Jonathan McComb knows what it means to lose everything.
In 2015, a flash flood swept through Wimberley, Texas, washing away the home where he was staying with his wife, their two young children and several friends. McComb was the sole survivor out of nine people in the home. He turned up 11 miles down the Blanco River, climbed out of a cliff and knocked on someone’s door for help.
Since then, he has returned to disaster sites across the state with Texas Search and Rescue — including the deadly floods that struck Central Texas over the weekend.
But this time, it hit a lot closer to home.
“I know that there’s folks out there that are hurting, and I know exactly how they’re feeling,” McComb told CBS News. “And so I want to be able to help them and hopefully give some closure and just be a light to them right now.”
“This is more about them than it is me,” he said.
McComb is part of a quiet but crucial network of volunteers searching for the missing, enduring sweltering summer heat and trudging through massive debris piles.
Like many searchers, Louis Deppe isn’t from the community. He doesn’t know the layout, but he knows loyalty. And when his friend Ty Badon’s daughter was swept away, he came, driving his mud-caked truck past roadblocks and into the heart of the flood zone every day.
Joyce Catherine Badon, 21, was staying in a cabin with three friends when it was swallowed by raging waters on July Fourth. Badon’s body has been found, but two of her friends are unaccounted for, so Deppe is still searching.
“I don’t have a time limit, so however long it takes,” Deppe told CBS News.
For McComb, the work is also about honoring the people who searched for his own family a decade ago.
“When I was in the hospital after my ordeal, and knowing that everybody was out there searching for my family, I knew that I needed to give back,” McComb said.
In the 2015 flood, his 4-year-old daughter was never found — a fact that still drives him today.
“It’s pretty important. I know what it feels like, and so I want to do everything I can to bring that closure to them. Not that we can promise that, but we’re going to give every effort we can and keep going,” McComb said.
McComb has since remarried and has a 5-year-old daughter who knows his story. Before leaving for this latest search, he explained to her why he needed to go.
“That was a tough, tough hug when I left her on July 4 to come out here to help,” McComb said. “And she understood.”
Allie Weintraub
contributed to this report.
