A Fourth of July rainstorm led to a deadly natural disaster in Texas Friday, a flash flood that overwhelmed places including Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ camp near the banks of the Guadalupe River. As of publication time, 27 people have been confirmed as deceased in the flood; 27 more children from Camp Mystic alone remain unaccounted for. It’s at least the second such disaster in the area, following an overflow, that killed 10 teen campers nearly 38 years ago to the day.
At a Saturday news conference, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said that the bodies of 18 adults and nine children have been retrieved from the waters thus far, with many more still unaccounted for. The flood zone is a “a very harsh environment,” Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said at the media event, but also offered some hope, saying survivors have been rescued from trees and other high points in the area. Identities of the dead have yet to be released, but according to the New York Times “most” of those killed have been officially identified.
The flood zone is in Central Texas, about 60 miles northwest of San Antonio. It’s an area known as a vacation destination, and it’s also home to several summer camps, including Camp Mystic. That vacation popularity makes it challenging to determine how many people are actually missing. “We do not have an accurate count, and we don’t even want to begin to estimate at this time,” Rice says. “The information is going to be changing by the minute.”
