TX TX-Hunt, Overnight flooding at Camp Mystic, all girls camp. Unknown number of missing. July 4, 2025

[Knox]

Until a person has witnessed or survived a flood, they will never understand the power or the dynamics.

Two years ago we had a 100 year storm event. I work at a landfill. It came down so hard and fast we lost overside drains, slope failures on south facing slopes. The Salinas river ran so high it was at the top of the overpass on a bridge crossing. The last time that happened was in 1969. There is a thread here about litle boy who lost his life in that storm. His Mom tried to drive across a flooded area and the car was engulfed. To this day he has never been found.

What I’m describing was major, but no where near what happened in Texas. I’m in normally drought prone California. Water is a powerful, unpredictable, force.

What counts now is the changes that will be made in the future. Agencies can point the finger at each other and try to shift blame. But for me that’s white noise, how will they save lives in the future?

 

[Knox]

I imagine they do. But.... the reservation lists are probably not on the accuracy level of passenger jet loading manifests.

Some RV park owners may require detailed reservation information for say accountability and to keep problematic stayers from re-appearing with a different group. Other RV park owners may have only general information.

Even the summer camps might not readily have complete reservation information. Depending on the camp, several separate church church or social groups can share the same larger camp at the same time. Then factor in that sudden drop outs, add ins and "might be coming- but maybe nots" are not uncommon.

For emergency purposes, I think every child present at the camp would be rostered.

 

[Cryptic]

For emergency purposes, I think every child present at the camp would be rostered.

I think you are right. But, there could be room for a "but"....

Some large camps rent space to a series of different groups (multiple groups using one large camp at the same time are not uncommon).

These groups come in varied sizes, varied levels of organization, and well, varied approaches to camping and life in general.

Some will have a number of identical and truly final rosters readily available that have been cross checked military style.

Others maybe be a little be more relaxed. There is a final roster reflecting all add ins and drop outs- somewhere (swept away?, With Mrs X, but where is she?). And... the cabin rosters that are immediately available may not reflect all of the add in / drop out changes.

 

[IceIce9]

Did the camp have cell service? I’ve camped in remote areas where there is no cell service.

 

[Knox]

Press update held earlier today.

 

[Kudzuu]

@Herat
I found the press conference but he just signed a letter for funds and handed it over to Noam.

But it just aired a few minutes ago.

 

[Knox]

 

[Knox]

HILL COUNTRY FLOODS LATEST: At least 32 dead, 850+ rescued, 27 girls from Camp Mystic still missing, authorities say

At least 32 people died and 27 girls from Camp Mystic are still missing due to flooding along the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country on the Fourth of July.

www.ksat.com

 

[imstilla.grandma]

At a press conference on Saturday afternoon, Noem was pressed about the delayed text alerts about the incoming flash floods: “Wasn’t that a fundamental failure of the federal government’s responsibility to keep us safe?”

The National Weather Service and NOAA have acknowledged “we needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years,” she added.

Texas flooding latest: 15 children among 43 dead while frantic search continues

Donald Trump described the flooding as ‘terrible’ as emergency services search for dozens of missing children

www.the-independent.com

Representative August Pfluger shared that he and his wife were reunited with their two daughters, who were attending Camp Mystic.

“Camille, Vivian and I are now reunited with Caroline and Juliana who were evacuated from Camp Mystic,” he wrote. “The last day has brought unimaginable grief to many families and we mourn with them as well as holding out hope for survivors.”

Texas flooding latest: 15 children among 51 dead while frantic search continues

Donald Trump described the flooding as ‘terrible’ as emergency services search for dozens of missing children

www.independent.co.uk

 

[imstilla.grandma]

https://www.facebook.com/peoplemag/posts/pfbid02iWN1xhC4ny5QgUtCJ2o9oBHfLKH6J6BvogLFArKX7Uyh68tuKngK1rA6n67LHHp5l

 

[imstilla.grandma]

In Ingram, Erin Burgess woke to thunder and rain in the middle of the night. Just 20 minutes later, water was pouring into her home, she said. She described an agonizing hour clinging to a tree with her teen son.

“My son and I floated to a tree where we hung onto it, and my boyfriend and my dog floated away. He was lost for a while, but we found them,” she said.

Barry Adelman said water pushed everyone in his three-story house into the attic, including his 94-year-old grandmother and 9-year-old grandson.

“I was having to look at my grandson in the face and tell him everything was going to be OK, but inside I was scared to death,” he said.

Locals know the place as " flash flood alley."

“When it rains, water doesn’t soak into the soil,” said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, which was collecting donations. “It rushes down the hill.”

14 children in Texas are among the 37 dead from flash floods as the search continues for the missing

Devastating flash floods and a storm that continues to pound Texas has killed at least 37 people across the state

www.boston25news.com

"There's 32 deceased, 18 of those are adults and 14 are children. Five of the adults remain unidentified and three children remain unidentified," said Kerr Country Sheriff Larry Leitha

Michael, who only gave AFP his first name, was searching the camp for his eight-year-old daughter.

"I was in Austin and drove down yesterday morning, once we heard about it," he said, adding that he was hoping for a "miracle".

The Heart O' The Hills summer camp, located about a mile from Camp Mystic, confirmed on Saturday that its director Jane Ragsdale was among the dead.

- 'Catastrophic' -​

"Nothing like as catastrophic as this, where it involved children, people and just the loss of people's houses... It's just crazy," she added.
With rescuers fanning out across the region, Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring urged the community to come together.

"People need to know today will be a hard day. It will be a hard day," his voice breaking...

Rescuers search for missing girls as Texas flood death toll hits 50

Rescuers searched through the night early Sunday for 27 girls missing from a riverside summer camp in Texas, after torrential rains caused devastating floods that killed at least 50 people

www.citizentribune.com

 

[Tbone144]

The Kerrville Daily Times is reporting 43 dead, 28 adults and 15 children.

I hope this small town newspaper in Kerrville counts as MSM.

Log into Facebook

Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

www.facebook.com

Their Facebook page is also listing names and photos of those identified.

 

[BeginnerSleuther]

This is your local interpretation. For me, "watch" and "warning" are nearly synonymous, because I tend to err way on the side of caution.

But that's based on your interpretation and experience. The literal definition of watch varies widely from warning. I spent years in tornado alley. If we took cover for every tornado watch, we'd never leave our basements. We also have to remember that evacuations, while sometimes necessary, also come with risk. I think if the camp evacuated for every watch, it would cause a lot of unnecessary risks of injury or girls going missing for a variety of reasons. For that reason, I can't fault them for not evacuating for a watch.

Watch Warning Advisory Explained

At any rate, several FLASH FLOOD WARNINGS were issued (not just flood watch; not just flood warning, but FLASH flood warning) for something like ALL of four counties, one of which was the one where Camp Mystic was located.

Officials say the problem is that they have no push technology or any sure way of making sure endangered humans are checking for the alerts. They were pushed out to LE, but who else? What's the County level plan for that information? As we saw in the L.A. area fires, the plan wasn't even followed, so it was useless. In the L.A. Case, I blame the Mayor and the County Board of Supervisors for not making their fire officials submit reviewable plans twice a year. We have that in my county, after one of those record setting fires swept through 5 years ago. We had training at all our schools and colleges. We reviewed all our state-mandated planning and fixed things. Emergency cell phones, for example, sometimes had non working batteries, etc. Staff checks those phones monthly now. And there are extras stored in many different accessible places, along with emergency communication buttons to summon police or fire if all else fails.

Local

KVII serves the Amarillo, Texas and Panhandle region with local news, sports and weather for the city and surrounding towns, including Canyon, Hereford, Borger, Pampa, Dalhart, Dumas, Childress, Perryton, Clarendon, Texas; Guymon, Oklahoma; and Clovis, Portales, Tucumcari, New Mexico.

abc7amarillo.com

officials-say-warnings-issued-but-lack-of-alert-system-left-many-unprepared-for-flood-hill-country-storms-rain-flooding-san-antonio-texas-helicopter-rescue-kerrville

I agree with the rest of this. Once the notification changed to warning, action should have been taken by officials and camp leaders.

MOO.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Ingram, Texas

More Than 50 Dead in Texas Floods as Search for Missing Grows Dire

At least 15 children were among those killed by flooding in Central Texas. Some two dozen girls from a camp on the Guadalupe River remained unaccounted for.

www.nytimes.com

https://www.cnn.com/weather/live-news/texas-flooding-07-05-2025-hnk

Anguish was everywhere. Parents raced to the scene, intending to search for their children themselves. At a local reunification center, family members hugged and sobbed. They spoke hurriedly into cellphones and scanned for photographs of their missing loved ones. Online, they posted desperate pleas for information. And at news conferences, police officers and elected leaders alike struggled to compose themselves.

“People need to know — today will be a hard day,” said Joe Herring Jr., the mayor of Kerrville, one of the hardest hit cities. His voice caught as he spoke. “It will be a hard day.”

Parents were identifying children. Some victims had been in the water so long their fingerprints were no longer usable.

“When you see that many small body bags, it’s just, I can’t even begin to explain it."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/07/05/texas-flooding-kerr-county-camp-mystic-search/

 

[imstilla.grandma]

An emergency helicopter flies over a reunification center at Arcadia Theater in Kerrville, Texas

For generations, the summer camps of the Texas Hill Country have been an oasis, a call to adventure, and a rite of passage for families from every corner of the state and beyond. They are so beloved that some parents reserve spots when their children are born.

Roughly two dozen camps dot the landscape up and down the cooling Guadalupe River and its tributaries, where children have flocked each summer for more than a century to canoe and kayak, to swim and fish and learn archery, to reunite with old friends.

“Camp culture is something that people from all over the country come here for, because it’s so beautiful, and it’s so wonderful and unique,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said Saturday. “It’s tough. You send them there, but when you do it, that’s part of growing up. You let them be independent.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/07/05/texas-flooding-summer-camps-hill-country/

"We've been rescuing people out of these camps by the hundreds, you know, all day," Rice said Saturday night. "There's a lot of folks that are shelter in place, so we leave them in place to make sure that we get them food, water."

Damaged vehicles and debris are seen roped off near the banks of the Guadalupe River after flooding in Ingram, Texas.

While officials couldn't confirm an exact number of those who remain unaccounted for, they said more than two dozen were still missing from Camp Mystic

Death toll in devastating Texas flash floods at least 120, dozens still missing

Several people from a children's summer camp in Kerr County remain missing, officials said.

www.cbsnews.com

Three girls from Dallas — 8-year-old Hadley Hanna and 9-year-olds Eloise Peck and Lila Bonner — have been identified as some of the campers who were missing. The family of Bonner confirmed to CBS Texas on Saturday that she was among the children confirmed dead in the flood

"This rain event sat on top of that and dumped more rain than what was forecasted on both of those forks," Rice continued. "When we got the report, it was about 7 feet or so on the south fork, and within a matter of minutes it was up to 29 feet, and all of that converged at Guadalupe."

The Guadalupe River at Hunt reached its second-highest height on record, higher than the famous 1987 flood, the city said, citing the National Weather Service.

Death toll in devastating Texas flash floods at least 120, dozens still missing

Several people from a children's summer camp in Kerr County remain missing, officials said.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[jillolantern]

This article link seems to indicate the first warning to move to higher ground NOW was issued at 5:14 am.

You link says the Kerrville PD issued an alert at 5am. They were way behind the NWS.

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."

source:

At least 52 dead in Texas flooding; search and rescue ongoing

Rescuers search for missing people; victims being identified.

www.usatoday.com

 

[mickey2942]

This kind of "flash flood" can be so scary. I saw one in Nevada, it was not even raining where we were, sunny day. But clouds in the mountains 20 miles away. It rained up in there, and the water came down an Arroyo. It was like a wall of mud, boulders, trees. We were up on a bluff, and watched it. I am amazed any of the people lived through that.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Search and rescue missions continued Saturday evening following flooding in Central Texas that killed at least 47, including at least 15 children, including girls attending Camp Mystic summer camp, and the director of another camp on the bank of the Guadalupe River. Twenty-seven girls attending Camp Mystic remain unaccounted for, though the total number of missing people may be higher, authorities say. Flood risks will continue into Saturday night, the National Weather Service warned the area, and though the rate of rain won’t be as high as earlier in the weekend, the additional precipitation could cause receding streams to swell again

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/07/05/texas-flooding-camp-mystic-kerrville-kerr/

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Michael McCown drove to the Hill Country from Austin as soon as he learned about news of the flood. His little girl, Linnie, had been at Camp Mystic, among the youngest group of girls situated inside the Bubble Inn cabin.

He went to the cabin and looked over the waterlogged stuffed animals, grabbed some charm bracelets and looked at the photos stuck on the wall. McCown said he wanted to grab something for each parent of the 14 girls now unaccounted for inside that cabin.

“I’m just going to walk,” he said. And so walk he did, the length of the camp property into the river bend walled off by limestone bluffs.

“I’m going to walk until I find something.”

Richard “Dick” Eastland was found, along with three girls he tried to save from the flood.

“Dick died doing what he loved,” said Craig Althaus, who worked on the property for 25 years and described finding some of the surviving girls in trees and on cabin roofs. “Taking care of those girls.”

As McCown walked, he strode by the piles of soaked mattresses and pastel-colored trunks decorated in stickers.

More fathers and grandfathers started arriving and picking through the things left behind: embroidered towels, shampoo bottles labeled with their names and shoes.

He saw something. He looked closer.
It was a girl. But not Linnie.

As he spoke, a dazed-looking man emerged from the river bend and held up his phone to show a photo. It was of one of the missing girls.

“Did the girl you found look like her?” the unnamed man said.

McCown looked closely but it wasn’t her.

The man, another father looking for his little girl, walked away without a word, as if in a trance.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/07/05/camp-mystic-floods-parents-missing-children/

 

[Sillybilly]

ADMIN NOTE:

We have a catastrophe of this magnitude and some members want to post off topic or politicize by talking about taxation. There's a time and place, and this isn't the time or place.

Back to the topic at hand folks ... this tragedy and the victims, many of whom still have not been found.