Mother of missing 21-year-old woman recalls heartbreaking moment daughter 'got washed away
Ella Powell had been celebrating the Fourth of July weekend with her boyfriend Aiden and two other college friends, Joyce and Reece, at a riverside home in Hunt, Texas, when flash flooding struck in the early hours of Friday morning.
Ella's mother, Tanya Powell, told Fox News how she received a 4am phone call from one of the friends in the group when disaster struck.
'Aiden was asking his dad what he should do. Water was coming in the house. And he then said that he needed to help Ella because she was struggling to stay on the front porch,' Tanya said.
Then came the voice of another friend, Joyce, one of the last people to see Ella alive.
'Joyce said they just got washed away. And she said, "Tell my parents that I love them." And that's the last we've heard from them.'
Ella and her boyfriend Aiden, both seniors from San Antonio, remain missing.
Their two friends, Joyce and Reese, have since been found dead.
By sunrise, the home where they had been staying along the Guadalupe River had been torn from its foundation, with only a concrete slab remaining.
'We're just desperately trying to find them,' Tanya said. 'The entire house is gone.'
Ella was described by her mother as being a kind-hearted college senior from San Antonio. She went missing along with her Aiden, her high school sweetheart.
The friends had traveled to Hunt, Texas, to celebrate the Fourth of July at a home owned by Aiden's father - a familiar and frequent gathering spot for the group of friends.
But the tranquility of the riverside weekend turned into terror as torrential rain swelled the Guadalupe River with catastrophic force.
According to Tanya, Ella had been fighting to hang on as water surged through the property in the pitch-black hours before dawn.
Tanya is among thousands of desperate family members searching for missing loved ones across Kerr County and beyond.
Tanya said she has received support from officials but that the backbone of the searching effort had come from everyday people.
'We're here. We're searching,' Tanya said. 'There are lots of people on the ground here coming in and out. There are special forces teams out here, and I have seen Border Patrol teams out here with dogs, and volunteer teams.
'Honestly, we're not really talking to the authorities. We're all just out here searching. We haven't really stopped. There are a lot of officials out here too but it's also neighbors helping neighbors.'
During Monday night's emotional interview on Fox, Tanya said she wanted the world to know who her daughter was and not just as another name on a missing persons list.
She described her as a vibrant, generous, loving young woman with big plans and an even bigger heart.
'She was just a sweet, kind-hearted soul,' Tanya said of Ella. 'She and Aiden and Joyce had a mission trip planned to go to Guatemala in a few weeks.'
Ella was a senior at a San Antonio college. She was smart, beautiful and grateful for life, her mother said.
'It just doesn't - it doesn't make a lot of sense to me,' Tanya added. 'But I guess I'm not supposed to understand everything.'
Ella's disappearance is part of a much larger tragedy. More than 100 people are now confirmed dead across Texas, including at least 28 children, after flash floods swept through the region in one of the deadliest natural disasters in state history.
Kerr County, home to numerous riverside youth camps, was especially hard-hit.
Officials confirmed on Monday that 84 bodies had been recovered in the county alone.
Ten girls and one counselor are still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp near the same area where Ella was last seen.
The floods began shortly after midnight on Friday, when a massive storm system dumped over 12 inches of rain across the Hill Country in just a few hours.
Water levels in the Guadalupe River surged 26 feet in just 45 minutes, swallowing homes, roads, and entire campgrounds with little warning.
'Nobody saw this coming,' Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said. 'It's going to be a long time before we're ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it.'
The National Weather Service had issued a flood watch midday Thursday and upgraded to a flash flood emergency warning around 4am - the same time Ella and her friends were already in crisis.
Some survivors said no alerts came through in time, with communication hampered by spotty service and damaged infrastructure.
Questions are mounting about whether more could have been done to warn or evacuate residents and campers along the river.
Local officials acknowledged that plans for a more robust flood warning system had been shelved due to cost concerns.
'We want to finish the search and rescue and then review possible issues with cell towers, radios and emergency alerts,' said Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice.
President Donald Trump has announced plans to visit the flood zone Friday, as the federal government begins mobilizing disaster relief.
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