Clinging to rafters: How staff at all-boys camp in Texas saved hundreds from floodwaters
From the doorway, Beau could see floodwaters beginning to engulf cabins closer to the Guadalupe River, where the younger boys slept. With a group of other campers, he reached a high point on a nearby hillside and watched as counselors rushed into the raging floodwaters.
The torrent of water blew out the walls of at least one cabin and forced counselors to move children into the rafters above their bunk beds. When the water slowed, counselors formed a line and pulled some of the boys to safety. Several counselors slung children over their shoulders and swam them to higher ground.
Within a few hours, each of the nearly 400 children and counselors at the all-boys camp were determined safe and accounted for. Acting on their own, staff had taken decisive action, rushing the children into cabins up the hill from the racing river, which had risen over 20 feet in less than an hour. Parents who spoke with USA TODAY credit them for saving their children's lives.
"If it hadn't of been for them, it would have been a very different scenario with our boys," said Beau's mother, Georgie Brown. "They didn't have anyone telling them what to do, they just did it and saved a lot of our boys."
At other camps the flood took lives.
About five miles down the Guadalupe, floodwaters tore through Camp Mystic, a beloved all-girls Christian summer camp, killing at least 27 children and counselors, officials said. As of Tuesday, rescue teams were desperately searching for five girls still missing after the river overwhelmed the campgrounds in the early morning hours of July 4.
And while there were no children on the grounds at Heart O' the Hills Camp, the flood killed the camp's longtime owner Jane Ragsdale, a matriarch who led the summer program for decades. Other camps dotting the river's edge reported damage – some quite significant – but no loss of life.
The parents of the children rescued from Camp La Junta said while they're grateful to have their children at home, they're also overwhelmed with grief at the loss of life at Camp Mystic, where many of them know the victims and their families.
"It's unbelievable that something so terrible can happen in such a happy place," Brown said.
Kolton Taylor, 12, had only one full day at camp before screams woke him up around 4 a.m. that Friday.
When he climbed out of bed, the floodwaters were up to his knees – and soon his waist. In the dark he felt for his tennis shoes floating nearby, put them on and hurried out the door.
"He ended up on the hillside for about two hours in the rain – terrified," his mother, Janet Davis, told USA TODAY. "He said he heard sounds he won't ever forget."
Nearby, 9-year-old Everett Higgins and several other boys sat on their beds as the flood raged outside. Water seeped into their cabin under the doors and through gaps in the walls, but the cabin was at a higher point than those closest to the river, allowing them to shelter inside.
The children in the cabins near the river's edge were told to climb onto the top bunks and then – as water poured in – the rafters. Some parents said their children were there for about an hour before counselors waded into the water and whisked the children to safety.
"They were heroes," Everett's father, Shawn Higgins, said.
All of the children were moved into several cabins a safe distance from the floodwaters, where counselors tried to keep the boys occupied, passing around a football as the sun came up. Camp leaders took head counts and kept parents updated through emails, text messages and social media posts.
Toward evening, trucks and buses drove the campers to First Presbyterian Church in Kerrville, where they reunited with their families. While on the drive, the boys saw further evidence of the devastation wrought by the flood: uprooted trees, cars washed away and a field where they could see several dead horses.
Janet Davis, who has generational ties to camps in the Texas Hill Country, said Kolton was traumatized.
"It's heartbreaking because it was one of my favorite places to go as a kid," she said. "Now my son never wants to go back."
Brown said the hours she spent waiting to hear about Beau were the longest of her life.
The children were not allowed to have phones at camp and power outages made communication with counselors nearly impossible. Until she saw her son in person, she clung to the brief messages the camp sent out reiterating that everyone had been found safe.
"I was in pure panic mode," she said.
After Beau and the hundreds of other boys were bused to Kerrville, he boarded a helicopter flight with a close friend to Monroe, Louisiana, where they live. It was close to midnight when Brown met him at the local airport.
"I held him so tight," Brown said through tears.
Similar scenes unfolded at the church in Kerrville.
Everett sat in the crowded church gymnasium with scores of other children waiting for their parents. When he spotted his father walking through the door, he ran up to him and nearly tackled him to the ground.
After a long hug, Higgins looked at his son and noticed he was in his pajamas, a borrowed T-shirt and was missing a shoe. In the days since, that image has lingered in Higgins' mind as he's tried to grapple with how close his son came to being swept away in the flood.
"What happened was a miracle," he said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A flood engulfed an all-boys camp in Texas. Staff rushed to save them.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Summer beach day turns dangerous as lightning strikes three at St. Augustine Pier in Florida
Three people were injured after being struck by lightning in a popular summer beach getaway town on Saturday night. Two of the victims of the strike in St. Augustine Pier in Florida were transported to the hospital, one in critical condition and one with minor injuries, according to Wjxt. A third person refused to be taken to the hospital. The pier was closed down while fire crews attended to the injured, and it was inspected for damage. It is expected to reopen on Monday. Mother Nature Steals The Show As Lightning Sets Off Florida Fireworks Display "Please avoid the pier while emergency operations are underway — and remember, when thunder roars, go indoors," St. John's County Fire Rescue said in a Facebook post. "Stay safe and weather aware." St. Augustine Beach Mayor Dylan Rumrell echoed that sentiment, warning residents to seek shelter if they hear thunder. Read On The Fox News App "There's a big storm and lightning can hit at any time," he reportedly said. According to the report, the lightning strike left beachgoers, swimmers and surfers in a panic, and many ran for their cars in the immediate aftermath. Lightning Strike Injures 20 At Popular South Carolina Vacation Getaway "I got scared, everybody was scared," said one witness. According to the National Weather Service, there have been six lightning strike fatalities in the United Sates in 2025, all in different states. North Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, Florida and Oklahoma have all seen fatal strikes. The 10-year average annual fatality rate from lightning strikes is 20 people per year. To reduce the risk of being struck by lightning, the National Weather Service instructs people to immediately move away from high ground, including hills, mountain ridges or peaks. The organization says never to lie down to avoid lightning, never to hide under an isolated tree, never use a cliff or rocky overhang for shelter and to immediately move away from bodies of water and anything that conducts article source: Summer beach day turns dangerous as lightning strikes three at St. Augustine Pier in Florida
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
Girls as young as 7 were startled awake by flooding that devastated their beloved Camp Mystic. How the deadly tragedy unfolded
The emergency weather alert had come early Fourth of July morning: There would be life-threatening flash flooding in Kerr County, Texas. And Camp Mystic – an all-girls Christian camp situated along the Guadalupe River – housed about 750 campers on the flood-prone site as heavy rains started pouring. Girls as young as 7 were peacefully asleep in the cabins where, days before, their parents had dropped them off for the season's second session, expecting their daughters would spend the summer outdoors enjoying everything from archery to yoga together. For 10-year-old Lucy Kennedy, the sense of security that enveloped the camp was punctured when she was awakened by loud crashes of thunder. 'Settle down and go back to sleep,' Lucy said their counselors told them. Even as the cabins shook and kept Caroline Cutrona awake, the counselor thought nothing of the storm. They regularly had bouts of thunder and lightning in her 11 summers at the camp, and it was going to be OK, she thought. But Lucy couldn't sleep. She had a gut feeling something was wrong. That same feeling hit camp photographer Nancy Clement when water rose up the porch of Cozy cabin in the middle of the night. And at Bug House cabin, counselor Laney Owens was awakened by water puddling on the floor. She ran to the camp office and notified staff the flooding was becoming dangerous – and they needed to start evacuating cabins. That's when Camp Mystic owner Dick Eastland and his son, Edward Eastland, one of the camp directors, told the girls at Bug House cabin to quickly grab pillows and blankets, a 12-year-old camper recounted. They would pile the group of girls into their cars and head to the recreation hall. When 19-year-old counselors Silvana Garza Valdez and María Paula Zárate were told by other counselors flooding had engulfed part of Camp Mystic's property, they told their campers to pack a bag with their necessities and led them to a cabin on higher ground. Then, they wrote the girls' names on their skin, wherever they could be visible. At that point, the emergency alerts had become more dire: The campers needed to get to higher ground – quickly. But Cutrona, who says she and other counselors were told to turn in their phones at work, didn't get the alerts. The severity of the flooding only became clear when another counselor came to Cutrona's hilltop cabin on Cypress Lake and told the 14 campers they were going to play a fun game: They needed to hand the counselor one pair of shorts, one top and a pair of underwear as quickly as they could, Cutrona recounted. The counselors realized they would need to do whatever it took to guide their young adventurers to safety – even if it meant navigating chest-deep gushing waters in the stark darkness of night, the counselors, campers and their parents said. As the seemingly never-ending night went on, branches and furniture from the campgrounds rushed past the cabin where Zárate, Garza Valdez and their young campers sheltered. The girls asked what was happening, and the two teen counselors reassured them they were safe. To distract them, they played games and sang songs, waiting until they could be evacuated. And at the Wiggle Inn, a junior cabin, security guard Glenn Juenke placed 7- to 10-year-old girls on mattresses to help them ride out the storm as the water rose, he said. Right about then, young girls at another junior cabin were screaming and crying as floodwaters seeped through Chatterbox cabin. Because she had a top bunk, a 9-year-old who was in the cabin with her twin sister told the other campers they could keep their 'lovies' and 'stuffies' there for safekeeping. As flocks of young girls from the intermediate and senior cabins evacuated to the recreation center, Clement and fellow staff members also piled up their belongings onto their beds, figuring the water wouldn't reach there, Clement said. Even if it did, the mattresses would float, they thought. That's when their cabin door snapped in half. The water suddenly burst in. 'Then we were like, 'OK, we need to get out of here,'' Clement recounted. Clement forcefully pried open the other cabin door as the water pulled against it. Once they were able to exit the cabin, the college-aged staffers dispersed along the porch, holding columns to keep steady. When the water reached their shoulders, they knew it was no longer safe there. They had to escape to higher ground. The girls from Bug House made it to the recreation hall around 3 a.m. local time, a 12-year-old camper recounted. The next several hours were 'a blur of prayer, singing, and confusion,' Owens, their counselor, said. With only flashlights to see through the darkness, hundreds of girls spent the night on the second floor of the hall. Their belongings were left on cheer mats – with some floating away. The recreation hall was no longer a fun performance space, where girls would put on colorful costumes and act, sing and dance. 'Everyone was scared, because there was water coming in, and the water started coming in really fast,' the 12-year-old, whose mother did not want her family to be named to protect their privacy, said. Meanwhile, at Chatterbox cabin, her 9-year-old twin sisters saw a car they thought would be rescuing them float away. So the counselors told them to climb out of the window, one by one, the twins said. 'The water was really high, so we walked over, and the counselors were helping us get over,' one of the twins said. When they got to a hilly area, the counselors realized three of the Chatterbox girls were missing, so they went back to search for them, the twins said. 'It was really, really scary because we didn't know where they were. We didn't know if they got washed away in the rapids. We didn't know anything,' one of the twins said. By then, Clement – using the windowsill as a foothold – hoisted herself onto the roof, clutching her phone, wallet and a soaked stuffed animal she's had since she was 2 years old. Then she helped pull other camp employees up, embodying the camp's motto of 'Be Ye Kind, One to Another.' When one staffer who was trying to get on the roof got swept away and caught on a volleyball net, the others tied their shirts together to help, only to find that the staffer swam against the current and made it back, Clement said. The others went back down and helped lift her onto the roof. Once safe, the Chatterbox children – soaked and freezing – cuddled on the hill. Counselors brought the girls water while they waited 'so long' for the flooding to recede. 'Whenever we were cold, they kept giving us hugs and when we were crying, they would always comfort us,' one of the 9-year-old twins said. The twins soon saw a rainbow, which they interpreted as 'a sign from God.' To pass the time, the girls at the recreation hall sang camp and worship songs, prayed and slept until the rain eventually stopped around 6 a.m. When they heard the campers singing nearby, the staffers on the roof felt relieved. 'It was like a sense of hope, even though at that point, the water was still up really high,' Clement said. The staffers took turns praying as a group, hoping the little girls made it out safely, Clement recalled. At the recreation hall, counselors did a roll call. That's when it hit the girls that some of their friends could be lost in the waters. 'Nobody probably would have thought that anyone would be missing,' the 12-year-old girl said. 'You think maybe they're just somewhere else, they're probably just with another group.' The campers' next stop: the Cypress Lake dining hall. In their five hours there, the exhausted girls kept themselves busy by doing arts and crafts and trying to sleep on tables. Nibbling at the pizza counselors handed out, the 12-year-old camper couldn't help but think her cabin 'was probably fully submerged underwater, like this stuff was just gone.' Later that morning, Zárate and Garza Valdez got word they would be evacuated. 'All the girls started panicking, they all began crying because they didn't want to leave the campgrounds, because they wanted to be with their parents,' Garza Valdez told news channel N+ FORO. Finally, helicopters arrived to bring the hundreds of girls and their counselors to safety. The girls were soon loaded onto buses, some barefoot with cuts on their feet after losing their shoes in the rapids. Lucy, the 10-year-old camper, had given away her Crocs to another camper whose shoes were swept away. On one bus, the girls sang a hymn called 'Pass It On.' Then there were gasps and exclamations of 'oh my God' as the girls laid their eyes on the scale of the disaster. Cars stacked up on top of each other and turned upside down. Piles upon piles of debris in place of their beloved second home. Walls ripped off of the buildings where they made their summer memories with friends turned sisters. Now, word was starting to spread of campers still unaccounted for. 'Wake up, Caroline, wake up. This is not real. I'm in a dream,' Cutrona told herself. Parents held their breaths, agonizingly waiting and praying the goodbyes they said to their daughters would not be their last. Hundreds of local, state and federal crews in helicopters and on boats began the extensive search for the girls that afternoon, combing the area and picking up campers and their counselors out of trees. The girls who made it onto the school buses arrived at Ingram Elementary, where they were reunited in tearful embraces. It had been a long day for the cold, hungry and sleep-deprived children, who were emotionally shaken and ready to head home. Only days later would the fallout come into focus: At least 27 campers and counselors were dead. Young and old generations of campgoers, who credit the almost century-old Camp Mystic for shaping them and teaching them essential life skills, were left to grapple with the devastation. At a Monday vigil honoring the victims, Stacey Merchant said she received the first letter her 12-year-old daughter, Reese, sent from camp in the mailbox Monday. Her daughter was safely evacuated. 'I just realized today that some parents are gonna be getting letters, that first letter, from their daughter today,' Owens told CNN affiliate KTRK as her voice broke. 'And that's heartbreaking to even imagine.' Mourners linked hands, singing, 'From the lake, from the hills, from the sky; all is well, safely rest, God is nigh. Goodnight, Camp Mystic, we love you.' CNN's Anderson Cooper, Ed Lavandera, Caroll Alvarado, Graham Hurley, Cindy Von Quednow, Aditi Sangal, Sarah Dewberry, Shoshana Dubnow, Sara Smart, Emma Tucker and Taylor Galgano contributed to this report.
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
Girls as young as 7 were startled awake by flooding that devastated their beloved Camp Mystic. How the deadly tragedy unfolded
Storms FacebookTweetLink The emergency weather alert had come early Fourth of July morning: There would be life-threatening flash flooding in Kerr County, Texas. And Camp Mystic – an all-girls Christian camp situated along the Guadalupe River – housed about 750 campers on the flood-prone site as heavy rains started pouring. Girls as young as 7 were peacefully asleep in the cabins where, days before, their parents had dropped them off for the season's second session, expecting their daughters would spend the summer outdoors enjoying everything from archery to yoga together. For 10-year-old Lucy Kennedy, the sense of security that enveloped the camp was punctured when she was awakened by loud crashes of thunder. 'Settle down and go back to sleep,' Lucy said their counselors told them. Even as the cabins shook and kept Caroline Cutrona awake, the counselor thought nothing of the storm. They regularly had bouts of thunder and lightning in her 11 summers at the camp, and it was going to be OK, she thought. But Lucy couldn't sleep. She had a gut feeling something was wrong. That same feeling hit camp photographer Nancy Clement when water rose up the porch of Cozy cabin in the middle of the night. And at Bug House cabin, counselor Laney Owens was awakened by water puddling on the floor. She ran to the camp office and notified staff the flooding was becoming dangerous – and they needed to start evacuating cabins. That's when Camp Mystic owner Dick Eastland and his son, Edward Eastland, one of the camp directors, told the girls at Bug House cabin to quickly grab pillows and blankets, a 12-year-old camper recounted. They would pile the group of girls into their cars and head to the recreation hall. When 19-year-old counselors Silvana Garza Valdez and María Paula Zárate were told by other counselors flooding had engulfed part of Camp Mystic's property, they told their campers to pack a bag with their necessities and led them to a cabin on higher ground. Then, they wrote the girls' names on their skin, wherever they could be visible. At that point, the emergency alerts had become more dire: The campers needed to get to higher ground – quickly. But Cutrona, who says she and other counselors were told to turn in their phones at work, didn't get the alerts. The severity of the flooding only became clear when another counselor came to Cutrona's hilltop cabin on Cypress Lake and told the 14 campers they were going to play a fun game: They needed to hand the counselor one pair of shorts, one top and a pair of underwear as quickly as they could, Cutrona recounted. The counselors realized they would need to do whatever it took to guide their young adventurers to safety – even if it meant navigating chest-deep gushing waters in the stark darkness of night, the counselors, campers and their parents said. As the seemingly never-ending night went on, branches and furniture from the campgrounds rushed past the cabin where Zárate, Garza Valdez and their young campers sheltered. The girls asked what was happening, and the two teen counselors reassured them they were safe. To distract them, they played games and sang songs, waiting until they could be evacuated. And at the Wiggle Inn, a junior cabin, security guard Glenn Juenke placed 7- to 10-year-old girls on mattresses to help them ride out the storm as the water rose, he said. Right about then, young girls at another junior cabin were screaming and crying as floodwaters seeped through Chatterbox cabin. Because she had a top bunk, a 9-year-old who was in the cabin with her twin sister told the other campers they could keep their 'lovies' and 'stuffies' there for safekeeping. As flocks of young girls from the intermediate and senior cabins evacuated to the recreation center, Clement and fellow staff members also piled up their belongings onto their beds, figuring the water wouldn't reach there, Clement said. Even if it did, the mattresses would float, they thought. That's when their cabin door snapped in half. The water suddenly burst in. 'Then we were like, 'OK, we need to get out of here,'' Clement recounted. Clement forcefully pried open the other cabin door as the water pulled against it. Once they were able to exit the cabin, the college-aged staffers dispersed along the porch, holding columns to keep steady. When the water reached their shoulders, they knew it was no longer safe there. They had to escape to higher ground. The girls from Bug House made it to the recreation hall around 3 a.m. local time, a 12-year-old camper recounted. The next several hours were 'a blur of prayer, singing, and confusion,' Owens, their counselor, said. With only flashlights to see through the darkness, hundreds of girls spent the night on the second floor of the hall. Their belongings were left on cheer mats – with some floating away. The recreation hall was no longer a fun performance space, where girls would put on colorful costumes and act, sing and dance. 'Everyone was scared, because there was water coming in, and the water started coming in really fast,' the 12-year-old, whose mother did not want her family to be named to protect their privacy, said. Meanwhile, at Chatterbox cabin, her 9-year-old twin sisters saw a car they thought would be rescuing them float away. So the counselors told them to climb out of the window, one by one, the twins said. 'The water was really high, so we walked over, and the counselors were helping us get over,' one of the twins said. When they got to a hilly area, the counselors realized three of the Chatterbox girls were missing, so they went back to search for them, the twins said. 'It was really, really scary because we didn't know where they were. We didn't know if they got washed away in the rapids. We didn't know anything,' one of the twins said. By then, Clement – using the windowsill as a foothold – hoisted herself onto the roof, clutching her phone, wallet and a soaked stuffed animal she's had since she was 2 years old. Then she helped pull other camp employees up, embodying the camp's motto of 'Be Ye Kind, One to Another.' When one staffer who was trying to get on the roof got swept away and caught on a volleyball net, the others tied their shirts together to help, only to find that the staffer swam against the current and made it back, Clement said. The others went back down and helped lift her onto the roof. Once safe, the Chatterbox children – soaked and freezing – cuddled on the hill. Counselors brought the girls water while they waited 'so long' for the flooding to recede. 'Whenever we were cold, they kept giving us hugs and when we were crying, they would always comfort us,' one of the 9-year-old twins said. The twins soon saw a rainbow, which they interpreted as 'a sign from God.' To pass the time, the girls at the recreation hall sang camp and worship songs, prayed and slept until the rain eventually stopped around 6 a.m. When they heard the campers singing nearby, the staffers on the roof felt relieved. 'It was like a sense of hope, even though at that point, the water was still up really high,' Clement said. The staffers took turns praying as a group, hoping the little girls made it out safely, Clement recalled. At the recreation hall, counselors did a roll call. That's when it hit the girls that some of their friends could be lost in the waters. 'Nobody probably would have thought that anyone would be missing,' the 12-year-old girl said. 'You think maybe they're just somewhere else, they're probably just with another group.' The campers' next stop: the Cypress Lake dining hall. In their five hours there, the exhausted girls kept themselves busy by doing arts and crafts and trying to sleep on tables. Nibbling at the pizza counselors handed out, the 12-year-old camper couldn't help but think her cabin 'was probably fully submerged underwater, like this stuff was just gone.' Later that morning, Zárate and Garza Valdez got word they would be evacuated. 'All the girls started panicking, they all began crying because they didn't want to leave the campgrounds, because they wanted to be with their parents,' Garza Valdez told news channel N+ FORO. Finally, helicopters arrived to bring the hundreds of girls and their counselors to safety. The girls were soon loaded onto buses, some barefoot with cuts on their feet after losing their shoes in the rapids. Lucy, the 10-year-old camper, had given away her Crocs to another camper whose shoes were swept away. On one bus, the girls sang a hymn called 'Pass It On.' Then there were gasps and exclamations of 'oh my God' as the girls laid their eyes on the scale of the disaster. Cars stacked up on top of each other and turned upside down. Piles upon piles of debris in place of their beloved second home. Walls ripped off of the buildings where they made their summer memories with friends turned sisters. Now, word was starting to spread of campers still unaccounted for. 'Wake up, Caroline, wake up. This is not real. I'm in a dream,' Cutrona told herself. Parents held their breaths, agonizingly waiting and praying the goodbyes they said to their daughters would not be their last. Hundreds of local, state and federal crews in helicopters and on boats began the extensive search for the girls that afternoon, combing the area and picking up campers and their counselors out of trees. The girls who made it onto the school buses arrived at Ingram Elementary, where they were reunited in tearful embraces. It had been a long day for the cold, hungry and sleep-deprived children, who were emotionally shaken and ready to head home. Only days later would the fallout come into focus: At least 27 campers and counselors were dead. Young and old generations of campgoers, who credit the almost century-old Camp Mystic for shaping them and teaching them essential life skills, were left to grapple with the devastation. At a Monday vigil honoring the victims, Stacey Merchant said she received the first letter her 12-year-old daughter, Reese, sent from camp in the mailbox Monday. Her daughter was safely evacuated. 'I just realized today that some parents are gonna be getting letters, that first letter, from their daughter today,' Owens told CNN affiliate KTRK as her voice broke. 'And that's heartbreaking to even imagine.' Mourners linked hands, singing, 'From the lake, from the hills, from the sky; all is well, safely rest, God is nigh. Goodnight, Camp Mystic, we love you.' CNN's Anderson Cooper, Ed Lavandera, Caroll Alvarado, Graham Hurley, Cindy Von Quednow, Aditi Sangal, Sarah Dewberry, Shoshana Dubnow, Sara Smart, Emma Tucker and Taylor Galgano contributed to this report.
