On the evening on May 27, 2014 TEXSAR received a request for assistance in searching for a three-year-old girl who had gone missing while playing in a flooded creek near her home in Caldwell County. Within two hours of the initial call, more than two-dozen TEXSAR members and canines were on site searching the swollen creek and the surrounding areas for the missing child. After 6 hours of searching, the TEXSAR Swiftwater Rescue and Canine teams were able to locate and...
On the evening of Saturday, April 26, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office received reports that a man had gone missing when his canoe overturned on Lake Travis. STARFlight rescue swimmers were able to locate the canoe but were unable to locate the victim. On the morning of Sunday, April 27, the Sheriff’s Office made the call to TEXSAR to request the assistance of our canine assets. While en route to the scene, however, TEXSAR received a call that the body of...
FAST 1 on the Gaudalupe On a chilly March weekend 9 TEXSAR members completed their FAST 1 certifications and joined the 21 current certification holders to form the largest volunteer swiftwater rescue team in the state of Texas! The FAST 1 class, taught by TEXSAR’s own Shawn Hohnstreiter and Mark Baumann, was held on the Guadalupe River in New Braunfels, TX. The course started with classroom based learning on Friday evening and then moved to the frigid Guadalupe River where the...
“On Saturday February 22, 2014 at approximately 2330 hours, a boater in the vicinity of Hatter Cove in Lake Travis observed a fisherman on a dock fall into the water.” A search effort was immediately launched, led by the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. Unfortunately, two days of underwater searching, hampered by low water temperatures, poor visibility, and numerous in-water obstacles, yielded no results. Sheriff Deputies decided to try a different approach and contacted TEXSAR to request the service of our...
From the Caldwell County Office of Emergency Management: The Caldwell County Commissioners Court recognized Texas Search and Rescue “TEXSAR” for their outstanding work during the Halloween Floods. TEXSAR volunteers and their affiliates supported the search and recovery effort within the county. The Caldwell County Office of Emergency Management applauds TEXSAR on their significant contributions and congratulates them for this accomplishment. ...
Thursday, February 20, 2014 Austin, Texas – Texas Search and Rescue (TEXSAR) is pleased to announce that Cen-Tex Search and Rescue will become a part of TEXSAR effective March 01, 2014. This will expand TEXSAR’s search capabilities to include a K9 strike team specializing in trailing, area search and human remains detection (HRD). Cen-Tex Search and Rescue; Canine and Mounted (Cent-Tex), was founded in November 2002 in the Brazos Valley. Since 2004, Cen-Tex has been called to assist in over 100...
On Saturday, January 25, 2014, TEXSAR assisted law enforcement during the search for Leanne Hecht Bearden, 33, who had been missing since the previous Friday when she walked away from a residence in Garden Ridge, TX. Working closely with Garden Ridge Police Department, Comal County Sheriff’s Office, Texas DPS, and the Texas Rangers, TEXSAR planned and conducted operations throughout the day that involved over 150 people from 18 agencies and Search and Rescue teams from across the state and...
Search in Big Bend to Rescue a Lost Hiker The December issue of the Texas Division of Emergency Management newsletter, Texas Emergency Management Online, includes a featured article about TEXSAR. As the article mentions, 2013 has been a busy year for TEXSAR. During the first 10 months of 2013 TEXSAR responded to 12 deployments, 5 planned events and provided formal, certified training to 7 agencies. The deployments have ranged from Big Bend to North Texas to Central Texas and Galveston. TEXSAR is proud...
Caldwell County Search On December 12th, 2013, Texas Governor Rick Perry formally requested a Presidential disaster declaration for the State of Texas. This request was made as a result of massive flooding which occurred from October 31st to November 16th, 2013. A state disaster declaration was also made on December 12th. TEXSAR was specifically called out in the disaster declaration for its search and rescue, incident management, resource coordination, and provision of technical specialists during the Caldwell county search phase...
TEXSAR assisted as requested by Caldwell County OEM for a missing person search near Polonia Road on Tuesday November 12, 2013. The person had gone missing during the October 31, 2013 flood event. DPS divers recovered the vehicle on Monday November 11, 2013. Working with Alamo Area SAR and Chisholm Trail VFD, TEXSAR located and recovered the missing person just before noon. The technical water recovery took two hours to complete and all personnel on scene exhibited strong skills. TEXSAR is appreciative...
