Emotional CNN correspondent reveals her very personal connection to Camp Mystic as she reports from flood chaos
The camp in Kerr County was swallowed by floodwaters from the Guadalupe River Friday after flash-flooding the day before.
Twenty-seven people from the camp were killed in the raging waters, while a counselor and 10 girls remain missing.
At least 82 people have been confirmed dead.
Brown, CNN's chief investigative correspondent, revealed her connection to the camp on Sunday while lamenting how 'so much innocence has now been lost.'
'It's surreal coming back here 30 years later,' she said. 'I was a 10-year-old little camper here filled with so much hope and joy.'
Visibly troubled, Brown, 41, called the camp 'a magical place'.
'I'm overwhelmed with emotion, and I'm overwhelmed with memories,' she said.
'And I can't get over looking at those cabins right next to the Guadalupe River.'
The veteran reporter said she found it hard to accept that a river that provided so much joy to her as a youngster has caused so much pain.
'It's just hard to wrap my head around,' she said. 'I can't stop thinking about those little girls who were in their decorated bunk beds and their trunks, waking up to horror.
'Now, all these girls, these sweet young campers, who had to evacuate and their families.
'And I just can't help but think about them and pray for them, and just hope that more are found alive.'
Brown, 41, revealed even more on her Instagram account, posting memories and keepsakes from her time at Camp Mystic.
The co-host of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer showed a series of letters she penned as a camper.
She also published a video of a 'charm bracelet' she made and wore.
'I remember vividly being so excited about my tribe & picking out these charms with my mom to reflect what was important to me as a 10-year-old camper,' she wrote.
During her coverage, Brown pointed out the 'cabins where the little girls were sleeping' when the flooding began.
'I can't stop thinking about the fact that I was a little camper in one of those cabins 30 years ago,' she said.
As family members of missing campers were seen sifting through the rubble, Brown added: 'It's just too much to bear.'
Shortly after, she and other reporters were evacuated from the campground to another site just up the road.
The search for the 10 missing campers and counselor, meanwhile, continued into Monday morning.
At least five girls from the camp have already been confirmed dead.
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Federal regulators repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic's buildings from their 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous flood plain in the years before rushing waters swept away children and counselors, a review by The Associated Press found. The Federal Emergency Management Agency included the prestigious girls' summer camp in a 'Special Flood Hazard Area' in its National Flood Insurance map for Kerr County in 2011, which means it was required to have flood insurance and faced tighter regulation on any future construction projects. That designation means an area is likely to be inundated during a 100-year flood — one severe enough that it only has a 1% chance of happening in any given year. Located in a low-lying area along the Guadalupe River in a region known as flash flood alley, Camp Mystic lost at least 27 campers and counselors and longtime owner Dick Eastland when historic floodwaters tore through its property before dawn on July 4. The flood was far more severe than the 100-year event envisioned by FEMA, experts said, and moved so quickly in the middle of the night that it caught many off guard in a county that lacked a warning system. But Syracuse University associate professor Sarah Pralle, who has extensively studied FEMA's flood map determinations, said it was 'particularly disturbing' that a camp in charge of the safety of so many young people would receive exemptions from basic flood regulation. 'It's a mystery to me why they weren't taking proactive steps to move structures away from the risk, let alone challenging what seems like a very reasonable map that shows these structures were in the 100-year flood zone,' she said. 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