a finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy National Book Award, the Western Writer’s Association Book Award, the Texas Philosophical Society Book Award and many others. Cox has also served two terms on AJHA’s Board of Directors, was the association’s convention sites chair for 12 years, and has received two President’s Awards for Distinguished Service to AJHA.

“Dr. Cox has contributed so much to the field of media history and AJHA. His scholarly work, especially in the area of Texas history, is strong, and his work through the Briscoe Center at the University of Texas opened numerous doors for other scholars. We are delighted to celebrate such a wonderful career in Long Beach later this year,” said Willie Tubbs, chair of the selection committee.

First awarded in 1986, the Kobre Award recognizes individuals with an exemplary record of sustained achievement in journalism history through teaching, research, professional activities, or other contributions to the field of journalism history. Cox will receive the award at the AJHA’s 44th annual convention to be held Sept. 25-27 in Long Beach, California.

“I am very grateful and honored to be the AJHA Kobre Award for Lifetime Achievement recipient for 2025. We have a very distinguished group of recipients in the history of the Kobre Award, many of whom I had the pleasure to know and work with over the years,” said Cox. “As a journalist, historian, author, and active participant in AJHA since 1998 (going way back in the 20th century), I value all of the professional support, camaraderie, and lasting friendships I have made.”

Letters of support for Cox lauded his work as a storyteller and historian, as well as his years of service as AJHA’s convention sites chair.

“Patrick is a terrific, award-winning historian and a long-time supporter of AJHA, and I can think of no one more worthy of this award,” wrote Janice Hume of the University of Georgia. “When I think of Patrick, it’s “storyteller” that comes to mind. His history credentials are strong, his research methodology impeccable, and his productivity admirable, but he just knows how to weave good stories about politics, journalism and life in Texas. That storytelling trait spills over to his involvement with AJHA. He has been a wonderful colleague making many members, including new graduate students, feel welcome and a part of the AJHA community. That, too, is an important contribution to journalism history.”

May 18, 2025 — WIMBERLEY, Texas -- Droughts like the one we're in right now are usually broken by floods. In 2015, we had a very wet spring that resulted in one of the worst weather disasters in Central Texas, the deadly Wimberley Floods. CBS Austin Chief Meteorologist Chikage Windler was there after the flooding in 2015, and went back to the same spot a decade later.

It has been 10 years since "the historic Memorial Day weekend floods here in Wimberley. The Blanco River where I'm standing rose over 40 feet, a historic crest in just a matter of hours," says Windler.

"We could hear the cypress trees cracking and falling," recalls Natalie Meeks, owner of The Waters Point, a wedding venue along the Blanco River in Wimberley.

What started as a fun holiday weekend went terribly wrong.

"So we actually had a big group together congregating to watch the river rise, and then our phones just started going off, getting notifications that this wasn't a normal rise. So it kind of went from like a big celebration that evening to all of a sudden just sheer panic," says Meeks.

Back then, The Waters Point was known as the Rio Bonito Resort.

"Part of the panic was that we didn't know if we could get to high enough ground. The river was coming up so far and so unexpected. This property's been in the family for a century. The river had never even been to the doorsteps of the cabins. The cabins were now submerged ten feet deep."

No one knew that 10 to 13 inches of rain had fallen upriver in Blanco and Kendall County.

"We had about 75 to 100 people staying in our cabins, and we were able to evacuate them to safety," says Meeks.

The wall of water destroyed the Fischer Store Bridge upstream, and the dangerous, debris-filled waters showed no mercy. There was no nearby upstream river gauge to warn of what was coming.

"The cabins, we lost, I want to say 15 structures in the flood, and just the monumental cleanup effort that we knew had to begin," explains Meeks. "We just didn't even know where to start. There was so much debris, so much mud, and it was overwhelming."

While everyone was safe at Rio Bonito, at least 11 others perished in the floods, including 8 people whose vacation home washed into the river and later crashed into the Ranch Road 12 bridge.

"There's almost no words to describe the destruction," says Michele Woods, the Director of Tourism for the City of Wimberley. She also owns a local coffee shop on The Square.

"Yeah, still a little bit of anxiety with big rainstorms around town is not uncommon, but a lot of lessons learned," says Woods.

Thousands of volunteers helped clean up after 350 homes were damaged or destroyed, and 15-thousand trees were lost.

"You know, you look around and see a lot of homes that were rebuilt up on stilts or further back from the water," says Woods.

And the bridge that was destroyed is one of several now with flood gauges to provide early warning.

"There's new alert technology, and then when they rebuilt the Fischer store Bridge which was the one that backed up. They rebuilt that in a way in which it won't flood again," explains Woods.

Meeks says that is reassuring.

"I do feel better about the next flood. I monitor, I believe they have a river gauge at the bridge here at Range Road 12, and so I monitor that one anytime it rains," Meeks adds.

There's more good news.

"We are just now breaking ground on our last cabin to remodel after the flood. So it's taken us a decade, and we're finally at the finish line," Meeks says.

"I try to rationalize it and tell myself the odds, the possibility of it happening again are so, so slim. But once you see it happen, you know it's possible," she adds.

Meeks says she'll never forget the devastation.

"Those beautiful cypress trees just looked like toothpicks. It was devastating. River Road is just, you know, it's hard for me to sometimes to still drive down because it's such a reminder. I believe we lost here 75 cypress trees on our property."

Meeks says she pays much closer attention to the weather now. "I used to love thunderstorms and now they give me a bit of anxiety."

The city held a memorial concert and fundraiser on Saturday, May 24th, 2025, exactly 10 years after the deadly floods.

Woods says the concert was "to honor the people that lost their lives and then also to honor the heroes, the everyday heroes and the heroes in uniform that all stepped in to drop whatever they were doing and help out neighbors and friends."

Their goal is to keep "Wimberley Strong" and prepared for the next flood.

Hays Informed offers ways to get emergency alerts for Hays County, including Wimberley: https://www.haysinformed.com/alerts

This story aired on Sunday, May 18th, 2025.

At its June board meeting, Trinity Edwards Springs Protection Association founder and president Jim Blackburn stepped down from his executive position. Wimberley resident, Andrew Weber, attorney and TESPA board member, was unanimously elected to take the top leadership role.

“I’m very pleased to be handing over the reins at TESPA to Andrew Weber,” said Blackburn. “I’ve been the organization’s president since our beginning ten years ago, and it’s time for a change. Andrew will be an excellent leader in this challenging time of drought, water grabs and bad actors. He’s smart, competent and shares our conviction that the future of our region is dependent upon protecting our groundwater.”

As he stepped into the role of board head, Weber said, “We are all grateful to Jim for his leadership in creating and guiding TESPA in its first decade. As we continue to litigate unflinchingly for the water we need to sustain life and economy, we look forward to working on legislative solutions and collaborating with others locally, regionally and statewide. We are here to protect and defend this most fundamental resource.”

According to the TESPA press release, “TESPA was founded as a legal watchdog for local groundwater, and over the last decade the non-profit organization has achieved some important milestones through litigation and public engagement. Electro Purification was defeated and ultimately walked away from its plan to pump and sell huge volumes of Trinity groundwater in the middle of Hays County.”

“TESPA again protected groundwater for locals and filed suit against Kinder Morgan when its pipeline construction moved through the area and muddied the waters of local landowners’ wells. Currently TESPA is involved in several actions against Aqua Texas for over pumping and excessive line leaks. Further, the group is working to ensure local quarries don’t pollute groundwater and destroy sensitive habitat.”

Blackburn will continue to serve on the board of TESPA and lend his legal skills to litigation strategies against threats to local water resources. Blackburn promised, “I will continue to the best of my abilities to protect our groundwater and springs which are the lifeblood of Wimberley Valley and the Hill Country in general.”

The press release went on to say, “Most other non-profit groups working for resource protection in the region do not litigate or take legal actions. This important niche and often the best deterrent sits primarily on the shoulders of TESPA who stands ready to file lawsuits, go to court, and use the law to fight for the resources of our communities. ‘Often that is the only effective way to protect what is of utmost importance to all of us living here,” said Blackburn and signed off with, ‘I urge you all to support Andrew and TESPA as we move forward. I know I will.’” TESPA is a non-profit organization with a mission to protect the Trinity and Edwards aquifers from over pumping, the springs that flow from this interconnected system, and the property rights of landowners who depend on and wish to conserve this precious natural resource. For more information, visit TESPAtexas.org.