‘Oh my God, we're floating': What survivors – and those still missing – faced in terrifying Texas floods

Yahoo

6 days ago

With the holiday weekend ahead of them, some 750 girls bunked in last Thursday night at Camp Mystic. Just a few miles away in Central Texas, boys did the same at Camp La Junta.
The 18 or so youth summer camps along the Guadalupe River long had been 'the lifeblood of this community,' a birthplace of core summer memories. And now, kids like 9-year-old Janie Hunt and 8-year-old Renee Smajstrla and Braeden Davis and his brother Brock, 9 and 7, were ready to make more.
The area's river valleys also were known to nature lovers who frequented its campgrounds, RV parks and the sort of Airbnb that Ricky Gonzalez and his friends had rented for the July Fourth weekend.
But this river basin also had been prone to flash flooding, given its rugged, limestone bed. It once had been named 'one of the three most dangerous regions' in the country for flash flooding. And people here still talked about the 1987 'flood wave' downstream that killed 10 teenagers and injured 33 people.
Early Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service issued a flood watch highlighting Kerr County as at high risk of flash flooding.
And by Thursday evening, an entire summer's worth of rain began to fall.
At Camp La Junta, Ruffin Boyett was the first to wake in his cabin around 4 a.m. Friday, unable to 'sleep because of the lightning,' he told CNN affiliate KSAT.
'People were screaming that there was a flood,' his brother, Piers Boyett, recalled. 'There was a lot of water.'
Another camper woke up their counselor, who woke up the rest of the boys. Braeden Davis heard screaming around 4 a.m. from another cabin.
Windom Etheridge, 14, noticed 'more and more' water flowing into the La Junta camp. People from other parts started coming 'to seek refuge' at his cabin.
'We didn't really know what was going on around us because it was dark. We couldn't see past the trees,' he told CNN. 'All we really knew is that we needed to move stuff in order for it not to get wet.'
Windom and his pals 'couldn't really go anywhere because around us there were streams, really strong streams converging, and we didn't want to get swept away because of all the runoff from the mountain.'
So they stayed put. At least for the moment.
At a nearby Kerr County RV park, a phone rang around 4:44 a.m. Robert Brake was calling his father to urge him to evacuate.
'Dad, you got to get out of there,' Brake implored.
But less than 10 minutes later, Brake's brother went to check him – and found all the homes in the area had vanished in the flooding.
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At another hamlet of this beloved river, a family away on a camping trip fought the current.
Soon, it swept a woman away.
Around 5 a.m., friends Joyce Badon, Ella Cahill, Reece Manchaca and Aidan Heartfield knew they were in danger at Heartfield's dad's Kerrville vacation home.
They called Heartfield's dad.
'As they were on the phone, Aidan passed it to Joyce, saying that he needed to help Ella and Reese,' Cahill's sister later learned.
'Joyce confirmed that all three have been swept away,' she said.
'Shortly after, the phone went dead.'
At an Airbnb where Ricky Gonzalez was staying with a dozen friends, he woke up in the Airbnb to a friend's dog pawing at the door. Looking outside, they watched one of their cars get swept away by floodwaters.
Water quickly rose to the second story. They had to act fast.
'The water was almost 30 feet deep. I can't swim personally,' Gonzalez said. 'We made sure all the floaties were inflated, air mattresses, coolers, getting everything ready, just in case that we need to, you know, survive.'
Gonzalez gave a 'last goodbye' to his sister on FaceTime. And as the group geared up to escape through two big upper windows, he had a startling thought:
'Some of us aren't going to make it out alive … I might see some of my friends pass away this morning.''
At Camp Mystic, a quick-thinking security guard was putting campers on mattresses to help them ride out the rising waters.
'Each of those sweet girls (were) cold, wet, and frightened – but they were also incredibly brave,' Glenn Juenke told CNN. 'They trusted me, and we leaned on each other through a long, harrowing night together inside their cabin.'
Camp counselors, many of them teenagers, also helped children escape through windows and move to dry land, a mother of three campers told CNN.
'Two counselors were in the rapids and one on the dry hill moving the kids from hand to hand,' the mother said. 'A lot of them lost their shoes and then climbed up the rocky hill to safety.'
Kerr County had no comprehensive flood warning system, even with the climate crisis expected to worsen natural disasters, including extreme rain.
More than 100 game wardens and an aviation group tried early Friday morning to get into Camp Mystic – but they could not access it.
Soon, Texas authorities were 'surging all available resources' to respond to the Guadalupe River flooding, and seasoned volunteers were headed to Kerr County.
In Kerrville, a law enforcement official knocked on Rita Olsen's door around 6 a.m. Friday: 'There are people screaming in the river,' he told her. 'We're evacuating everybody.'
Carl Jeter heard a woman's screams outside his Texas home, he told CNN. When he looked outside, he saw a woman trapped in a tree. 'I'm gonna get help,' Jeter told her. 'We're gonna make sure we get you out of there.'
He dialed 911.
At Camp La Junta, Windom and his friends 'woke up again to more water,' he said. The Boyett brothers and their fellow campers recognized the danger.
'Oh my God, we're floating,' Ruffin Boyett realized. The campers had to make a quick decision. 'The flood started getting bigger,' Piers Boyett said. 'We have bunk beds in our cabin, and (the water) was going to the top bunk.
'We had one choice: We had to swim out of our cabins.'
The campers sought higher ground and swam to safety, one's father told CNN.
They made their way to a service road, where emergency personnel found them.
The Guadalupe River had risen from about 3 feet to nearly 30 feet in nearby Comfort, Texas, endangering more than 50,000 people.
Authorities finally managed to enter Camp Mystic and start rescuing children, among them, a congressman's daughters, officials said.
But many still were unaccounted for.
As Ricky Gonzalez and his friends stood at the upper windows, the water began to recede. Leo Garcia, with his wife Paula, were driving to check on a family property when he spotted someone in a second-story window.
They stopped and waded through debris-filled water to the house.
'We all got out and just went over to the house and helped' Gonzalez and his friends out of the house, Leo Garcia recalled. 'I think they were just so much in shock that they did not realize that the water had receded enough where they could have walked out.'
The Garcias took Gonzalez, his friends and their five pets back to their own home and fed them.
'We just tried to do what we do best,' Paula Garcia said, 'and that's to just take care of people.'
Carl Jeter stayed, too, with the woman in the tree.
But after 30 minutes, no one came to help.
So, Jeter got in his car and flagged down a state Department of Public Safety officer. A swift water team soon arrived and put a life vest on the woman. She jumped from the tree into the team's boat.
Jeter then took her to his home, where he learned she'd been camping with her family along the river when it carried her way. She was miles away from the campsite when he found her, and had spent four hours in the debris-ridden water before pulling herself onto the tree.
'It's a true miracle,' he said. 'We've been on the river for a long time, and that's not something that is survivable.'
Across the youth camps, parents were advised to call for information. Windom's folks got a text message saying all La Junta's campers were accounted for.
Still, it kept raining, with flood emergency advisories extended and Kerr County residents urged to shelter in place.
Authorities announced Friday afternoon that 13 people had died.
By Friday evening, Camp Mystic was the only youth camp with people still missing, authorities said. Search and rescue teams were trying to find 'about 23' children unaccounted for, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said.
Among them was 9-year-old camper Janie Hunt, whose family was 'just praying' for their 'brave and sweet' daughter.
'That does not mean they've been lost, they could be in a tree, they could be out of communication,' he said. 'We will do everything humanly possible to find your daughter,' Patrick said.
Texas Game Wardens arrived at the camp to help with rescues.
Other families reunited with children shaken by their ordeal. Brock Davis, who had just graduated kindergarten, was 'super traumatized once we reunited with him,' his mother told CNN. 'He was just shell-shocked.'
Windom's parents picked him up Friday night. 'All those boys were pretty traumatized,' said his mother, Amy Etheridge.
As search and rescuers worked Friday night to find the living and recover the dead, the death toll rose to 24.
Authorities pledged to keep searching.
'They will continue in the darkness of night. … They will be nonstop, seeking to find everybody who is unaccounted for,' Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said. At least 14 helicopters, 12 drones and over 500 people were rescuing adults and children – some out of trees – in Kerr County on Friday.
Overnight, connectivity problems hindered the task. Search teams, working in pitch black darkness, couldn't communicate effectively because radios were down and cell phones didn't work.
By morning, more tragic news emerged: Jane Ragsdale, the 'heart and soul' director of Heart O' the Hills camp, had died.
And Janie Hunt, the 9-year-old at Camp Mystic, was dead, her mom told CNN.
Search and rescue continued Saturday, with more people picked out of trees.
'Today will be a hard day,' Kerrville's mayor warned, his voice wavering in opening remarks at a news conference.
As water receded along the Guadalupe, even more rain prompted additional flash flood emergencies elsewhere in Texas.
And 27 people were still missing from Camp Mystic. The horror campers endured became clear as responders combed the flood zone.
'There was nowhere for these kids to go. The buildings were washed out, just carved out from the inside,' said Nick Sorter, a member of the volunteer United Cajun Navy of Louisiana.
Near the camp, 'the people have lost everything. If your house was even close to the riverbank, it's gone, swept off the foundation,' Sorter said. 'At this point, we don't know how many people were even home when this happened.
'If you were home … you probably got swept down the river.'
Communications improved Saturday, in part thanks to Starlink connections deployed to every first responder vehicle across Kerr County, Sorter told CNN.
Still, rescue operations were complicated by a severe debris field, with downed trees blocking the path of riverboats, he added. Low-hanging clouds also prevented helicopters from reaching the area, slowing efforts.
Even so, more residents jumped in to help.
Kerrville restaurateurs Daric and Heidi Easton pivoted to feeding first responders and flood survivors.
The father of a daughter around the age of the girls missing from Camp Mystic, Daric Easton couldn't 'imagine what these parents are going through, and I don't need to,' he said. 'I just need to make sandwiches.'
'If I keep making sandwiches, people can still be fed. If responders are fed, then they can save lives.'
But soon, more tragic news: Mystic campers Sarah Marsh, Lila Bonner and Renee Smajstrla had died in the flooding, relatives said. Sisters Blair Harber, 13, and Brooke Harber, 11 – who were not at the camp – were also found dead.
By Saturday afternoon, the overall death toll was 32, including 14 children.
Abbott visited Camp Mystic on Saturday to see the place 'horrendously ravaged in ways unlike I've seen in any natural disaster,' he said.
'We won't stop until we find every girl who was in those cabins,' the governor vowed.
Still, many would not be heard from for days.
Friends Ella Cahill, Reese Manchaca, Joyce Badon and Aidan Heartfield were still missing as Cahill's sister, Mackenzie Cahill-Hodulik, and other relatives headed to Kerrville to look for them.
Her sister's house is 'just slab,' Cahill-Hodulik said. 'Their belongings are scattered across the river side, even miles away. The car they came in is in the river.'
Across Kerr County, more than 850 people have been brought to safety so far, authorities said, with Texas Game Wardens saying they airlifted 302 people in an operation involving 158 off-road vehicles, 37 boats, 10 rescue teams with swimmers, two helicopters and 16 drones.
But the death toll has continued to rise, with more than 80 reported dead as of Sunday evening. The death toll included at least 28 children in Kerr County, where 10 campers and one counselor were still missing from Camp Mystic, authorities said.
Robert Brake and his brother, whose parents were in the RV park, also have traveled to Kerrville, Texas, where they check in at a funeral home staging recovered bodies, Brake told CNN.
'It's an emotional rollercoaster,' he said tearfully. 'You go, and you don't want to hear they're here, but when they say they're not there, it's just one more ounce of hope – and that's all we can ask for.'
CNN's Karina Tsui, Diego Mendoza, Alaa Elassar, Rebekah Riess, Hanna Park, Lauren Mascarenhas, Chris Boyette, Maureen Chowdhury, Danya Gainor, Amanda Musa, Julianna Bragg, Pamela Brown, Ed Lavandera, Sarah Dewberry, and Shoshana Dubnow contributed to this report.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the first name of Windom Etheridge.