At least 27 dead in Texas flooding; over two dozen campers missing from Camp Mystic

Yahoo

05-07-2025

The death toll has risen to 27 after flooding rains rapidly overwhelmed the Guadalupe River in Texas on Friday, prompting a frantic and ongoing rescue effort that continued through the night and into Saturday.
The dead include 18 adults and nine children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a Saturday morning news conference. The toll rose from 24, reported Friday night. Authorities didn't release further information about the victims as they continue to identify them and notify family members.
Parents were desperate for news about campers who remain missing from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls camp at the river's edge. As of Saturday morning, there were 27 missing campers from the camp, said Kerrville City Manager Manager Dalton Rice.
The camp is located in central Texas' Kerr County, about 60 miles northwest of San Antonio. Generations of Texas families sent their daughters to Camp Mystic, a place where they formed lifelong friendships, former camper Clair Cannon told USA TODAY. Cannon's mother and daughter both also attended.
Summer after summer, they'd take Highway 39 as it winds along the Guadalupe River until arriving at the grounds on the riverbank.
'What that area is like when it's in its prime — when it's not devastated like this — is probably one of the most serene and peaceful places that I've ever seen in my life,' said Cannon, a commercial and residential real estate agent in Dallas. 'That part of Texas is just absolutely gorgeous.'
Now, much of the area is feeling the impact of the catastrophic flooding as rescuers race to find any survivors and recover victims. There is an unknown number of people missing, Rice said, adding that officials can't begin to estimate true numbers because there may be an untold number of people visiting the region on vacation.
Responders have been pulling survivors out of trees and finding them stranded on higher ground.
"Today will be a hard day. Please pray for our community," said Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr., visibly holding back emotion at a Saturday morning news confrence.
Cannon, 45, is the second of three generations of women to attend Camp Mystic. Cannon's mother, Emily Morrill, 75, attended camp for eight years and was later a counselor. She ensured from birth that Cannon would attend camp like she did.
Cannon later sent her daughter, Jaclyn, for a decade beginning at age 8, the minimum age to attend Mystic. Cannon's daughter, now a 19-year-old college student, knew counselors currently at the camp, including where flooding was most devastating.
The girls wouldn't have phone access for the weekslong camp, though there was no cell service in that part of Hill Country anyway.
More: Where is Camp Mystic, the Christian girls camp hit by flooding in Texas?
Girls at camp formed lifelong bonds with other attendees, Cannon recalled. Cannon's family is friends with the Eastlands, whose family have owned the camp property for around a century. Dick and Tweety Eastland, who are just younger than Morrill, lived on the property and ran summer camps. Dick Eastland was known for teaching the girls to fish, Cannon said.
Along Highway 39, there's a big sign reading "Mystic" atop a hill, Cannon said. It let girls know they're almost to camp, or if they were leaving, they wouldn't see friends until next summer.
'It always makes you cry,' Cannon said.
A "24/7" rescue effort was underway, Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference Friday evening. Over 200 people were rescued from the floodwaters, said Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer, the commander of the Texas National Guard.
Abbott shared a video to social media of a responder dangling from a helicopter to rescue someone stranded in a tree with floodwaters below.
Over 850 people were evacuated from the Guadalupe River corridor, Kerr County officials said Saturday.
"Rescue teams worked throughout the night and will continue until we find all our citizens," the Kerrville Police Department said Saturday morning.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told reporters Friday that his office has been in contact with the White House multiple times. President Donald Trump told state officials 'whatever we need, we will have,' Patrick said.
A few miles away from Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River, another girls' camp said its director was killed in the flooding. The Heart O' the Hills Camp said it was not in session when the flooding hit and most people who were at camp have been accounted for, but camp officials received word that Director Jane Ragsdale had died.
"We are mourning the loss of a woman who influenced countless lives and was the definition of strong and powerful," the camp said on its website. "We at the camp are stunned and deeply saddened by Jane's death. She embodied the spirit of Heart O' the Hills and was exactly the type of strong, joyful woman that the camp aimed to develop with the girls entrusted to us each summer."
Heart O' the Hills is still assessing the damage to its facilities, "but it is serious," the camp said. The camp will not open for its next scheduled session, which was to start on July 6.
More than 750 girls were at Camp Mystic in Texas Hill Country when heavy rains and flooding hit the region Friday, July 4. The private nondenominational Christian camp, founded in 1926, is located along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, one of 15 counties covered in Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's disaster declaration.
Flash flooding caused river waters to increase 29 feet rapidly near the camp, officials said. As of Saturday, July 5, there were 27 campers among the missing.
Camp Mystic for Girls was founded by Edward "Doc" Stewart, who was the football and men's basketball coach at the University of Texas, according to an Internet Archive's capture of the camp's website (much of the site was overwhelmed with traffic on Saturday).
The camp has been in operation since then. However, during World War II it served as a "rehabilitation and recovery camp for army air corps veterans," according to the site.
‒ Mike Snider
As rescuers continue their search for missing people on Saturday, forecasters at the National Weather Service said the threat of catastrophic flooding and heavy rainfall was not yet over. That's because the system dumping rain over central Texas has slowed as it crawls over the state.
The weather service in Austin and San Antonio said a flood watch was in effect in the region until at least 7 p.m. local time on Saturday. Between 2 and 4 inches of additional rain are expected, with isolated amounts up to 10 inches, the weather service said.
"It is very difficult to pinpoint where exactly the isolated heavy amounts will occur in this pattern," the weather service said, warning people to pay attention to the weather.
The danger has extended to Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties, where very dangerous flash flooding is ongoing Saturday morning. Between 5 and 12 inches of rainfall has fallen there, the weather service said, calling it a "Particularly Dangerous Situation with life-threatening flash flooding."
The flooding began sometime after 4:00 a.m., when extreme rains of as much as 12 inches an hour hit, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a press conference Friday afternoon.
The National Weather Service had issued a flood watch for parts of south-central Texas, including Kerr County, on Thursday. It warned that a slow-moving system could potentially bring major storms to the area.
The rain that fell was even more intense.
At 2:03 a.m. the National Weather service issued its fifth warning of the evening, each of which had been more strident than the last.
This one said "This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW! Life threatening flash flooding of low water crossings, small creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses."
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said he had been jogging along the Guadalupe River trail at 3:30 a.m. and saw only light rain and no signs of flooding.
By 5:00 a.m. officials were beginning to get phone calls, and he and the area fire chief went to a local park to survey the scene.
"Within an hour and a half, [the river] had already risen over 25 feet," Rice said. "Within a matter of minutes it was up to 29 feet."
Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci explained in a post on X that rainfall in the area totaled over 10 inches, but "annual rainfall for this region is about 28-32 inches."
"Imagine 4 months' worth of rain falling in a 6-hour window," he said.
The stretch of the Guadalupe River near Bergheim, Texas, located about 35 miles north of San Antonio "rose 40 FEET IN 3 HOURS," he added.
‒ Doyle Rice and Elizabeth Weise
In San Angelo, about 150 miles from Kerrville in the central part of the state, local officials said the northeast area of the city was the hardest hit. As of late July 4, officials were working to search for one missing person, a city government Facebook post said.
The PaulAnn Baptist Church had temporary shelter available to residents. Meanwhile, a disaster relief fund opened through the nonprofit San Angelo Area Foundation to help people affected by the storm. The United Way of the Concho Valley was also accepting donations for nonperishable foods, clothes and water at Concho Valley Turning Point's warehouse.
'We couldn't be more thankful for everyone who has showed up to be a hand up to our neighbors,' the local United Way said in a Facebook post.
- Eduardo Cuevas
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: At least 27 dead in Texas flooding; search for Camp Mystic campers