Texas country music star Pat Green revealed that his family was among the many devastated by the catastrophic Fourth of July flooding in Central Texas, which has now claimed the lives of at least 119 people and left more than 170 missing.
“Over the weekend, during the devastating flooding that hit Central Texas, my family — like so many others — suffered a heartbreaking and deeply personal loss,” Green wrote in a somber Instagram post. “We are grieving alongside countless Texans whose lives have been upended by this tragedy.”
Green’s stepbrother, 39-year-old John Burgess, and his wife, Julia Anderson Burgess, also 39, were confirmed dead. Their two sons, James and Jack, remain missing as of midweek. The couple, from Liberty, Texas, had been camping with their children at Blue Oak RV Park in Kerr County when flash floods tore through the area. The couple’s 8-year-old daughter, who was staying at a different camp unaffected by the flood, is safe.
A witness at the RV park described a harrowing scene. “My husband was in the water trying to ask them, ‘Please throw me your baby!’ The man was holding tight to his babies, and he just got swept away,” said park owner Lorena Guillen.
Kerr County, the hardest-hit area, still has 161 people unaccounted for. Among the missing are five young girls and a counselor from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ camp that was directly in the path of the flood. Some parts of the Guadalupe River rose more than 30 feet in less than an hour, turning a peaceful holiday weekend into a statewide tragedy.
Pat Green, a staple of the Texas country scene since the mid-1990s, is best known for his gold-certified hit “Wave on Wave,” which climbed to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 2003 and became a favorite during President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.
In his post, Green asked for privacy as his family grieves. “Right now, we kindly ask for privacy and space as we mourn, support each other, and begin to process what comes next for our family. Thank you for your love, prayers, and compassion.”