Miracle reunion as family Dog found hiding in Washing Machine during Texas floods
The Guadalupe River rose in the dead of night, rushing through the Hill Country with a force no one in Hunt, Texas, had ever seen. Eighteen-year-old Cody Vlasek and his parents woke to water climbing their bedroom walls. They fought the current to reach higher ground, convinced their blue heeler was gone forever. Days later, Cody crawled back through a shattered window and froze at a faint noise.
“I heard scratching and a whimper,” he recalled to People.
A quick turn of the flashlight revealed the impossible: the dog floating inside the family’s washing machine, alive and terrified.
A Night That Changed Everything
The floodwaters reached Cody’s waist in under 20 minutes, leaving no time to search the house. The home, perched almost 30 feet beyond the official 100-year floodplain, was supposed to be safe. Instead, rain-swollen runoff burst past fences, uprooted furniture, and swept entire walls downstream.
“The current—-it almost tripped some of us,” Cody added in an interview shared by Daily Mail.
Inside the Iron Drum
When the teenager returned after the water receded, he smashed a window to reach what was left of the laundry room. A muffled yelp guided him. There, bobbing in a drum half full of muddy water, was the heeler that had vanished during the chaos.
“I saw him just floating in the washer,” Cody told reporters. The dog had climbed into the appliance as the river burst through the back door—an accidental Ark that sealed tight enough to trap air and keep him above the deadly current.
Volunteers Comb the Debris for More Miracles
Cody’s reunion is one of dozens unfolding across flood-ravaged Kerr County. Hundreds of animals vanished when water swallowed homes, according to field teams with Austin Pets Alive! and Kerrville Pets Alive, groups that activated their disaster response units within hours. On a debris-strewn trailer lot in nearby Ingram, volunteer Sherry Sweeney set baited traps for missing cats.
“I can’t help with anything else, but I can help with their pets,” she told NPR. Her determination paid off when a soot-streaked tabby named Rambo leapt into one of the cages, reuniting another family aching for good news.
At Kerrville Pets Alive’s improvised clinic, veterinarian Dr. Mallory Cade examined Rambo and dozens of other survivors.
“We’re kind of the first responders for animals,” shelter co-founder Karen Guerriero told NPR.
Similar reunions, she said, are “healing” for residents who lost homes, cars, and loved ones.
Counting the Toll, Clinging to Hope
State officials now attribute more than 120 confirmed deaths to the Fourth-of-July flood, with over 150 people still unaccounted for, figures reported by The Economic Times.
Estimates place the missing at roughly 160 and notes, with 27 campers at all-girls Camp Mystic among the victims. More than 850 high-water rescues have been logged, according to Country Rebel.
Yet small victories pierce the grief. Guerriero says every saved pet gives owners the strength to press on. Cody agrees. Standing amid warped studs and cracked tile, he stroked the dog that outwitted a record flood by taking shelter where clothes once tumbled.
“You can replace a house,” he told People, “but you can’t replace lives.”
His washer-bound heeler is proof that even in the worst disaster, life can cling to the unlikeliest corners—and wait for someone brave enough to come back and listen.
