Brian Babin: “Mr. Speaker, it is an anguishing thing to have to come up here and talk about some of our friends and colleagues who…”

“Mr. Speaker, it is an anguishing thing to have to come up here and talk about some of our friends and colleagues who have gone through this. Chip has done a wonderful job here with this Fourth of July. My family and I dropped off four grandsons and a granddaughter back in May at Camp Mystic and at Camp Stewart for Boys. My history with this area goes way back, 60 years or better. I served as a counselor at Camp Stewart under Uncle Bill James, who sold that camp later on to the Ragsdale family. Kathy Ragsdale and I have been talking on the phone recently, and what a loss she sustained. She lost her daughter, Jane. Mr. Speaker, spending a couple of days out there in that beautiful country, probably the most beautiful in the entire State of Texas, with the crystal-clear, green Guadalupe River canopied by 100-plus-foot Cyprus trees, some of them 10 feet in diameter, it is just unbelievable beauty, tranquility, and peacefulness. To think that, within a span of less than 1 hour, that thing came up 30-plus feet and became a raging, raging torrent--a demon, if you will--wiping out wonderful, wonderful families, children, and turning that place into a devastating desert. I thank the first responders, our President, our Governor, Chip Roy, and a number of my colleagues for their help.”