Latest news with #BrooklynThomas
Arab News
12-07-2025
- General
- Arab News
Memorial in flood-ravaged Texas city becomes focal point of community's grief
KERRVILLE: A chain-link fence that separates Water Street in the center of Kerrville from the Guadalupe River just a few hundred feet away has become a makeshift memorial, with the flower-covered stretch serving as a focal point for a grieving community. As survivors in hard-hit Kerr County begin to bury their dead, the memorial has grown, covered with laminated photographs of victims of last-week's deadly flood that roared through camps and homes, killing at least 120 people. 'I just feel like this is a beautiful remembrance of the individuals that were lost here,' said Brooklyn Thomas, 27, who graduated from high school in Kerrville with Julian Ryan, a resident of nearby Ingram who died in the flood trying to save his family. 'I think it's something really cool for the community to come to see, to remember their loved ones, to share memories if they want to.' Thomas and her family affixed flowers to the wall near a picture of Ryan. The smell of fresh-cut flowers hung in the air as people placed candles and other mementos along the sidewalk next to the fence. Signs hanging from the fence read 'Hill Country Strong' and featured an outline of Texas filled with rolling green hills. A large Texas flag stood on one end of the memorial, flapping in the breeze. Debi Leos, who grew up in the Hill Country town of Junction, said she stopped by the memorial to leave flowers in honor of Richard 'Dick' Eastland, the beloved director of Camp Mystic who died trying to save some of the young girls at his camp. 'Hill Country is near and dear to me, and we came down here to pay our respects,' Leos said. 'As a parent, I can only imagine what the families are going through.' Friday evening, about 300 people showed up at the memorial for a vigil with speakers that included faith leaders and some who told harrowing tales of narrowly escaping the flood. Michelle McGuire said she woke up July 4 at her apartment in Hunt, Texas, to find her bed and nightstand floating and quickly found herself in deep flood waters, clinging to a tree for life. 'Thank God I'm a good swimmer,' she said. 'I didn't want my mom to have to bury me.' Marc Steele, bishop-elect of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, said the memorial has become a place where people of all different faiths and backgrounds can come together and share their grief. 'We like to take opportunities like this to come together and pray to God,' Steele said, 'and also Sunday mornings we come together and worship in prayer for our sorrow and thanksgiving for lives that were saved.'
Al Arabiya
12-07-2025
- General
- Al Arabiya
Memorial In Flood-Ravaged Texas City Becomes Focal Point Of Community's Grief
KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) – A chain-link fence that separates Water Street in the center of Kerrville from the Guadalupe River, just a few hundred feet away, has become a makeshift memorial, with the flower-covered stretch serving as a focal point for a grieving community. As survivors in hard-hit Kerr County begin to bury their dead, the memorial has grown, covered with laminated photographs of victims of last week's deadly flood that roared through camps and homes, killing at least 120 people. 'I just feel like this is a beautiful remembrance of the individuals that were lost here,' said Brooklyn Thomas, 27, who graduated from high school in Kerrville with Julian Ryan, a resident of nearby Ingram who died in the flood trying to save his family. 'I think it's something really cool for the community to come to see, to remember their loved ones, to share memories if they want to.' Thomas and her family affixed flowers to the wall near a picture of Ryan. The smell of fresh-cut flowers hung in the air as people placed candles and other mementos along the sidewalk next to the fence. Signs hanging from the fence read 'Hill Country Strong' and featured an outline of Texas filled with rolling green hills. A large Texas flag stood on one end of the memorial, flapping in the breeze. Debi Leos, who grew up in the Hill Country town of Junction, said she stopped by the memorial to leave flowers in honor of Richard 'Dick' Eastland, the beloved director of Camp Mystic who died trying to save some of the young girls at his camp. 'Hill Country is near and dear to me, and we came down here to pay our respects,' Leos said. 'As a parent, I can only imagine what the families are going through.' Friday evening, about 300 people showed up at the memorial for a vigil with speakers that included faith leaders and some who told harrowing tales of narrowly escaping the flood. Michelle McGuire said she woke up July 4 at her apartment in Hunt, Texas, to find her bed and nightstand floating and quickly found herself in deep flood waters, clinging to a tree for life. 'Thank God I'm a good swimmer,' she said. 'I didn't want my mom to have to bury me.' Marc Steele, bishop-elect of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, said the memorial has become a place where people of all different faiths and backgrounds can come together and share their grief. 'We like to take opportunities like this to come together and pray to God,' Steele said, 'and also Sunday mornings we come together and worship in prayer for our sorrow and thanksgiving for lives that were saved.'
The Independent
12-07-2025
- General
- The Independent
Memorial in flood-ravaged Texas city becomes focal point of community's grief
A chain-link fence that separates Water Street in the center of Kerrville from the Guadalupe River just a few hundred feet away has become a makeshift memorial, with the flower-covered stretch serving as a focal point for a grieving community. As survivors in hard-hit Kerr County begin to bury their dead, the memorial has grown, covered with laminated photographs of victims of last-week's deadly flood that roared through camps and homes, killing at least 120 people. 'I just feel like this is a beautiful remembrance of the individuals that were lost here,' said Brooklyn Thomas, 27, who graduated from high school in Kerrville with Julian Ryan, a resident of nearby Ingram who died in the flood trying to save his family. 'I think it's something really cool for the community to come to see, to remember their loved ones, to share memories if they want to.' Thomas and her family affixed flowers to the wall near a picture of Ryan. The smell of fresh-cut flowers hung in the air as people placed candles and other mementos along the sidewalk next to the fence. Signs hanging from the fence read 'Hill Country Strong' and featured an outline of Texas filled with rolling green hills. A large Texas flag stood on one end of the memorial, flapping in the breeze. Debi Leos, who grew up in the Hill Country town of Junction, said she stopped by the memorial to leave flowers in honor of Richard 'Dick' Eastland, the beloved director of Camp Mystic who died trying to save some of the young girls at his camp. 'Hill Country is near and dear to me, and we came down here to pay our respects,' Leos said. 'As a parent, I can only imagine what the families are going through.' Friday evening, about 300 people showed up at the memorial for a vigil with speakers that included faith leaders and some who told harrowing tales of narrowly escaping the flood. Michelle McGuire said she woke up July 4 at her apartment in Hunt, Texas, to find her bed and nightstand floating and quickly found herself in deep flood waters, clinging to a tree for life. 'Thank God I'm a good swimmer,' she said. 'I didn't want my mom to have to bury me.' Marc Steele, bishop-elect of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, said the memorial has become a place where people of all different faiths and backgrounds can come together and share their grief. 'We like to take opportunities like this to come together and pray to God,' Steele said, 'and also Sunday mornings we come together and worship in prayer for our sorrow and thanksgiving for lives that were saved.'
Associated Press
12-07-2025
- General
- Associated Press
Memorial in flood-ravaged Texas city becomes focal point of community's grief
KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — A chain-link fence that separates Water Street in the center of Kerrville from the Guadalupe River just a few hundred feet away has become a makeshift memorial, with the flower-covered stretch serving as a focal point for a grieving community. As survivors in hard-hit Kerr County begin to bury their dead, the memorial has grown, covered with laminated photographs of victims of last-week's deadly flood that roared through camps and homes, killing at least 120 people. 'I just feel like this is a beautiful remembrance of the individuals that were lost here,' said Brooklyn Thomas, 27, who graduated from high school in Kerrville with Julian Ryan, a resident of nearby Ingram who died in the flood trying to save his family. 'I think it's something really cool for the community to come to see, to remember their loved ones, to share memories if they want to.' Thomas and her family affixed flowers to the wall near a picture of Ryan. The smell of fresh-cut flowers hung in the air as people placed candles and other mementos along the sidewalk next to the fence. Signs hanging from the fence read 'Hill Country Strong' and featured an outline of Texas filled with rolling green hills. A large Texas flag stood on one end of the memorial, flapping in the breeze. Debi Leos, who grew up in the Hill Country town of Junction, said she stopped by the memorial to leave flowers in honor of Richard 'Dick' Eastland, the beloved director of Camp Mystic who died trying to save some of the young girls at his camp. 'Hill Country is near and dear to me, and we came down here to pay our respects,' Leos said. 'As a parent, I can only imagine what the families are going through.' Friday evening, about 300 people showed up at the memorial for a vigil with speakers that included faith leaders and some who told harrowing tales of narrowly escaping the flood. Michelle McGuire said she woke up July 4 at her apartment in Hunt, Texas, to find her bed and nightstand floating and quickly found herself in deep flood waters, clinging to a tree for life. 'Thank God I'm a good swimmer,' she said. 'I didn't want my mom to have to bury me.' Marc Steele, bishop-elect of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word, said the memorial has become a place where people of all different faiths and backgrounds can come together and share their grief. 'We like to take opportunities like this to come together and pray to God,' Steele said, 'and also Sunday mornings we come together and worship in prayer for our sorrow and thanksgiving for lives that were saved.'
The Guardian
09-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘Deep rooted' camp tradition continues in Texas despite flood devastation
As search crews were continuing to pick through the wreckage from Friday's deadly floods in Texas's Hill Country, mothers on Monday were dropping their teenage children off at Trinity Baptist church in hard-hit Kerrville for camp. For the past few days, the church had served as a meeting point for families coming to – hopefully – be reunited with children who had attended other camps in the area. One of those was Camp Mystic in Kerr county, which lost more than two dozen campers and counselors during Friday's deluge. The death toll as of Monday had exceeded 100 across Texas. And, though that grim number made them nervous and sensitive to the mourning around them, the mothers bringing their daughters to Trinity on Monday said they believed it was important to fight for a return to normalcy amid the devastation. They also took comfort in the fact that the Trinity summer camp is on a lake and unlikely to experience anything like what had happened days earlier at Camp Mystic and other communities along the Guadalupe River. One of the women at the church, 26-year-old Brooklyn Thomas, said that some of her core memories as a child had come from camp along the Guadalupe River. 'I'm sure they'll take some more precautions,' Thomas remarked, contributing to an ongoing discussion about whether public safety alerts sent out ahead of Friday's flooding reached everyone they needed to reach in time. Thomas was accompanying her mother, Toni Way, to drop Thomas's sister off at the camp. Way said their instinct to carry on with camp despite what had happened came from something 'very deep rooted' within. 'These children's parents went there when they were kids,' Thomas said. 'Every year they send the next generation to camp.' But scenes of unimaginable heartbreak had also unfolded in the very space where Way and Thomas described their battle to preserve tradition. Cliff Brown, who had been coordinating the reunification effort at Trinity Baptist, said: 'Some have found their children and gone home. Others haven't.' Brown said he found hope in how the community had reached out 'incredibly' to the families of those who had been lost to offer condolences or whatever assistance they could. Way, Thomas and Brown all acknowledged the political discussion surrounding the deadly flooding – about whether Trump administration budget cuts affecting the regional National Weather Service (NWS) office had left the area underprepared. Government officials, in part, have maintained that warnings of flash flooding were issued in advance. But some residents reported not receiving them – something Texas's lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, acknowledged while he appeared on Sunday on Fox News. Kerr county had looked into installing sirens, river gauges and new communication tools on the Guadalupe River in 2017, the New York Times reported, but the plan was not taken up. In any event, an initial NWS forecast before Friday's disaster had called for only 3-6in of rain. But the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry, combined with other weather systems that stalled in the area, ended up dumping 12in of rain before dawn on Friday. That is estimated to have increased the discharge of the Guadalupe River from 10 cubic feet per second on Thursday to 111,000 cubic feet per second on Friday evening. Meanwhile, communities along the Guadalupe River became overwhelmed when the river rose 26ft (8 meters) in 45 minutes on Friday morning. A focal point of the destruction has been Camp Mystic. The nearly century-old, nondenominational Christian institution – which draws many participants from outside the surrounding area – reported the deaths of 27 summer campers and counselors. Among the dead were its director. Authorities later said 10 girls and a counselor were still missing. It marked an unfathomably dark chapter in the history of a camp that 'has always served as a near-flawless training ground for archetypal Texas women', as the magazine Texas Monthly put it in a 2011 profile of the institution. While Way was sympathetic to the families affected by the horrors at Camp Mystic, she said she had long ago resigned herself to the fact that flooding from the Guadalupe River has been a hazard throughout her life. The US Geological Survey calculates that the Guadalupe has flooded notably in 1936, 1952, 1972, 1978, 1987, 1991 and 1997. In 1998, it recorded a flood that exceeded 500-year flood projections. 'There's been so many floods it's kind of not funny,' Way said. Neither Way nor her daughter could imagine the Texas Hill Country summer camp tradition being altered no matter what changes Friday's devastation may spur. Brown, meanwhile, offered his perspective on how suddenly things devolved. 'No one had any idea the water would rise like it did,' Brown said. 'It came up so quickly it caught people off-guard.'
