Lost in Cypress Creek 'Dreamer' and his friends went to Houston hoping to save others

Lost in Cypress Creek 'Dreamer' and his friends went to Houston hoping to save others

Alonso Guillen navigated a small motorboat in 6 feet of choppy floodwater, steering toward an apartment complex off Interstate 45 near the overflowing Cypress Creek.

It was Alonso's first time behind the wheel of the flat-bottom johnboat, designed for hunting and fishing. He and his friends Luis Ortega and Tomas Carreon Jr. had borrowed it before leaving Lufkin, an East Texas town about 120 miles from Houston.

Cries for help buzzed on the Zello app they had downloaded to their phones as people stranded in the high waters brought by Hurricane Harvey begged for rescue.

Luis, 22, took to Facebook Live: "We are here in the Cypress area, if y'all need any help."

The boat rocked in the rough water. "Coming to the rescue!" Luis exclaimed, before the boat veered suddenly to one side. He almost fell overboard.

The group reached the apartment complex. But none of the residents wanted to leave. The trio steered toward another boat with volunteers from Georgia bobbing above a submerged street.

They needed to cross the roaring creek to make it back to their trucks. It had risen so high that there was only a 3-inch gap between the nearby bridge and the water. The bigger boat manned by Joey Leonard and the Georgia crew went first. The boat veered toward the bridge but muscled across.

The Lufkin crew struggled in the current.

"Push the gas!" Tomas yelled to Alonso.

The water shoved them sideways. They hit the bridge, and the boat flipped.

They fell into the churning, murky water. The undertow was swift and strong.

Harvey hit Houston on Aug. 26, unleashing the worst natural disaster in U.S. history and killing more than 70 people in Texas. With first responders overwhelmed, people of every skin color and creed rushed to one another's rescue in the nation's fourth-largest city.

Among them, on the boat that overturned, were three friends: Luis, an American; Tomas, a Mexican immigrant married to a U.S. citizen; and Alonso, a so-called "Dreamer," a recipient of a special temporary permit for some young immigrants.

All three of them were lost in Cypress Creek.

Jesus Guillen, center, talks with Jesse Duron about an area the group of volunteers, made up of friends and family members, had already covered during the search efforts for his son, Alonso, who went missing along with two friends after their boat hit the Interstate 45 road bridge and capsized. less Jesus Guillen, center, talks with Jesse Duron about an area the group of volunteers, made up of friends and family members, had already covered during the search efforts for his son, Alonso, who went missing ... more Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez, Staff Photo: Godofredo A. Vasquez, Staff Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Lost in Cypress Creek 1 / 15 Back to Gallery

'A bad feeling'

Two days after the storm hit, Luis was feeling helpless and restless. His mother was home in southwest Houston. His girlfriend was in her apartment in Spring.

Luis and Alonso, a popular DJ at the nightclub owned by Luis' father, hatched a plan and enlisted Tomas, a 25-year-old father of three. They would get a boat from a friend and head down to Houston to help.

Luis didn't tell his dad. He slipped out, knowing he would disapprove.

But Alonso, 31, went to his father, Jesus.

Don't go, he told his son. You could do more here by helping people on the radio, collecting donations, he said. Leave rescues to the professionals.

The father studied his son, outfitted in a camouflage jacket and work boots, his stubborn streak on full display.

"Wear your life jacket," the father relented.

Alonso and Tomas grew up in Piedras Negras, Mexico, but didn't meet until they were living in Lufkin, a city of about 36,000. They took the same bus to school, hung out at the same places.

Don't go, said Tomas' wife, Stefany Carreon.

"I have a bad feeling," she said.

Tomas tried to comfort his high school sweetheart, whom he married seven years ago, allowing him to apply for a green card.

"Don't worry," he said. "It's going to be OK."

Before Tomas left, he brought home a German Shepherd named Max. For months, his children had been begging for a dog. Tomas tried to give his kids everything.

"This dog is going to watch you grow up," he told them.

The three men drove off, but high water stopped them an hour south, at Livingston.

Reluctantly, they returned home. But as the calls for help from Houston became more desperate Tuesday, Aug. 29, they set out again.

'Please, God …'

The crew from Georgia watched in horror.

"We've gotta get to the other side of that bridge," yelled Leonard, the 34-year-old Army veteran aboard the boat. "They definitely scooped under the bridge, dude. Definitely they went under."

The crew docked the boat, and Leonard radioed for help as he and his men ran to the other side of the freeway.

About this story Reporting for this story included video taken by rescuers, social media and dozens of interviews with family, friends and authorities.

"The three Hispanic guys," he shouted. "They smacked up against the bridge right when we hit that current. Oh my God."

They yelled into the darkness. But all they could hear was the fury of the creek.

Luis had been pulled under, and his head bashed against the bridge. Over and over he tried to come up for air only to be sucked back down.

He tried to grab the bridge. But the current pulled him away.

For a moment, Luis bobbed up long enough to see Tomas behind him.

Luis was too tired to swim. He grabbed a gas tank floating in the water and held on. He knew it would save him for only so long.

"If anything else pops up," he told himself, "I am going to have to get it."

He saw a tree up ahead and grabbed a branch, dragging himself onto it. Scanning the darkness beyond him, he saw nothing.

"Please God," he prayed. "I don't want to go out like this."

Ronald Schreiber's son heard a faint scream from the front porch of the family's single-wide trailer. A retired truck driver, Schreiber ran down the steps into the rain and hopped on his ATV. He couldn't figure out where the yelling was coming from.

He moved closer to the creek, then cut the ATV engine to see if he could hear anything. He couldn't get close enough. He needed a boat.

Luis didn't know how long he had been there when he saw the silhouette.

"I'm right here," he yelled.

The current was too fierce for Schreiber's small boat.

"We're trying to help," he shouted back.

A Blackhawk helicopter hovered overhead, and rescuers lowered a basket, but the tree was in the way.

Schreiber found a Harris County Sheriff's Office deputy with an airboat. They lifted Luis into the vessel and circled the creek. Are you the only one?

No.

Do any of you have life preservers on?

No.

They steered up and down the overflowing creek five or six times, hardly able to see, and could not find Tomas and Alonso. So they took Luis, bleeding from his forehead, to Memorial Hermann Cypress Hospital.

'Please let me know'

Stefany Carreon's phone rang at 2 a.m. that Wednesday. The man said his name was Chris. He was a friend of Tomas', he said, though she didn't know him. There had been an accident. They were searching for Tomas.

She called Tomas' parents, but they didn't pick up. She awoke her three children, carried them to her car, and headed to their house deep in the woods on Lufkin's southeastern outskirts. She banged on the door.

Tomas' sister, Claudia Vasquez, took over the phone.

"Please let me know as soon as they tell you something," she texted Chris.

He promised that he would.

At 4:19 a.m., he texted again.

"Search was called off till morning. It's too dark and too rough for them to push through. You and your family are in my prayers."

Early that morning, Alonso's older brother's cellphone also rang. Alonso was missing, his cousin said.

He scrambled out of bed, called his father and grabbed his keys. Alonso's father called his wife, who lived 400 miles away in the Mexican border town across from Eagle Pass.

We're going to look for Alonso, he said.

By 5 a.m., Tomas' father was agitated. He needed to do something to find his only son. He, his brother and son-in-law drove through the rain, in the dark, to Houston.

They didn't know exactly where the boat had disappeared but headed to the general direction that Chris had described, stopping at a sheriff's office near Interstate 45 and Cypress Creek. Deputies knew about the accident and told them where to go.

Tomas' relatives surveyed the surging creek. They couldn't find anyone to help with the search. Nearly all of the city's rescue workers were overwhelmed. For a time, sheriff's deputies showed up, then left.

The hours ticked by, frustratingly slow and maddeningly fast. The families knew that the longer they waited, the less likely it would be that they would find either of them alive.

The search heightens

As word of the missing men spread Thursday in Lufkin, volunteers converged where rescuers found Luis, wading through waist-high water.

Tomas' family bought a kayak at Academy.

Alonso's family prepared to launch a boat.

Luis checked himself out of the hospital and arrived with his girlfriend.

"I've gotta find my friends," he said.

Tomas' family called hospitals but couldn't find him.

Alonso's father set up his folding chair on a sandy berm with a view of the cottonwood branch that Luis had clung to and the water moving swiftly below.

A body found

At 1 p.m. that Friday, sheriff's deputies radioed that someone on the Interstate 45 bridge had spotted a body floating downstream on the creek.

Standing on the bank, Tomas' father saw the body below. The man who had drowned was wearing white sneakers.

That's my son, Tomas Sr. said.

Well, we don't know that yet, said Alonso's uncle, Ruben Guillen.

It's probably someone else, Ruben and others said.

No, Tomas' father said, that's my son.

He looks too big to be your son, they said.

My son is kind of big.

Well, he looks too dark, they said.

My son is kind of dark, he replied.

"What was he wearing?" the father asked his daughter on the phone. "Was he wearing white shoes?"

Yes, she whispered.

A mother stranded

At 11 a.m. the next day, Alonso's uncle Ruben leaned on his walking stick on the creek bank, his American flag polo stained with sweat. They had been up and down the banks maybe 30 times.

Everybody loves Alonso, Ruben said. He listens to any story, no matter how boring. He adopts stray dogs from shelters and hosts fundraisers for cancer patients.

"He was," Ruben started, then stopped.

"He is, a Dreamer."

"It's kind of annoying what people say about them," he said, "when they're giving their lives for this country."

Alonso was 15 and his brother, Wilfredo, 14 when they entered the U.S. with six-month tourist visas and moved in with their older brother. They picked up English quickly, made friends easily.

Their brother had married an American and received citizenship. Then he applied for residency for his parents. There was a decades-long backlog for siblings.

His father's application went through quickly, and he received his green card four years ago.

But the mother's stalled, leaving her stuck in Mexico. In 2007, Rita de Guillen told a border agent she was coming to Texas for a wedding. When the agent asked if she had relatives here, she lied.

She said she feared they would figure out her children had overstayed their visas and deport them.

"What mother wouldn't lie for her children?" she said.

In a separate interview with federal immigration officers, one of her sons told the truth. Authorities revoked her visa. She hadn't seen Alonso since.

As soon as she heard he was missing, she went to the port of entry in Eagle Pass and told an agent her son was swept away during Hurricane Harvey rescue efforts, she said. She said she begged for a humanitarian visa so she could come here for a few days. They turned her down, she said, though U.S. border officials dispute that, saying they have no record of her asking for admission.

So Rita grieved with her son Wilfredo, who had been deported because of a drug conviction and could not return to the United States, records show.

A deputy, now a volunteer

Harris County Deputy Steve Mateo pulled up to the creek just before 4 p.m. that Saturday. He and his partner had been searching for people missing in the storm but were now back to regular duties.

Mateo, 53, a father of three and grandfather of three more, was off the clock, here as a volunteer. He wiped sweat from his sunburned cheek and pulled on his backpack.

"If it was my son out here," he said. "I'd want the same thing."

The men gathered around him, offering theories of where Alonso might be.

They piled into trucks and drove past flooded-out neighborhoods to a debris field off Aldine Westfield Road that borders the creek.

It acted like a strainer for the storm. Towering trees caught chunks of roof and a dog house. Low, thorny plants snagged plastic bags and dead rodents. A canister of chlorine rested against a tree.

As they moved deeper into the swamp, men start slipping.

Mateo slid a few feet down a ridge. His pants got covered up to the thigh. He got back up. Two minutes later, he slipped again. Mud caked his class ring and his gold wedding band.

"We need to check this riverbed down here if we can," he said.

They made their way down toward the water, slowly.

No sign of Alonso.

Mateo led them back out to their trucks and paused before climbing into his patrol car.

"Guys, I'm not a professional at this," he said. "I know there's a certain pattern professionals do. Unfortunately, I'm not there."

A friend of Alonso's family, Juan Panuco Jr., shook his head.

"You've all done so much already," he said.

"No we haven't," Mateo replied. "It really kind of aggravates me."

The searchers regrouped back along the creek bed.

One of Alonso's uncles called the Harris County medical examiner. Do you have anyone by the name of Alonso Guillen?

No.

Then the uncle tried the Montgomery County medical examiner. Same answer.

Did they ask you questions? If he has tattoos or birthmarks, someone asked.

The uncle shook his head.

"They don't care," he said.

As the crowd thinned out, Alonso's father told them to have faith.

My son, he said, is a fighter.

Mother's premonition

Alonso's mother struggled to sleep that night. It was stifling hot without a whisper of wind. At 3 a.m., she bolted awake.

She swore something had moved in the room. How could it be? She was alone.

"Oh God," she thought. "My son is no longer with us."

She didn't want to accept it. So she willed herself back to sleep, chiding herself for being so superstitious.

A few hours later, the men waded deeper into the debris field. They launched another boat on the creek, heading upstream this time.

At noon, a man on an ATV stopped by, reporting he had seen two men rescued by a helicopter on Thursday afternoon. Hope rose.

At 12:20 p.m., someone started screaming on the bank on the spot where Alonso's father had sat for days.

"Come on! Vámonos!"

"The rope! The rope!"

Who can swim, a woman screamed.

Alonso's father saw the body floating face down and recognized the camouflage jacket.

"It's my son!"

Alonso's brother-in-law, Raudel Rodriguez, stripped off his jeans and boots and dove into the creek.

"Oh Christ," a woman whispered as the body kept floating downstream.

Raudel pulled himself out of the water and scrambled up the shoulder and tried to reach Alonso but couldn't stretch far enough.

He dove back in, dog paddled, grabbed Alonso's ankle, swam back up to the sandy bank.

Alonso's family circled around his father and steered him away from the water, praying. He thanked God for the time he had with his son.

"Take him to you," he sobbed.

Saying goodbye

The day Alonso was found, the Houston Chronicle published a story reporting that the last body had been recovered and that family members said he was a "Dreamer."

The story went viral.

By Monday, state and federal congressmen reached out to the family. Media descended on Lufkin. Immigration officials put out a statement saying they were working with consular officials to admit Alonso's mother to the U.S. for the funeral.

Early Tuesday, with the U.S. government's blessing, Rita arrived in Lufkin to bury her son.

Hours later, Attorney General Jeff Sessions took to the podium in Washington, D.C., to announce plans to wind down the so-called "Dreamer" program that provided some 800,000 young immigrants with temporary work permits and protection from deportation. Sessions said the program denied jobs to Americans and encouraged illegal immigration. If Congress does not act on the issue in six months, the Dreamers' permits and protection will go away.

Thousands of miles away in Lufkin, Tomas' family wasn't thinking about the politics of immigration. They gathered around his grave site, dressed in white, his favorite color, and released balloons into the sky.

Not far away, on her family's living room couch, Alonso's mother also mourned. She flipped through a coffin catalog. Alonso was her joy, she said. Fearless, like her. Selfless.

"He served God so well that He took him," she told her husband. "He lent him to us for a while so he could do something."

On Saturday, Rita rested her hand on Alonso's coffin moments before he was lowered into his grave at Whitehouse Cemetery in Lufkin.

"Thank you," she said, "for choosing me as your mother."

'Changed my life'

Leonard, the rescuer who saw the boat flip over, was back in Georgia. He and his crew had helped search for Tomas and Alonso before moving on to other rescues.

He typed a long Facebook post late Tuesday night.

"This past week has changed my life," he wrote.

"I literally saw two Mexicans die this week trying to save American people."

They work hard for what they have, he wrote, and "go through hell" to give their families a better life. They love this country.

"Don't forget how we started. Don't forget who we are," he closed. "We are all ancestors of immigrants. Whether you like it or not.

"End of rant. Carry on."

Susan Carroll is an investigative reporter for the Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter. Send her tips at susan.carroll@chron.com.

Lomi Kriel is an immigration reporter for the Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter. Send her tips at lomi.kriel@chron.com.

Dug Begley contributed to this report.