MILFORD, Texas — "Four hours later, I heard the rushing, and I said I can almost bet you it's gone. 9 o'clock in the morning, I went out there, and it was gone," Ronnie Galindo said.
Ronnie woke up Friday morning to find a portion of the private road leading to his home gone—along with the culvert. The family told me they think it collapsed into the river.
"There's no structure. The walls are gone. The bridge sits up around 15 feet, it's not a little one, it's a tall one, and if you slide off, you're going down," Brandi and Ronnie said.
I found the Galindos' plea for help while scrolling social media and went to work to find out who could help them get out.
So I reached out to the Hillsboro Emergency Management Department—asking what would happen if the Galindos had an emergency and needed first responders.
The department told me a helicopter would be used for any medical calls. But if there's a fire, they wouldn't help. To see if that applied to all first responders, I called the Hillsboro Fire Department. They confirmed in the case of an emergency they actually would rescue the Galindos.
But I also learned there are access points to reach the couple's home.
"In an emergency, we have found what appears to be a back way into that property into the city limits to Carl's Corner. We have to go across an individual field, but he's got gates on both ends, and somebody has used the road there before," Hill County Judge Justin W. Lewis said.
Since this is a private road, Hill County can't spend taxpayers' dollars to fix it—so it's up to the Galindos. But Hill County Judge Justin Lewis said Tuesday's disaster declaration by Governor Abbott could help.
"We're going to bring in the folks from Texas Emergency Management to look at this bridge because there may be monies either from FEMA or state level that might be able to help with this because this is going to be a sizeable project, a very costly project," Judge Lewis said.
If you would like to help the Galindos, click here.
