MAURICE DUBOIS:
00:01:45
How old your son? 21. So you know what this is like to have a child that age. Yeah. Actually, my son's 25. I have my youngest daughter is 21, and so there was definitely a connection.
MAURICE DUBOIS:
00:01:55
You totally get it. So you get out here. You're 45 minutes away. You get out here. How do you proceed? What do you do? I met up with him and said, what do you need me to do? And he had a few friends, and we started basically right behind the property. The property was-- the house was swept off a hill into the river, so there was a big pile of debris, and we started looking there for his daughter and the other three young people in their 20s to see if we could find anybody.
MAURICE DUBOIS:
00:02:25
Did you jump in the water? Were you able to do that? Did you form a grid? How did you go about this process? Yeah, we divided up into teams of like two or three people because if you go by a big pile of debris or tree tops, one person can't really see it. It's so thick. They're like huge bird nests. And it took two or three to surround it. That's how we divided it up and just made sure we didn't miss-- We didn't get in the water. We weren't prepared to get in the water. We stayed out of the water. We stayed safe. But we tried to cover as much terrain as we could.
MAURICE DUBOIS:
00:02:59
And what did you see, ultimately? Did you find your friend's daughter? Did find her. She was found yesterday, midmorning.
MAURICE DUBOIS:
00:03:06
She hadn't made it? She hadn't survived? She did not survive. But it's tragic, but in an odd, important way, it brought some closure. And so my friend Ty Badon found his daughter Joyce Catherine Badon and one other of the four was found, but there's still two missing. Yeah, what about the spirit among you searchers? I mean, you don't even know a number of the people you're looking for, but you're looking anyway. What's that like with the folks you're with? Yeah, I think a lot of it-- I didn't really think about that. I thought about, look, this is my friend in need. His daughter's missing. I have a 21-year-old daughter. I can't imagine. I think every parent's worst nightmare. And so didn't think it through, just muscle memory. Let's come help and see what's needed. And so the cause keeps you going, running off adrenaline. And that's where we've been the last three days. What do you want to tell the world about this community? It's a great community. I grew up going to summer camp not too far from here, Camp Longhorn. And I have so much respect for the people, the adults in charge of these little kids. I mean, many of these camps have been here a hundred years, and they saved so many lives. So many lives were saved. Many didn't make it, but more and more were saved. And the fact that there are so many people willing to give everything to try to find these kids, and now it's probably turning into a different mission. But the spirit of Texas is alive and well and strong, and we're going to keep looking until everyone's found.
MAURICE DUBOIS:
00:04:44
And you're going to press ahead today? Press ahead.
MAURICE DUBOIS:
00:04:47
I thank you so much for talking with me this morning. Really appreciate it. Louis Deppe, one of the many searchers out here, the volunteers doing heroes work. Going to hear more stories from survivors of the flash floods here in central Texas in our next half hour. Until then, I'm going to send it back to you in New York, Gayle. Bravo to Mr. Deppe. Anybody who's a parent, or even if you don't have a parent-- even if you don't have a child, you have a beating heart. You put yourself in that situation. You hope that somebody would help you. Maurice, thank you so much. Bravo to Mr. Deppe again. If you would like to help, please go to cbsnews.com/helptexas, which is on your screen below, to get a list of organizations that are involved in this recovery. And, of course, we'll put it on our website too.
