EXCLUSIVE Volunteer firefighter's heartbreaking call as he vanished into the Texas floods... while his wife survived by clinging to a tree
The couple was startled awake around 5am by a thundering crash. Brad, 49, and Tina, 52, got up to investigate and discovered their RV was being swept away by rapidly rising, knee-deep floodwaters, a source close to the family told DailyMail.com.
In a desperate scramble, the pair climbed onto the back of a pickup truck and tried to hoist themselves up a nearby tree. However, while Brad was able to claw himself to temporary safety, Tina got caught in the rapids and vanished downstream.
Brad briefly spoke with the couple's youngest son on the phone, informing him through labored breath that he was up a tree and his mom was 'gone.' He quickly hung up and hasn't been seen or heard from since.
Remarkably, Tina would be rescued just over a half-mile from the RV park at around 6.30am on Friday after a local woman heard her calling for help 15 feet up a tree downstream, according to local reports.
As of Monday night, Brad is among roughly 41 people who are still unaccounted for since the floods began. At least 94 people have so far been confirmed dead, including 27 campers and counselors at the all-girls summer school Camp Mystic.
Now, loved ones are clinging to the hope that Brad, a tough and resourceful former volunteer firefighter, will pull off a miracle of his own - just like Tina.
Brad Perry was formerly a volunteer firefighter in League City. 'If anyone could survive something like this, it's Brad,' said a source close to the family
'We're staying hopeful. We wouldn't be here if we weren't,' a source said.
'If anyone could survive something like this, it's Brad - he's smart, he's athletic, and he's tough,' continued the source, adding that in his free time, Brad cycles, scuba dives, and is otherwise very 'adventurous' and brave.
'He's a wonderful guy,' they added. 'We weren't worried about him when this first happened… we just want him home now.'
Brad's loved ones have received no updates or information about his disappearance since Friday.
Some relatives have traveled to the HTR TX Hill Country RV Park & Campground, where Brad and Tina were camped, but found no trace of him or the couple's RV.
'Everything was swept away,' said the source.
Tina, meanwhile, is currently recovering in the hospital. The source said her condition is stable but described her as being 'pretty banged up.'
Her sister, Julia Schwenk Purnell, told the Houston Chronicle that Tina suffered scratches, bruises, hypothermia, a punctured lung, and a ripped lip, but she was expected to be released from the hospital on Monday.
There was also so much debris in her hair that she debated shaving it off, Purnell said.
Recounting her siblings' remarkable fight for survival, Purnell told the outlet that Tina clawed at anything she could reach after she was swept up in the current away from Brad.
'She said, 'I'm not going to die today,'' said Purnell.
Footage shared with the Chronicle showed Tina trudging up the shore, shoeless, assisted by a group of first responders.
Now, she and her family are left waiting for news about Brad.
Some family members have sent in photos of tattoos, taken DNA tests, and have even helped first responders look for bodies in the area, according to Purnell.
A desperate search and rescue operation remains ongoing across the area as further forecasted rainfall threatens additional catastrophe.
The flooding began late Thursday after 12 inches of rain fell across the Texas Hill Country, rapidly overwhelming the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet in just 45 minutes.
Kerr County was hit hardest by the floods. There, authorities have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said Monday morning.
Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 94 as of Monday afternoon.
The total death toll is expected to soar into triple figures in the coming days.
As of Monday afternoon, 10 girls and a counselor are still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River.
'We have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls,' the camp said in a statement.
Officials have come under scrutiny over why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner or told to evacuate.
The first weather warning was issued at 1.18pm on July 3, but framed the incoming rainfall as only a 'moderate' storm.
The National Weather Service escalated the alert to a flash flood warning at 1am Friday, followed by a more serious Flash Flood Emergency by 4.30am.
But by this point, water was already pouring into families' homes - and in some cases ripping them from their foundations.
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said during a Monday news conference that he did not immediately know if there had been any communication between law enforcement and the summer camps between 1am and 4am on Friday.
However, Rice said various factors, including spotty cell service in some of the more rural areas of Kerr County and cell towers that might have gone out of service during the weather, could have hindered communication.
Authorities vowed that after the search and rescue mission concludes, a full examination will take place to determine whether enough warnings were issued and why some camps did not evacuate or move to higher ground in areas long vulnerable to flooding.
Many Texans have blamed authorities' slow response for being the reason the floods have proved so deadly.
Around 600 staffers were recently dismissed from the National Weather Service's workforce as part of President Donald Trump's sweeping cuts to federal services.
NWS had recently begun the process of hiring 100 new employees.
Trump has also proposed cuts to FEMA and NOAA, federal agencies that conduct climate research and help prepare states for natural disasters.
The president signed a major disaster declaration Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit Friday.
Trump declined to comment when asked if he was still planning to phase out FEMA, but said he isn't planning on rehiring any of the federal meteorologists that were axed as part of his spending cuts.
'This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it,' he said.
Rescue teams are frantically searching for missing victims, including 10 girls and a counselor who were at Camp Mystic (pictured), a Christian summer camp along the river in Kerr County
The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up.
Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, denied that the government cuts in any way contributed to Friday's disaster.
'There's a time to have political fights, there's a time to disagree. This is not that time,' Cruz said.
'There will be a time to find out what could have been done differently. My hope is in time we learn some lessons to implement the next time there is a flood.'
Survivors have described the floods as a 'pitch black wall of death' and said they received no emergency warnings.
The flash floods have erased campgrounds and torn homes from their foundations.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who lives along the Guadalupe River, said Saturday that 'nobody saw this coming.'
'It's going to be a long time before we're ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it,' said Kelly.
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