‘Oh my god, we're floating': Survivors describe their terrifying escape from the catastrophic Texas flooding

CNN

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They clung to trees. They crawled out of windows and floated on mattresses. And they survived to tell the harrowing story of the catastrophic flooding that struck central Texas over the weekend and killed dozens, devastating a community built around camping and nature.
Survivors of the disaster have begun to share their experiences, helping piece together the story of how the horror unfolded.
It began last Thursday. That night, the holiday weekend ahead of them, some 750 girls were bunking at Camp Mystic, an almost century-old all-girls summer camp along the banks of Texas' Guadalupe River. Among them were Janie Hunt, a 'brave and sweet' 9-year-old, and 8-year-old Renee Smajstrla, along with Sarah Marsh, Lila Bonner and the daughters of Texas Rep. August Pfluger.
Young campers also were at nearby Camp La Junta, including 14-year-old Wyndham Etheridge; 9-year-old Braeden Davis and his 7-year-old brother Brock; and brothers Piers and Ruffin Boyett. Another girls camp nearby, Heart O' the Hills in Hunt, Texas, run by beloved director Jane Ragsdale, was in between sessions – no campers were on site.
The 18 or so youth summer camps along the Guadalupe River have long been 'the lifeblood of this community' and 'everybody's bread and butter,' area resident Jerry Adams told CNN. The area's river valleys also thrive on nature lovers who frequent its campgrounds, RV parks, and Airbnbs – including one Ricky Gonzalez and his friends rented for the July Fourth weekend.
But areas around the Guadalupe River have also long been prone to flash flooding, owing to the rugged terrain and the river's non-absorbent limestone bed. The river basin is 'one of the three most dangerous regions' in the country for flash flooding, according to a 2021 document from the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In 1987, nearly a foot of rain fell just west of Hunt, Texas, between July 16 and 17, triggering a 'flood wave' downstream that killed 10 teenagers and injured 33 people, according to the National Weather Service. The wave also moved through Ingram, Kerrville and Comfort, Texas.
Still, there is no comprehensive flood warning system in Kerr County, even as this region recently faced the worst drought in the country. The climate crisis is anticipated to worsen natural disasters, including extreme rain.
By overnight Thursday into Friday, an entire summer's worth of rain had begun to fall. The Guadalupe River, which runs from Kerr County to the San Antonio Bay, rose 26 feet – from about 3 feet to nearly 30 feet – from 9 a.m. CT to 9:45 a.m. CT Friday near Comfort, Texas.
More than 50,000 people were threatened with catastrophic flooding. Authorities issued a series of advisories and started to go door to door as others undertook their own escape plans.
In Kerrville, a law enforcement official knocked on Rita Olsen's door around 6 a.m. Friday to let her know she must evacuate. 'The river is already up here,' the officer said. 'There are people screaming in the river. We're evacuating everybody.'
The home of Maria and Felipe Tapia, who live some 300 feet from the Guadalupe River, overflowed within 10 minutes. They were forced to swim out to get to safety. Once out of the home, the couple tried opening their truck's door – but it was stuck. They decided to seek shelter on higher ground with a neighbor. 'We got out right on time,' Felipe told CNN. 'I felt like I was swimming under a river.'
'We had to drive over live power lines to get out of here because the only other way we could go was underwater,' Candice Taylor told CNN affiliate KENS.
Zerick Baldwin, thankful for having canceled post-fishing camping plans along the Guadalupe River, marveled at the flooding's intensity and speed. 'If I would've slept in my truck or something, I would have been gone…The waters came so quickly. If I had stayed, I wouldn't have even known what hit,' Baldwin told KENS.
At the HTR TX Hill Country Campground and RV park, Melissa and Rob Kamin may have been trying to leave early Friday, their daughter Lorel Carr told CNN. 'My papa (Melissa's dad) mentioned that they might have tried to evacuate before the storm hit,' Carr said. Allison Edwards said her dad, Steve Edwards, was also seen at the campsite around that time, as a flash flood emergency warning was issued in Kerr County.
A woman camping with her family was swept away by the floodwaters.
At Camp La Junta, torrential rains and catastrophic flooding soon swept through. Ruffin Boyett, who was with his brother, was the first one awake in his cabin around 4 a.m. Friday. 'I couldn't sleep because of the lightning,' Ruffin told CNN affiliate KSAT.
'People were screaming that there was a flood,' his brother, Piers Boyett, said. 'There was a lot of water.' Another camper woke up their counselor, which in turn, woke up the rest of the cabin's campers. Braeden Davis says he also heard screaming at around 4 a.m. from the campers at another cabin that had flooded.
Wyndham Etheridge noticed 'more and more' water flowing into the 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.'
Wyndham and his fellow campers '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,' he said.
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Robert Brake called his father at 4:44 a.m., urging him to evacuate from the Kerr County home where his parents had been staying. 'Dad, you got to get out of there,' Brake told him.
Less than 10 minutes later, Brake's brother went to check on the home – located in an RV park – only to find that all the homes in the area had vanished in the flooding.
Ella Cahill was at a Kerrville vacation home with friends Reese Manchaca, Joyce Badon and Aidan Heartfield. Cahill's sister, Mackenzie Cahill-Hodulik, said Heartfield's father got a phone call around 5 a.m.
'As they were on the phone, Aidan passed it to Joyce, saying that he needed to help Ella and Reese,' Cahill-Hodulik said. 'Joyce confirmed that all three have been swept away. Shortly after, the phone went dead.'
Ricky Gonzalez woke up to a friend's dog pawing at the door. When he and his friends looked outside, they saw one of their cars already being swept away by floodwaters.
Water quickly rose to the second level of the group's Airbnb. The group – some of whom could not swim – realized they would have 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.'
He gave a 'last goodbye' to his sister on FaceTime. The group was gearing up to escape through two big windows in the attic.
'At that moment of me getting ready, in my mind it crossed that some of us aren't going to make it out alive,' Gonzalez said. 'In my mind, I was just thinking, 'Well, I might see some of my friends pass away this morning.''
At Camp Mystic, more than 100 game wardens and an aviation group tried to get into the site early Friday morning – but could not access it.
Soon, swift water rescues were underway across the area. Texas authorities announced they were 'surging all available resources' to respond to the flooding, and seasoned volunteers also headed to Kerr County to help.
West of Kerrville, Mariyah Bonilla in San Angelo, Texas, watched as two officials rescued a man holding onto a pole in a flooded street.
Carl Jeter heard a woman's screams outside his Texas home, he told CNN. It was the woman who had been camping with her family. 'I'm gonna get help,' Jeter told her. 'We're gonna make sure we get you out of there.'
He then dialed 911.
As Ricky Gonzalez and his friends stood at the attic windows, Leo and Paula Garcia were driving by to check on their family's property – where they discovered 'everything was gone,' they told CNN.
Leo Garcia told his wife he saw someone in the second-story window. The water had just receded enough that they could wade through thigh-deep, 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 said. '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 and his friends, along with their five pets, back to their house and fed them. They even drove the group to the airport, Gonzalez told CNN, so they could rent vehicles, since theirs were swept away in the floodwaters.
'We just tried to do what we do best, and that's to just take care of people,' Paula Garcia said.
Jeter waited for authorities with the woman clinging to the tree for about 30 minutes. But no one came. So Jeter got in his car and flagged down a Department of Public Safety officer in the area. A swift water team arrived later and put a life vest on the woman before she jumped from the tree into the team's boat, then to Jeter's home, where she waited for her family.
'It's a true miracle,' Jeter said. 'We've been on the river for a long time, and that's not something that is survivable.'
At Camp La Junta, Wyndham and his friends 'woke up again to more water,' he said. The Boyett brothers and their fellow campers suddenly realized the dangerous situation they were in.
'Oh my God, we're floating,' Ruffin Boyett realized, he said. 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, and we had to swim out of our cabins.'
The campers sought higher ground and eventually had to swim to safety, one camper's father told CNN. They made their way to a service road, where they were rescued by emergency personnel.
At Camp Mystic, a quick-thinking security guard placed campers on mattresses to help them ride out the rising waters.
'I witnessed firsthand the courage and faith that your daughters displayed during some of the most terrifying moments of their young lives,' Glenn Juenke told CNN. 'Each of those sweet girls (were) cold, wet, and frightened — but they were also incredibly brave. 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 their cabins through windows and move to dry land in the middle of the night, one mother of three Mystic 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.'
It wasn't until after midday that authorities were able to enter Camp Mystic and start rescuing children, according to officials – among them, a congressman's daughters. But many still were unaccounted for.
Across the youth camps, parents were advised to call for information. Wyndham's parents got a text message from the camp notifying them of the flood and that the campers were accounted for.
Still, it kept raining, with flood emergency advisories extended and Kerr County residents urged to shelter in place. Authorities announced that 13 people had died Friday afternoon.
By Friday evening, authorities said Camp Mystic was the only camp of the 18 or so along the rivers with people still missing. 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 said they were '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 Friday evening to help with rescues.
Other families began reuniting 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.'
Wyndham's parents picked him up Friday night. 'All those boys were pretty traumatized,' his mother, Amy Etheridge, said.
As search and rescuers worked to find the living and recover the bodies of the dead, the death toll rose to 24 later Friday night. 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 Friday night. At least 14 helicopters, 12 drones and over 500 people from various units were rescuing adults and children – some out of trees – in Kerr County on Friday.
Overnight, connectivity problems worsened the situation. Search teams, working in pitch black darkness, were unable to communicate effectively because radios were down and cell phones didn't work.
By morning, tragic news began emerging from the camps: Ragsdale, the 'heart and soul' of Heart O' the Hills, had died, the camp announced.
And Janie Hunt, a 9-year-old at Camp Mystic, was dead, her mom told CNN.
On Saturday, search and rescue efforts continued, with some people picked out of trees.
The Kerrville mayor warned, 'People need to know, today will be a hard day,' his voice wavering as he made his 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 United Cajun Navy, a volunteer rescue group from 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.'
But Saturday, communications were better than overnight, with some regaining contact using Starlink, a system now being deployed in every first responder vehicle across Kerr County to prevent future disruptions, 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 down efforts.
Local residents began jumping in to help, like Daric and Heidi Easton, restaurant owners in downtown Kerrville, Texas, who pivoted to feeding first responders and individuals affected by catastrophic flooding in the area.
Daric Easton said his own daughter is around the age of the girls missing from Mystic. 'I can't imagine what these parents are going through, and I don't need to. I just need to make sandwiches,' he told CNN.
'If I keep making sandwiches, people can still be fed. If responders are fed, then they can save lives,' he said.
Then, more tragic news: The families of missing Mystic campers Sarah Marsh, Lila Bonner and Renee Smajstrla confirmed they died in the flooding. 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.
Texas Gov. Abbott visited Camp Mystic on Saturday to see the place 'horrendously ravaged in ways unlike I've seen in any natural disaster,' he said. The governor described seeing rushing water reach the top of the all-girls camp cabins, calling the sight 'shocking' in a post on X. 'We won't stop until we find every girl who was in those cabins,' Abbott said.
First responders, families and volunteers continue to look for the missing – some of whom have now been out of communication for two days. The family of Ella Cahill says she, along with her friends Reese Manchaca, Joyce Badon and Aidan Heartfield, are still missing after severe flooding struck their area in Kerrville, Texas, on Friday.
Mackenzie Cahill-Hodulik told CNN her family was headed to Kerrville to search for her missing sister and her friends. Her sister's home is gone, she said.
'It's 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 in Kerr County have been brought to safety so far, according to authorities, with Texas Game Wardens saying they airlifted 302 people in a search and rescue operation involving 158 off-road vehicles, 37 boats, 10 search and rescue teams, two helicopters, rescue swimmers and 16 drones.
But the death toll has continued to rise, with more than 80 reported dead as of Sunday evening. The death toll includes at least 28 children in Kerr County, where 10 campers and one counselor are still missing from Camp Mystic, authorities said.
Robert Brake and his brother Lucas, who haven't heard from their parents since the early hours of Friday morning, are now in Kerrville, Texas. Brake told CNN they regularly check in at the local funeral home that stages bodies of those recovered from search operations.
'It's an emotional rollercoaster,' Blake 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.