GREEN MAG

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Many of the voices were frantic and desperate. A few were steady and calm amid mounting, frightening danger, and in some cases, inescapable doom.

They came from families huddled on rooftops to escape rising, swirling waters, mothers panicked for the wellbeing of their children and onlookers who heard people yell for help through the dark as they clung to treetops.

One man, stuck high in a tree as it began to break under the pressure of the floodwaters, asked emergency dispatchers for a helicopter rescue that never came.

Their pleas were among more than 400 calls for help across Kerr County last summer whendevastating floodshit during the overnight hours on the July Fourth holiday. The recordings of the 911 calls were released Friday.

The sheer volume of calls would overwhelm two county emergency dispatchers on duty in the Texas Hill Country ascatastrophic floodinginundated cabins andyouth campsalong the Guadalupe River.

"There's water filling up super fast, we can't get out of our cabin," a camp counselor told a dispatcher above the screams of campers in the background. "We can't get out of our cabin, so how do we get to the boats?"

Amazingly, everyone in the cabin and the rest of campers at Camp La Junta were rescued.

The flooding killed at least 136 people statewide during the holiday weekend, including at least 117 in Kerr County alone. Most were from Texas, but others came from Alabama, California and Florida, according to a list released by county officials.

One woman called for help as the water closed in on her house near Camp Mystic, a century-old summercamp for girls, where 25 campers and two teenage counselors died.

"We're OK, but we live a mile down the road from Camp Mystic and we had two little girls come down the river. And we've gotten to them, but I'm not sure how many others are out there," she said in a shaky voice.

A spokesperson for the parents of the children and counselors who died at Camp Mystic declined to comment on the release of the recordings.

Calls came from people on rooftops and in trees

Many residents in the hard-hit Texas Hill Country have said they were caught off guard anddidn't receive any warningwhen the floods overtopped the Guadalupe River. Kerr County leadershave faced scrutinyabout whether they did enough right away. Two officials told Texas legislators this summer that they were asleep during the initial hours of the flooding, and a third was out of town.

Using recordings of first responder communications, weather service warnings, survivor videos and official testimony, The Associated Press assembled achronology of the chaotic rescueeffort. The AP was one of the media outlets that filed public information requests for recordings of the 911 calls to be released.

Many people were rescued by boats and emergency vehicles. A few desperate pleas came from people floating away in RVs. Some survivors were found in trees and on rooftops.

But some of the calls released Friday came from people who did not survive, said Kerrville Police Chief Chris McCall, who warned that the audio is unsettling.

"The tree I'm in is starting to lean and it's going to fall. Is there a helicopter close?" Bradley Perry, a firefighter, calmy told a dispatcher, adding that he saw his wife, Tina, and their RV wash away.

"I've probably got maybe five minutes left," he said.

Bradley Perry did not survive. His wife was later found clinging to a tree, still alive.

Moving higher and higher to survive

In another heartbreaking call, a woman staying in a community of riverside cabins told a dispatcher the water was inundating their building

"We are flooding, and we have people in cabins we can't get to," she said. "We are flooding almost all the way to the top."

The caller speaks slowly and deliberately. The faint voices of what sounds like children can be heard in the background.

Some people called back multiple times, climbing higher and higher in houses to let rescuers know where they were and that their situations were getting more dire. Families called from second floors, then attics, then roofs sometimes in the course of 30 or 40 minutes, revealing how fast and how high the waters rose.

As daylight began to break, the call volume increased, with people reporting survivors in trees or stuck on roofs, or cars floating down the river.

Britt Eastland, the co-director of Camp Mystic, asked for search and rescue and the National Guard to be called, saying as many as 40 people there were missing. "We're out of power. We hardly have any cell service," he said.

The 911 recordings show that relatives and friends outside of the unfolding disaster and those who had made it to safety had called to get help for loved ones trapped in the flooding.

One woman said a friend, an elderly man, was trapped in his home with water up to his head. She had realized his phone cut out as she was trying to relay instructions from a 911 operator.

Dispatchers gave advice and comfort

Overwhelmed by the endless calls, dispatchers tried to comfort the panic-stricken callers yet were forced to move on to the next one. They advised many of those who were trapped to get to their rooftops or run to higher ground. In some calls, children could be heard screaming in the background.

"There is water everywhere, we cannot move. We are upstairs in a room and the water is rising," said a woman who called from Camp Mystic.

The same woman called back later.

"How do we get to the roof if the water is so high?" she asked. "Can you already send someone here? With the boats?"

She asked the dispatcher when help would arrive.

"I don't know," the dispatcher said. "I don't know."

Associated Press reporters Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Ed White in Detroit; Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; and Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed.

EDITOR'S NOTE:This story contains audio clips and descriptions of 911 calls that may be distressing. Listener discretion is advised.

Heartbreaking pleas for help poured into the Kerrville, Texas, police department's Telecommunications Center as the deadly catastrophic floods swept across Texas Hill Country in the early hours of July 4.

The recordings, released by the Kerrville Police Department on Friday, are uploaded in the order the calls came in, tracing the flood emergency minute by minute and the rising terror of people trapped as water climbed first by the inch, then by the foot through homes and cabins.

The earliest calls feel almost like premonitions, fragile voices that foreshadow the terror that would soon sweep across the Hill Country. They begin with an eerie calm — soft-spoken warnings from residents who sensed the rising water but could not yet see the catastrophe gathering in the dark.

Scott Towery, general manager of the River Inn Resort, called at 2:52 a.m. CT to warn that more than 100 guests were at the property as the water surged at an alarming pace.

His follow-up call came moments later, his voice taut with urgency, comparing the rising flood to one of the region'sworst on record.

"We've got about 130 people out on site and a big flood coming. We're waking them up now," he tells the dispatcher. "Our dam went underwater two and a half hours ago … It's really high, like the 1998-flood-type high."

Then the shift became unmistakable.

The next call was barely a call at all — a faint, almost indecipherable voice tangled in the sound of rushing water. The dispatcher, listening to nothing but that open line and the relentless sloshing beneath it.

What began as a cautious warning quickly escalated into panic, as callers pleaded for rescue while dispatchers, repeating the same urgent directive to get to higher ground, struggled to keep their voices steady.

"We cannot," one frightened caller replies. "There's water everywhere. We cannot move."

The devastating flash flooding in the early hours of the Fourth of July killed at least 117 people across Kerr County, including young children at summer camp, as parts of the Guadalupe River rose from about3 feet to almost 30 feet in just 45 minutes. Another 28 deaths were reported across five other counties.

Together, the recordings form a harrowing portrait of a night when the water rose faster than help could reach.

Desperate calls, screams, and lives hanging by a thread

Across the Hill Country, people clung to life however they could, according to the 911 calls – which police have warned are unredacted and "highly distressing."

Cars became unsteady rafts, lifting and drifting with survivors perched on their roofs. A floating bed carried people in the dark. Others scrambled onto a pergola and an AC unit, gripping whatever rose above the water. Entire cabins broke loose and drifted like boats, while some survivors clung to trees and bushes, holding on with numb fingers as the current tried to tear them away.

Just two people were on staff at the Kerrville Police Department Telecommunications Center to take their 911 calls when the y started coming in at 2:52 a.m. on July 4, Kerrville Police Chief Chris McCall said in avideo statementThursday.

"Some callers did not survive," the chief said.

Dispatchers lurched from one call to the next, the raw panic in each voice carving itself into permanent memory. The recordings grow darker as the night deepens, each voice trembling more than the last.

One call came from a man who woke to the rush of water in his apartment. He is in full panic, crying, screaming and begging for help. "I need help. I can't get out. I'm scared, please."

A desperate meow rises behind him, the tiny voice of the cat whose cries punctuate his terror. "All I have is my cat with me. Please I'm really scared. Please, help me, please. I can't get out of… I need help, I can't swim."

When the dispatcher tells him she has to disconnect to answer other emergencies, he begs her not to leave him alone. "Please don't let go of me," he pleads, sobbing. She stays on for eight minutes before the line eventually breaks off.

Elsewhere in the storm, another voice trembles onto the line, shock settling into every syllable.

"I'm stuck in the tree. The river is flooded," he says. "I think my wife got stuck, and I'm pretty sure she's dead. I am freaking out. The river is so high."

And then there was the sound of someone fighting for breath inside a room filling like a sealed tank.

"There's water up to my head now…I'm stuck in this room," a man says, his voice shaking. When the dispatcher asks if he can climb to the roof, he lets out a helpless, exasperated "No."

A window had burst somewhere in the room, and he describes the water forcing its way in, flooding faster, rising higher.

"What the f**k am I going to do?" he cries. The dispatcher offers the only instruction he can: "Try to keep your head above the water." Moments later, the caller begins to swear and appears to hyperventilate before the line clicks.

Everyone fought to survive, and dispatchers bore the weight of every scream and every breaking voice as they tried to help. But the flood left them with agonizingly few options.

When one caller, a woman who watched as the floodwaters rose closer and closer to her home, asked if she should leave in her car, the dispatcher could only offer the truth.

"Unfortunately, the weather is being so unpredictable," she tells the caller. "Nobody was expecting it to flood like this."

"The best thing you can do right now is stay where you are," the dispatcher says. That sounds terrible, but there is so much flooding happening on Highway 39 that cars are being washed away, and I would hate for you to become one of those people."

Callers plead for children's lives as camp cabins flood

In the midst of the raging floodwaters and the haunting calls from screaming victims struggling to survive, two children's camps became epicenters of terror.

By the end of the tragedy, the flooding deaths included 25 girls and two counselors who wereswept away from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian camp situated along the banks of the Guadalupe River.

The first call from Camp Mystic came at 3:57 a.m., an astonishingly calm voice reporting that some campers were stranded on a hill while cabins across the bridge were already filling with water.

Another caller, this one confused and frantic, explained that their cabins were flooding while terrified voices and screams echoed in the background. The dispatcher, unable to do anything else, simply urged her to go as high as they could.

A resident a mile downriver from the camp called and reported finding two young campers who had been swept from the camp.

"We've already got two little girls who have come down the river, and we've gotten to them," a woman told a dispatcher. "But I'm not sure how many else are out there."

And then a Camp Mystic director's voice broke through the line, telling the dispatcher that as many as 20 to 40 people were missing – faces, names, lives suddenly reduced to numbers in a river.

At Camp La Junta,a boys' camp along the South Fork of the Guadalupe River, the desperation was just as immediate. One caller's voice rushed through the line: "We need desperate help. We've got kids trapped in cabins that we cannot get to…Now, now, now … we've got tons of small children … Please, please, please."

The cabins were beginning to cave in, the caller said. With the floodwaters pressing in, there was no time to wait.

Another caller, clinging to the rafters of a cabin rooftop, pleaded for the children beneath him. "We are 100% trapped," he said. "I'm not worried about myself. I'm worried about these kids right here, because we cannot have one of these kids falling under the water."

In every call, the helplessness was palpable and the heartbreak immediate. It was a flood that spared no one, not even children, taken in the dark before anyone could reach them.

The families of more than a dozen Camp Mystic victimsfiled lawsuitsagainst the camp and its owners last month.

Attorney Mark Lanier, who represents some of the families, said the release of the 911 calls may shed light on the tragic events of July 4, though it will likely deepen the parents' grief.

"Our clients continue to suffer unimaginable heartbreak and grief from the loss of their babies," Lanier told CNN on Friday, emphasizing that the families remain determined to uncover every factor that led to the deaths of their daughters and to hold those responsible accountable.

Overwhelmed dispatchers "did their best"

The uncertain reassurance from the two dispatchers at the Kerrville Police Department Telecommunications Center hangs in the recordings like a held breath, a testament to both the limits of the system and the unbearable human cost of that night.

The dispatchers answered a total of 435 calls over the next six hours, the police chief said, including more than 100 between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. The 911 calls are being released to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests, McCall said.

Some of the calls were transferred to a nearby dispatch center to help relieve the call load, as is protocol in high call volume situations, McCall added.

After dispatchers got "the basic critical information" and could no longer help over the phone, they faced "a difficult decision to disconnect and move on to the next call," McCall said.

"I'm immensely proud of our telecommunications operators," McCall, the police chief, said. "These public safety team members showed incredible perseverance as they faced high call volumes and did their best to provide assistance and comfort to every caller."

The City of Kerrville issueda statementacknowledging that the 911 calls' release "will bring up strong emotions," but that it "presents another moment to affirm who we are: a united, resilient community determined to recover and rebuild."

The chief also encouraged those who have struggled with the tragedy to get support, saying all members of the police department have participated in peer support meetings.

The local emergency response to the July Fourth floodingwas heavily scrutinized by the community, who alleged local officials were unprepared for the weather event that ripped the rolling countryside to shreds.

In September, Texas lawmakers enactednew camp safety lawsaimed at addressing gaps in disaster preparedness by strengthening requirements and streamlining the emergency response. The owners of Camp Mystic said this week they plan to exceed those requirements when a portion of the camp reopens next summer, according to TheAssociated Press.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN's Taylor Galgano, Sophia Peyser, Caroll Alvarado, Maria Sole Campinoti, Taylor Romine, Stephanie Matarazzo, Graham Hurley, Sarah Moon, Julia Vargas Jones, Sarah Dewberry, Andy Rose, Toni Odejimi, Rebekah Riess, Isa Mudannayake, Ellen Rittiner and Christina Zdanowicz contributed to this report.

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By Steve Gorman

Dec 5 (Reuters) - A blast of Arctic air gripped much of the central and eastern portions of the U.S. on Friday in sub-freezing temperatures well below normal for this ​time of year, setting records from Iowa and Michigan to New York.

The frigid weather pattern stemmed ‌from a fluctuation in the clockwise circulation of polar air, also known as the polar vortex, that was drawing icy air from Canada ‌into northern tier of the U.S., according to meteorologist Marc Chenard of the U.S. Weather Prediction Center outside Washington.

The Arctic chill, plunging temperatures much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit below average, began on Thursday and was expected to persist in waves over the next week or two, making it the most extensive and intense cold snap of the season, ⁠Chenard said.

The official start of winter ‌is still more than two weeks away.

"Cold air is spilling into the central and eastern parts of the country, coming down from the Arctic," he said. The deep freeze ‍stretched from the northern Plains through the Great Lakes region and Ohio Valley into the mid-Atlantic and New England.

Colder-than-normal temperatures, though still above freezing, were expected to dip into the Southeast, according to Chenard.

Local weather forecasts in Indiana and Oklahoma called ​for the possibility of freezing fog, tiny super-cooled water droplets suspended in air that can freeze on ‌exposed surfaces, causing a dangerous road condition known as black ice.

On Thursday, temperatures fell to new benchmark lows in more than a dozen places across Iowa and parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota, Chenard said.

Iowa, where temperatures have been tracked since 1895, accounted for most of the record cold, including an all-time low on Thursday of 19 degrees below zero in the prairie town of Spencer, a full 10 degrees colder than its previous record ⁠of minus-9 degrees set in 2005.

Detroit appeared to have set a ​record low on Friday morning of 5 degrees above zero, 1 ​degree colder than the standing record, while the New York City-area airports of John F Kennedy and LaGuardia both posted low readings of 20 degrees, setting or tying their respective ‍previous records, according to Chenard.

In ⁠upstate New York, the temperature plummeted to an apparent new bone-chilling record of minus-22 degrees, exceeding the previous record low of negative 20.

In addition to unseasonable cold, snow was expected in parts of ⁠the mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and Rockies through Saturday, the National Weather Service said. A storm system crossing the northern Plains and Midwest ‌on Saturday will bring the potential for heavy snow at times, according to the forecast.

(Reporting by ‌Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by David Gregorio)

Iowa State didn't wait around to find Matt Campbell's replacement.

Just minutesafter Yahoo Sports reported Campbell had finalized a dealwith Penn State to be the Nittany Lions' next coach, the Cyclones announced they were hiring Washington State coach Jimmy Rogers.

His hire was officially announced by the school before Penn State announced Campbell's hire. It's the second time this coaching cycle that has happened. On Sunday, Ole Miss announced defensive coordinator Pete Golding was Lane Kiffin's replacement before Kiffin was officially revealed as LSU's coach.

"Jimmy Rogers is a rising star in college athletics who has very strong ties to the Midwest both as a player and as a coach," Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard said in a statement. "He has been on my short-list ever since the first time I met him. He immediately impressed me with his interest in Iowa State University and told me during our first visit several years ago that he wanted to be the next head coach at Iowa State.

"Since our initial meeting, I have stayed in close contact with him and have been very impressed with his work ethic and understanding of what it takes to be successful at Iowa State," he added. "He is a proven winner who has demonstrated throughout his career that he will fit our culture."

Rogers led Washington State to a 6-6 record in his first season with the Cougars in 2025.

While that record may not seem exceptional, both Washington State and Oregon State have been at a significant disadvantage since the Pac-12 dissolved at the end of the 2023 season. The two schools were left behind as every other team in the league bolted for either the Big Ten, Big 12 or found a home in the ACC.

Without a real conference for the last two seasons, the two schools have barnstormed all over the country while playing each other twice this season.

Rogers, 38, was the head coach at South Dakota State for two seasons before taking the Washington State job. The Jackrabbits went 15-0 and won the FCS title in 2023 before going 12-3 and losing in the semifinals in 2024.

A former South Dakota State linebacker, Rogers was a defensive assistant with the school for a decade before he became the team's head coach. He was associate head coach and defensive coordinator before he was promoted to head coach.

Rogers has incredible familiarity with the upper midwest as South Dakota State is less than five hours from Ames, Iowa, by car. The Cyclones have 50 players from the state of Iowa on their 2025 roster.

Rogers also takes over for the most successful coach in Iowa State history. Campbell's teams won 72 games in his decade in charge. No other Iowa State coach has more than 56 wins. Iowa State had eight winning seasons in Campbell's tenure and won 11 games in 2024. Iowa State went 11-3 a season ago and lost to Arizona State in the Big 12 championship game.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers says he anticipates Giannis Antetokounmpo missing about a month as the two-time MVP recovers from astrained right calf.

Initial reports indicated Antetokounmpo would be out two to four weeks. Rivers suggested Friday that it would likely be on the higher end of that timeline.

"Let's hope he's back sooner, but I'm going to guess it's more in the four-week range," Rivers said before the Bucks' game with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Rivers emphasized the importance of caution with calf issues to avoid the risk of a player getting hurt more severely.

"And so that may take longer than we want," Rivers said. "That even may make Giannis frustrated over it. But we've just got to try to get that right."

Antetokounmpo injured his calf in the opening minutes of a113-109 victoryover the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday.

He had just assisted on AJ Green's layup less than three minutes into the game when he headed back up the court and slipped in the painted area. Antetokounmpo went down, clutched his right leg and eventually was helped up before walking to the locker room.

Rivers said after that game that he believed Antetokounmpo's injury may have stemmed from contact he made with a Detroit player while driving along the baseline just before passing to Green.

Antetokounmpo entered Friday ranked seventh in the NBA in scoring (28.9), ninth in rebounding (10.1) and 19th in assists (6.1).

His injury looked similar to a calf strain that ended Antetokounmpo's 2023-24 season prematurely. Antetokounmpo was heading up the court during an April 9 victory over the Boston Celtics that season when he grabbed his left calf and took a seat on the floor before being helped off the court.

Antetokounmpo went on to miss the Bucks' final three regular-season games as well as their entire six-game loss to the Indiana Pacers in the opening round of the playoffs that season.

This latest calf injury comes after Antetokounmpo missed four games last month with a left adductor strain. The Bucks lost all four of those games.

Rivers noted that Milwaukee guard Kevin Porter Jr. also didn't play in any of those games while recovering from a knee injury. Porter returned Nov. 29 and is averaging 19.8 points and 5 assists this season.

"Now we have 'Scoot' (Porter) andRyan (Rollins)together," Rivers said. "It's a different team than it was even three weeks ago or four weeks ago."

The Bucks entered Friday having gone 1-5 in games Antetokounmpo has missed this season. The only win came in their first game without Antetokounmpo, a120-110 home victoryover the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 30.

But they did rally from an 18-point deficit Wednesday against the Eastern Conference-leading Pistons with Antetokounmpo only playing the first three minutes.

This injury occurred the same day ESPN reported that Antetokounmpo and his agent, Alex Saratsis, had started speaking with the Bucks about the nine-time all-NBA forward's future and whether he's best suited to stay in Milwaukee or play elsewhere.Rivers disputedthe report and said that "Giannis has never asked to be traded – ever. I can't make that more clear."

AP NBA:https://apnews.com/hub/NBA