Who Was Joyce Catherine Badon? Dad Who Found Dead Boy Searching for His Young Daughter Gets Devastating News She Died in Texas Floods
Her mother, Kellye Badon, shared the update on Monday. "God showed us the way we should go this morning! We found our lovely daughter who blessed us for 21 years! ❤️ We pray to be able to find her three friends soon. Thanks to EVERYONE for the prayers and support. God is good! ❤️❤️❤️" she wrote.
Searching for Dead Daughter
Family members later confirmed to News4SanAntonio and 12NewsNow that Joyce had died in the catastrophic floods. The heartbreaking news came after her father, Ty, found the body of another child while desperately searching for his daughter, who is among at least eight confirmed victims.
Over the weekend, Ty Badon was searching through the epicenter of the devastation in the rural town of Hunt when he came upon the body of a young boy—one of at least 89 victims claimed by the floods.
"My son and I were walking, and what I thought was a mannequin... it was a little boy, about eight or 10 years old, and he was dead," Badon told CNN.
The heartbroken father shared that he had been searching for his Joyce, 21, and his voice broke at the end of the interview as he asked the public to keep them in their prayers.
Badon said that the last known contact with Joyce was on July 4, the day the floods hit, when she was on a phone call with three of her friends.
The group had been staying in a cabin owned by one of the parents in the scenic town of Hunt, located around 120 miles west of Austin, Texas. During the call, Joyce told the cabin's owner that two members of their group had already been swept away by the rising waters, Badon said.
"A few seconds later, the phone went dead, and that's all we know," Badon said.
"We presume that she got washed away as well. If you go back to where the house is, it's not a good sight."
An Unexpected Loss
Badon said that the house where the group had been staying is "no longer there." "We're praying all four of them are still alive. They're all missing," he said. His daughter is one of many still missing, including 27 children, after the Guadalupe River surged over 26 feet in just 45 minutes during the early morning hours of July 4, unleashing a powerful wave of water that swept through several Kerr County communities.
Governor Greg Abbott said on Sunday that 41 people were officially listed as missing across the state, with the possibility that more people have yet to be identified.
Hundreds of young girls were attending Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp located along the river, and many others were vacationing in the rural area to celebrate the Fourth of July weekend.
Residents are now questioning why authorities failed to issue flood warnings until 1:18 p.m. on July 3—the day the storms began—and initially labeled them as merely "moderate."
The National Weather Service didn't upgrade the alert to a flash flood warning until 1 a.m. on Friday, declaring a Flash Flood Emergency by 4:30 a.m.
However, by that time, floodwaters were already rushing into people's homes. Many Texans believe the delayed warnings led to the high death toll.
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