Among the stories of loss and heartbreak throughout the Hill Country are also many examples of heroism and extraordinary efforts to save those that could be saved. 

A year after the tragedy, CBS News Texas caught up with a pair of Kerrville police officers who were off duty and at home in Hunt, when they decided to help, saving a handful of people who were moments from being swept away. 

They took us to the spot where it all happened to reflect on what life is like a year later.

“It’s hard to imagine my town or the town that I live in and love so much, go through such a devastating event. It’s hard to imagine what it looked like that morning. I don’t want to remember what it looked like that morning,” said Kerrville Police Sgt. Tyler Cottonware.

He may not want to, but it’s impossible to forget it.

For Cottonware and his colleague, Det. Ryan Casey, the events of July Fourth, 2025, are forever engraved in their memory.

Off-duty officers rushed into rising floodwaters

The officers, who happen to live near each other, had woken up in the middle of the night to discover the catastrophic flooding and immediately sprang into action. 

“There was a woman and her child right over the Hunt store,” said Cottonware. “So I was able to get a ladder from a neighbor and we were able to get them down.” 

“There were people kind of wherever,” Casey said. “The water kind of brought them there. There was one over here in the river, holding on to a tree. So we couldn’t get to him. One guy was here on an electrical box.”

“From where we are standing, the water was about 50 foot up the roadway here,” Cottonware said. “So it was way above our heads.”

One by one, they brought those they could reach to safety.

They stayed near the victims they couldn’t immediately pull, and eventually, as the water receded in the long hours that followed, they were able to get to them all.  

“The one little girl that we got off of the roof of the Hunt store, she goes to school with my kids,” said Cottonware. “So, I see her at school functions and she always comes and gives me a big hug … “‘m not a crier, but it gets me… it gets me, you know.”

The officers reject the label of “heroes” 

Every tragic story needs a good hero, and that term has been extended to Cottonware and Casey many times. Heroes of that night, at least in saving those people. 

“We’re not heroes. He’ll say the same,” Cottonware said of himself and Casey. “It’s humbling for people to say that, but I would like to think that anybody put in our situation would have done the same thing.”

For now, the rebuilding continues, as life seemingly tries to return to the calm and beauty the hills and streams are known for.

For Cottonware and Casey, these are daily reminders of what life is like now. 

“It’s made me think about life as mentioned. How delicate it can be in an instant,” Casey said. “Moving forward, it really makes you think about the oath that you took.”

“It’s brought us together,” said Cottonware. “Just different people from the community from around the state, around the nation have been brought together.”

That togetherness is on display around town, anywhere you drive and anyone you talk to: they all say the only way they will eventually get back to normal is by leaning on each other.

A Texas man has been charged with manslaughter after driving a Tesla operating with its automated driving assistance system into a suburban Houston home, killing a 76-year-old grandmother, court papers show.

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Michael David Butler, 44, told police he was operating his Model 3 in Full Self-Driving mode on June 19 when he plowed into Martha Avila’s home in Katy, Texas, and told paramedics “the car was on ‘Autopilot,’” according to court papers. Avila died later at a nearby hospital.

According to an arrest affidavit, Butler said he was making a DoorDash delivery run when he changed the music on the Tesla’s touch screen, and eventually “passed out.”

His speed reached 73 miles per hour, more than double the legal limit, and the brake pedal wasn’t used in the minute before the crash, the affidavit said. Butler denied having felt ill, and no alcohol or common street drugs were in his system, the affidavit said.

A lawyer for Butler did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Harris County prosecutors did not immediately respond to a similar request.

Tesla has disputed Butler’s recollections, with Chief Executive Elon Musk saying a vehicle in Full Self-Driving mode “drives slowly through neighborhood streets” and a software vice president saying Butler manually overrode that mode by flooring the accelerator.

According to KHOU television, Butler appeared in probable cause court on Thursday where bail was set at $150,000, with requirements that he wear an ankle monitor and not drive.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating the crash, and has since 2016 opened nearly 50 special investigations of Tesla crashes believed to involve advanced driver assistance systems. About two dozen deaths were reported.

Tesla has said its Autopilot system enables vehicles to steer, accelerate and brake within their lanes, while Full Self-Driving lets vehicles obey traffic signals and change lanes. Both require “fully attentive” drivers, it has said.

Avila’s family sued Tesla last week, saying her wrongful death reflected the electric vehicle maker’s gross negligence and failure to warn that its self-driving systems were defective.