Project DYNAMO returns home after responding to Texas flooding

TAMPA, Fla. - Tampa-based rescue nonprofit Project DYNAMO is back home after responding to the deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas.

The backstory:

On the 4th of July, the Project DYNAMO Texas-based team was just settling in back home after evacuating American citizens out of Israel, when they heard about the devastating flooding in Kerr County.

"Project DYNAMO, our specialty really is bringing military precision to humanitarian relief and rescues," President & CEO Mario Duarte said.

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Duarte said there was no hesitation in responding to the area. 

Their crews arrived on Sunday and turned to the local emergency operations center to find out how and where they were needed.

"We were the first organization to come in with an entire posse of forces and horseback riders trained actually in search and rescue," Duarte said.

Courtesy: Project DYNAMO.

Dig deeper:

The Project DYNAMO team was directed to aid in search adn rescue efforts in Center Point, Texas, about 9 miles downstream from Kerrville along the Guadalupe River. 

Duarte said at first, the crew assumed the tactics they used after the flooding in Ashville, NC after Hurricane Helene could be applied here.

"It wasn't like North Carolina where you had these huge river banks. There were at least 15 to 20 feet below the street level," he explained.

Courtesy: Project DYNAMO.

The team decided not to use the horses and went on foot. Duarte said it was a slow process, using their expertise to navigate the terrain and carefully search under debris.

"We had to be careful because in certain areas you had to find specific spots where you might think it's actually solid ground but it's a water trap," he said.

The hope was to find survivors, but the outcome was more grim.

Courtesy: Project DYNAMO.

"We did not find any survivors," Duarte said. "We did assist with and found several corpses. That's probably the hardest part of all of this because you know that it comes with a lot of pain."

Duarte said it became clear that this was no longer a search and rescue mission, but one for recovery, which is outside the nonprofit's scope.

"For us, it's just a matter of notifying, finding, marking the area, sending a ping where exactly that was found," he said.

Courtesy: Project DYNAMO.

He described the situation as a disaster wrapped in silence.

"You would see all of these people, law enforcement, first responders, firefighters, other volunteers and you see the silence in their eyes. We all want to find a survivor, but at the end, it's most likely... we were sure that we're going to find more cadavers," he explained.

The nonprofit left Kerr County last Wednesday.

"It's a small community that ended up witnessing losing what is probably the most purest form of citizen, which is our kids, and just that a lot of people went out just trying to find the girls and all of these people, but the reality is that when you've been doing this for a while, you know after a certain amount of hours, even though we were holding onto hope, you know what you are going to face," Duarte said.