Pictured: All the girls killed after Texas floods ravaged Camp Mystic
Eleven girls are missing from Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, and five of their fellow campers have died after the rushing waters destroyed the all-girls private Christian summer camp.
The total death toll has risen to 59, including 29 children, after the Guadalupe River flooded and surged by up to 30 feet above its usual water level Friday.
The beloved director of Camp Mystic, Richard 'Dick' Eastland, 70, died while trying to save girls as a month's worth of rain dropped in a matter of minutes.
One week before the tragedy, the camp shared videos on social media of the campers happily prancing around on stage during their first term chorus and dance production.
The youngest campers slept on low-laying 'flats' inside the camp's cabins, whereas older girls slept in cabins on higher ground, according to the NYT.
Most of the missing girls are from the younger age bracket, who were sleeping just yards away from the banks of the Guadalupe River.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that some 750 girls had been staying at the camp when the floodwaters hit.
Here is what we know about all of the girls who died in the flood:
Renee Smajstrla, 8
The family of an eight-year-old Renee Smajstrla has confirmed that she was among those who lost her life during the tragic floods.
Her uncle, Shawn Salta, shared on Facebook: 'We are thankful she was with her friends and having the time of her life, as evidenced by this picture from yesterday.
'She will forever be living her best life at Camp Mystic.'
Janie Hunt, 9
The mother of Dallas girl Janie Hunt confirmed to local media her daughter was one of the campers killed in the flood.
'We are just devastated,' she told NBC 5.
Sarah Marsh, 8
Alabama native Sarah Marsh died after the waters swept through Camp Mystic, according to her family.
'Thank you for the outpouring of love and sympathy! We will always feel blessed to have had this beautiful spunky ray of light in our lives. She will live on in our hearts forever! We love you so much sweet Sarah,' her grandmother said, according to The Kerrville Daily Times.
Lila Bonner, 9
The family of Lila Bonner, who was sharing a cabin at the camp with her best friend Eloise Peck, confirmed her passing to NBC News.
'In the midst of our unimaginable grief, we ask for privacy and are unable to confirm any details at this time,' the family said.
'We ache with all who loved her and are praying endlessly for others to be spared from this tragic loss.'
Eloise Peck, 8
Dallas girl Eloise Peck, who recently finished second grade at Bradfield Elementary with her best friend Lili, also died in the flood.
'Eloise was literally friends with everyone. She loved spaghetti but not more than she loved dogs and animals,' her mother, Missy Peck, told FOX 4.
'She passed away with her cabinmate and best friend Lila Bonner who also died. Eloise had a family who loved her fiercely for the 8 years she was with us. Especially her Mommy.'
Multiple people lost their lives in the biblical flooding who were not attending Camp Mystic.
The death toll currently stands at 59 - including 38 adults.
Texas's Division of Emergency Management predicted the number of dead as a result of catastrophic flooding in Kerrville would top 100, sources told Daily Mail.
People have been desperately posting about their missing friends and relatives in a bid to help the search effort to find them, following the flooding.
Among the children, who were not attending the camp but tragically lost their lives, are two other young sisters who visiting their grandparents when the flood rushed through their cabin.
Blair Harber, 13
Two sisters, Blair and Brooke Harber, were among those who were killed in the deadly Texas floods.
They were not attending Camp Mystic when the natural disaster struck.
They were with their grandparents at a cabin along the Guadalupe River when they were swept away, reported FOX 4.
The girls' parents were staying at another cabin and are safe. Their grandparents, Charlene and Mike Harber, are missing.
Brooke Harber, 11
Brooke Harber, Blair's younger sister, was confirmed dead over the holiday weekend.
Blair and Brooker were eighth grade and sixth grade students respectively at St. Rita Catholic School, according to their priest, Father Joshua J. Whitfield.
'Even if we may never fully understand why such tragedies happen, we are called to respond with love, compassion, and prayer,' Whitfield said.
'We will honor Blair and Brooke's lives, the light they shared, and the joy they brought to everyone who knew them.'
Missing girls from Camp Mystic
At least 11 girls from Camp Mystic are missing from the camp.
One counselor is also still unaccounted for, Larry Leitha, the county sheriff, said on Sunday morning.
Camp Mystic attendees Kellyanne Lytal and Lainey Landry are among the missing children, according to KENS 5.
Wrecked father, Ty Badon, told CNN on Saturday that his daughter and her friends are missing and have not been seen or heard from since the disastrous rush of water.
His daughter, Joyce Badon, and her friends, Ella Cahill, Reese Manchaca and Aiden Heartfield were last heard from around 4am on Friday.
Authorities and search teams are still making their way through the wreckage to hopefully account for those missing.
Haunting photos from Sunday showed teams searching through vegetation, as young girls accompanied by adults walked around what is left of Camp Mystic.
On Sunday, Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration for Texas amid a swirl of criticism of his administration for making major cuts to federal funding, impacting agencies like FEMA which lead the response to natural disasters.
'I just signed a Major Disaster Declaration for Kerr County, Texas, to ensure that our Brave First Responders immediately have the resources they need,' Trump wrote on Truth Social.
'These families are enduring an unimaginable tragedy, with many lives lost, and many still missing.
'The Trump Administration continues to work closely with State and Local Leaders.
'Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was on the ground yesterday with Governor Greg Abbott, who is working hard to help the people of his Great State.
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The Guardian
11 minutes ago
- The Guardian
At US summer camps, kids get a glimpse of their future. That's what made the horror in Texas so visceral
Among the many dreams that the US offers its citizens, there's this: that the American child, around the age of eight, will go to sleep-away camp a few hours from home and begin one of the key formative experiences of their life. They will return every summer. They will learn independence. They will form bonds with people who will one day godparent their children. As an adult, a friend of mine – no kidding – returned to the hallowed ground in Pennsylvania where her summer camp once stood, bought a piece of land and built a house there. Whenever we visited, she'd point out the ruins of the old dining hall down by the lake and get a haunted look on her face. I mention this because, among the many devastated reactions to the flash floods in Texas last week, there is one that is particular, and particularly acute, to millions of Americans: a gut-level blow of unfathomable loss striking at an experience many consider to be sacred. There's no real equivalent to these kinds of summer camps in Britain. But for 26 million American kids each year, going to camp is indistinguishable from summer itself. And as with Camp Mystic on the banks of the Guadalupe River, where 27 campers and staff were killed by the floods, many have been going for long enough to be attended by generations of the same family. In a country relatively short on long-range tradition, summer camp is right up there. As a result, as news of the floods started to break last weekend, there was a frenzy of communication between parents across the country, many of whom had dropped their own kids off at camp the previous week. 'Unimaginable' was the word bouncing around on the text chains, but what made this disaster so horrific is that, for many Americans, the scene at Camp Mystic was intimately imaginable. You knew the excitement and nerves of the youngest children being dropped off for the first time; you could see, in your mind's eye, the camp director, mirrored wrap-around sunglasses balanced on top of his baseball cap, marshalling cars stuffed with gear to their cabins. These camps, many of which have been running for more than 100 years, run like clockwork. You could put the American Camp Association in charge of the US military and it would probably do just fine. The idea of any evil befalling your child at summer camp is, in the minds of many Americans, more remote than something happening to them at school. Still, as an outsider, when my own kids got within age range two years ago, I was instinctively hostile to the whole thing. It seemed cultish. Seeing your child off to be minded by a bunch of untested 18-year-olds from Europe and Australia, brought in via a visa loophole, seemed nuts. The closest experience I'd had in my own childhood was a week at Brownie camp, and I'd hated every second of it. This wasn't, I knew, how many of my American friends felt. Immortalised in movies like The Parent Trap and books like Meg Wolitzer's coming of age novel The Interestings, camp is where they first discovered their tribes – in the close-knit Jewish camps of the north-east; in the arts and theatre camps and the YMCA camp network, to which my own kids (after launching a campaign to persuade me) would themselves end up going. No tech, no phone calls, basically no laundry. Up at 7.30am and lights out at 9pm. A 'bucolic' camp in rural New Jersey that was also my personal nightmare: in a wood, on a lake, where there were bear drills and snapping turtles and the occasional snake, plus no air conditioning, and – ugh – group fun. And I was wrong, as it turned out. At eight years old, my kids did two weeks at camp and a year later, before we left the US for good, they lobbied to be allowed back for three. Their half-brother, two years their senior, was already pulling down the full two months at his camp up in the Berkshires. And while it won't be the defining experience of their lives, when they're 50 I have a feeling they'll still be talking, occasionally, about camp – not the friends they made, but the even more delicious experience of making a sworn enemy, a kid from New Jersey who furthered the opinion that New York is full of 'crusty rats'. It inoculated them against other failures of nerve and made change seem not just survivable but fun. In other words – and as American parents this week consider in light of the full horror in Texas, where stories of what happened at Camp Mystic continue to unfold – it seemed to contain within it a promise of the future. Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
A decade of missed opportunities: Texas couldn't find $1M for flood warning system near camps
Over the last decade, an array of local and state agencies missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert the type of disaster that swept away dozens of campers and others in Kerr County, Texas over the Fourth of July weekend. The agencies repeatedly failed to secure roughly $1 million for a project to better protect the county's 50,000 residents and thousands of youth campers and tourists who spend time along the Guadalupe River in an area known as 'flash-flood alley.' The plan, which would have installed flood monitoring equipment near Camp Mystic, cost about as much as the county spends on courthouse security every two years, or 1.5% of its annual budget. Meanwhile, other communities had moved ahead with sirens and warning systems of their own. In nearby Comfort, a long, flat-three minute warning sound signifying flood danger helped evacuate the town of 2,000 people as practiced. Previous floods provided warnings A deadly 2015 Memorial Day flood in Kerr County rekindled debate over whether to install a flood monitoring system and sirens to alert the public to evacuate when the river rose to dangerous levels. Some officials, cognizant of a 1987 flood that killed eight people on a church camp bus, thought it was finally time. But the idea soon ran into opposition. Some residents and elected officials opposed the installation of sirens, citing the cost and noise that they feared would result from repeated alarms. County commissioners sought compromise. They moved forward with a plan for a warning system without sirens, which would improve flood monitoring with a series of sensors but leave it up to local authorities to alert the public. They didn't want to pay for it on their own but found little help elsewhere. The county's largest city, Kerrville, declined to participate in a joint grant application that would have required a $50,000 contribution. The state's emergency management agency twice passed over the county's request for hazard mitigation funding, citing a deficiency in the application and then backing communities ravaged by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The state's flood infrastructure fund later offered an interest-free loan for the project — but that plan was seen as too stingy and turned down by the agency in charge of managing the watershed. A failure to act Without the flood monitoring system, the county was left vulnerable when rains pounded the area in the early morning hours of July 4 and the river rapidly rose. 'There wasn't enough fight in them, and there needs to be more fight this time,' said Nicole Wilson, a San Antonio mother who pulled her daughters out of an area camp ahead of the flooding and who launched an online petition calling on Kerr County to install the sirens. 'Whether it's a combination of city, state and federal funding, there simply can't be the answer of 'no' this time.' Local authorities and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have urged the public not to point fingers after the flooding, which killed more than 110 people and left scores more reported missing. 'I would be willing to talk about it but not yet. It's just too raw right now,' said Glenn Andrew, a former Kerrville city council member who voted in 2017 to pull the city out of the grant proposal for the project. 'My preference is to look forward to the future.' A spokesperson for Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Wednesday that lawmakers, who begin a special session later this month, would approve funding to cover such projects in the future. 'The state will provide emergency warning sirens where needed,' Patrick spokesperson Steven Aranyi wrote in an email. But some anger is starting to boil over. Raymond Howard, a city council member in Ingram, Texas, in Kerr County, said Wednesday it's 'unfathomable' that county officials never took action despite repeatedly talking about it. 'That's just mind-boggling,' he said. 'It's unfathomable that they never worked on it. If it comes down to funding, they're constantly raising taxes on us for other stuff. This is more important. This is lives. This is families. This is heartbreaking.' Howard, who lives in a home along the Guadalupe River, said any action now would come too late for those who have died. Another chance ended in diverted funds Kerr County requested a flood warning system grant in 2016 through the Texas Division of Emergency Management's hazard mitigation program, which is supported by Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to help communities reduce their risk. But that application was rejected because it did not meet federal specifications, including one that required the county have a current hazard mitigation plan on file, Texas emergency management spokesperson Wes Rapaport said. The county hired a consultant and an engineering firm to help prepare another application for the project for the next funding cycle in 2017. The system outlined in the county's preliminary plan would provide 'mass notifications to citizens about high water levels and flooding conditions throughout Kerr County.' At targeted low water crossings within Kerr County, sensors connected to monitoring stations would transmit a signal that would notify local officials and emergency management agencies of the rising water levels. Officials envisioned using that information to alert the public and call their contacts at youth camps and RV parks during emergencies. But after Hurricane Harvey caused record flooding in Houston and other areas of Texas in August 2017, 'funding was distributed to counties that fell under the disaster declaration, which Kerr County was not included on,' Rapaport said. The City of Kerrville's council voted 4-0 to decline to participate in the grant proposal, balking at its planned $50,000 contribution, minutes show. Texas voters created a new funding source for such projects in 2019, backing a constitutional amendment to create a state flood infrastructure fund with an initial $800 million investment. The Upper Guadalupe River Authority, which manages the watershed in Kerr County, revived the project last year with a $1 million initial request for funding. The Texas Water Development Board, which oversees the fund, offered a $50,000 grant and a $950,000 interest-free loan for the rest of the project. The river authority declined to pursue the funding, saying the terms were not favorable. ___ Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa; Keller from Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Mustian from Miami. Associated Press reporter Claudia Lauer contributed to this report from Philadelphia.
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
Texas's Camp Mystic was ‘a place of joy'. Floods turned it into a site of great loss
The loss of 27 campers and counsellors from Camp Mystic to the Texas Hill Country flood may serve, at a terrible cost, to expand its considerable reputation across Texas and beyond. Even as the floods claimed more lives along the valley – more than 100 confirmed dead and 160 people unaccounted for as of Tuesday – the loss of several 'Mystic Girls' has dominated the headlines. The camp, which offers two four-week terms and one two-week term over the summer, has been the go-to summer camp for daughters of Texans for nearly a century. It's so popular that fathers have been known to call the registrar to get their daughters on the list from the delivery room. The camp, which spans more than 700 acres, has been widely described as an all-girls Christian camp, lending an image of baptisms in the river, but the religious component may be overstated: the camp is known as one of dozens along the Guadalupe River that Texan families send their young to escape the brutal heat of the lowlands. Now at least one-half of Camp Mystic, which was due to celebrate its centenary next year, lies in ruins, torn apart by raging floodwaters. The sound of song and girls playing has been replaced by the sound of chainsaws and heavy equipment as 19 state agencies and thousands of volunteers work to search and clear mounds of flood debris along the river, including the muddied personal items of the campers. Five days after the flood, the task along the valley has become a search-and-recovery operation: no one has been rescued from the river alive since Friday. In addition to the lost girls, Camp Mystic's director, Richard 'Dick' Eastland, a fourth-generation owner of the camp, died while attempting to bring five girls to safety. 'It tugs at the heart of anyone in the world that see the pictures of those little faces,' said Claudia Sullivan, author of a book on the Camp Mystic experience, Heartfelt: A Memoir of Camp Mystic Inspirations. 'To know that they were there, having the time of their life, that they were innocent, and then to be taken away in such a tragic event – it takes you to your knees.' Most alumni contacted by the Guardian indicated they were too upset to discuss the camp, or its reputation, as Texas Monthly put it in a 2011 article, for serving 'as a near-flawless training ground for archetypal Texas women'. It has served generations of Texas women, often from well-to-do or politically connected Texas families, including the former first lady Laura Bush, who was a counsellor, and the daughters and granddaughters of Lyndon Johnson, former secretary of state James Baker, and Texas governors Price Daniel, Dan Moody and John Connally. The camp may have been incorrectly characterized as a 'Christian' camp. 'That evokes the idea of church camp but that's not the case,' said Sullivan. 'It's a private camp for girls that holds Christian values. When I was there we spent a lot of time talking about being kind to one another and having compassion, and there were people from other denominations and faiths.' Camp Mystic is better understood, Sullivan added, as being in a place free from pressure. 'You're in nature, in a beautiful setting, and really removed from the world', said Sullivan. 'It's a place of joy and innocence – or was. My sense is that it will definitely be rebuilt, but it's awfully early.' The outpouring of grief and rush to support the community have been striking. A church memorial service was held on Monday in San Antonio for the 'Mystic girls' who had been lost. Many dressed in the camp's green and white, together in song and prayer. It was not possible to get to the camp on Tuesday, a tailback of 2.5 hours extended across the seven miles from Hunt, the nearest hamlet, to Camp Mystic. At the season's peak in July and August, the camp hosted 750 girls aged between seven and 17 years old – that's more than half of Hunt's population of around 1,300. At Ingram, a riverbank town that also lost dozens from RV camps and homes to the flood, emergency workers and volunteers were pitching in, in many cases in the hope of recovering people still lost, and many bodies likely hidden under large piles of river debris, shattered homes and mangled possessions. John Sheffield, owner of Ingram's Ole Ingram Grocery, said the flood had not recognized social differences and nor would the recovery effort: 'This is Americans taking care of Americans. There's been such a tremendous outpouring of support and compassion.' Down by the river, search crews were continuing to comb through debris and mud. Claud Johnson, the mayor of Ingram, was operating a digger up by Hunt. An EMS van pulled up, suggesting another body had been found. Helicopters continued to move overhead despite an incident on Monday when one was struck by a privately operated drone and was forced to make an emergency landing. Three baristas from the Aftersome Coffee stand in San Antonio had come up to serve recovery workers. Allyson Bebleu said she had gone to church camp and it had given her some of her fondest memories. 'It's not just for the wealthiest families, people of all types go to camp,' she said. 'Everyone is putting themselves in the shoes of the Camp Mystic girls. It's tragic.' Camp Mystic was also the subject of a controversial video recently posed by Sade Perkins, a former member of Houston's Food Insecurity Board. Perkins was 'permanently removed' by John Whitmire, the Houston mayor, after she called Camp Mystic a 'whites only' conservative Christian camp without even 'a token Asian, they don't have a token Black person'. Richard Vela, whose 13-year-old daughter Maya was evacuated from a nearby camp, Camp Honey Creek, on Friday and was still too upset to discuss it, said Perkins' comments 'were not right. You don't talk about people like that. There's a lot of death going on and they still haven't found everybody.' Bruce Jerome, who was manning an outreach for flood survivors in Ingram, said he had known Jane Ragsdale, the director and longtime co-owner of Heart O' the Hills Camp, in Hunt, Texas, who had died in the flooding. 'She was just genuinely wonderful,' Jerome said. Further down the track to the river was Josey Garcia, a Democratic representative for San Antonio in the Texas state house. She and her team were also picking through the debris, pointing out vast piles that still need to be be sifted through. Garcia, a military veteran, said it was important to come 'and collaborate with our neighbors here to recover those that are missing and help Kerr county clean up. We've had folks coming from Laredo and outstate Kansas to lend assistance. It's showing the spirit of Texas – when it comes to lives being devastated its our duty to step.' Garcia, too, rejected negative characterizations of Camp Mystic. 'I've been hearing a lot of the rhetoric that's been going around. This is not the time for those types of distinctions. I don't care who was at the camp. All I know is that there are parents and families that are missing their loved ones. Whether it's rich Caucasian children or any other children, we'd still be there.'
