Texas families plead for information on more than 20 girls missing from summer camp after floods

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Texas parents frantically posted photos of their young daughters on social media with pleas for information as more than 20 campers from an all-girls summer camp were unaccounted for Friday after floods tore through the state’s south-central region overnight.

At least 13 people were dead Friday and dozens missing after months worth of heavy rain fell in a matter of hours on Texas Hill Country, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said. The flood-prone region is dotted with century-old summer camps that draw thousands of kids annually from across the Lone Star State.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said about 23 girls attending Camp Mystic, a Christian camp along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, were unaccounted for Friday afternoon. Search teams were working to conduct helicopter and boat rescues in the fast-moving floodwaters.

Texas Game Wardens said Friday evening that they had arrived at Camp Mystic in trucks and were starting to evacuate campers. They did not immediately provide an update on the missing girls.

“I’m asking the people of Texas, do some serious praying this afternoon — on-your-knees kind of praying — that we find these young girls,” Patrick said.

Families of campers struggle with uncertainty

Dozens of families shared in local Facebook groups that they received devastating phone calls from safety officials informing them that their daughters had not yet been located among the washed-away camp cabins and downed trees. Some were waiting to hear if their children could be evacuated by helicopter. Nine rescue teams, 14 helicopters and 12 drones were being used in the search, Patrick said.

Camp Mystic said in an email to parents that if they have not been contacted directly, their child is accounted for. Safety officials said there were roughly 750 campers.

At an elementary school in nearby Ingram that was being used as a reunification center, more than a hundred people stood around a courtyard with hopes of seeing their loved ones emerge from buses dropping off those who had been evacuated. One young girl wearing a Camp Mystic T-shirt stood in a puddle in her white socks, sobbing in her mother’s arms as she watched the buses arrive.

Many families hoped to see loved ones who had been at campgrounds and mobile home parks in the area.

Camp Mystic sits on a strip known as “flash flood alley,” said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, a charitable endowment that is collecting donations to help nonprofits responding to the disaster.

“When it rains, water doesn’t soak into the soil,” Dickson said. “It rushes down the hill.”

Decades prior, floodwaters engulfed a bus of teenage campers from another Christian camp along the Guadalupe River during devastating summer storms in 1987. A total of 10 campers from Pot O’ Gold Christian camp drowned after their bus was unable to evacuate in time from a site near Comfort, 33 miles (53 kilometers) east of Hunt.

Leaders at Camp Mystic said they are without power, Wi-Fi and running water, and the highway leading to the camp has washed away. Campers were sheltering in buildings on higher ground while they waited to be evacuated.

Two other camps on the river, Camp Waldemar and Camp La Junta, said in Instagram posts that all campers and staff there were safe.

Flood turns Camp Mystic into a horror story

Chloe Crane, a teacher and former Camp Mystic counselor, said her heart broke when a fellow teacher shared an email from the camp about the missing girls.

“To be quite honest, I cried because Mystic is such a special place, and I just couldn’t imagine the terror that I would feel as a counselor to experience that for myself and for 15 little girls that I’m taking care of,” she said. “And it’s also just sadness, like the camp has been there forever and cabins literally got washed away.”

Crane said the camp, which was established in 1926, is a haven for young girls looking to gain confidence and independence. She recalled happy memories teaching her campers about journalism, making crafts and competing in a camp-wide canoe race at the end of each summer. Now for many campers and counselors, their happy place has turned into a horror story, she said.

The camp is split into two neighboring sites. Cabins housing the youngest campers, who can start attending at age 8, are situated at water level along the banks of the river and were likely the first to flood, Crane said. Teen campers stay in cabins higher up on the hillside.

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Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City.