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

[Knox]

A river gauge at Hunt recorded a 22 foot rise (6.7 meters) in about two hours, according to Bob Fogarty, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Austin/San Antonio office. The gauge failed after recording a level of 29 and a half feet (9 meters).

“The water’s moving so fast, you’re not going to recognize how bad it is until it’s on top of you,” Fogarty said.

<modsnip: Copyright violation of more than 10% of article>

24 dead in Texas floods and more than 20 children missing from a girls summer camp

Texas Hill Country was beset by death and disaster Friday as at least six people were killed and about 20 girls attending a summer camp were reported missing after months worth of heavy rain fell in a matter of hours, leaving search teams to conduct boat and helicopter rescues in the fast-moving...

www.kwtx.com

 

[Ghostwheel]

Will someone help me understand? In the desert near me flash floods happen because the water comes down off the mountains and rolls off the flatlands then pours into the washes where the flash floods occur. These washes are normally dry, so when the water comes through it rises fast and furious because it is coming from so many directions. If you know it's going to rain, even a little, you don't hang out in the washes.

I don't have a river that rises quickly like the one described here nearby. How is it that the rivers rise so fast? Is it also the runoff from somewhere? ETA: I see some of that information is in Knox's post above. I guess maybe it is surrounded by hills, then?

 

[airportwoman]

View attachment 599895

National Water Prediction Service - NOAA

water.noaa.gov

Flood stage is 9 Ft, peak flow in Kerrville was 23.40 ft!!!

The Guadalupe River looks, based on this, to be a creek, probably the kind one could walk across or even jump over, most of the time!

 

[airportwoman]

Will someone help me understand? In the desert near me flash floods happen because the water comes down off the mountains and rolls off the flatlands then pours into the washes where the flash floods occur. These washes are normally dry, so when the water comes through it rises fast and furious because it is coming from so many directions. If you know it's going to rain, even a little, you don't hang out in the washes.

I don't have a river that rises quickly like the one described here nearby. How is it that the rivers rise so fast? Is it also the runoff from somewhere? ETA: I see some of that information is in Knox's post above. I guess maybe it is surrounded by hills, then?

The Southwest is full of arroyos, which are dry river beds. Kids in particular like to skateboard or ride bikes in them, and every year, a few kids die because the arroyo fills with water from a cloudburst many miles away. Plus, the soil in many of these regions is hard-packed and rain doesn't soak in the way it does in many other places.

I asked, on another board, why it didn't get sucked into the ground through all the oil wells that are all over Texas. I knew they were capped, and people in the know explained it further.

 

[Ghostwheel]

The Southwest is full of arroyos, which are dry river beds. Kids in particular like to skateboard or ride bikes in them, and every year, a few kids die because the arroyo fills with water from a cloudburst many miles away. Plus, the soil in many of these regions is hard-packed and rain doesn't soak in the way it does in many other places.

I asked, on another board, why it didn't get sucked into the ground through all the oil wells that are all over Texas. I knew they were capped, and people in the know explained it further.

Got it, so it can be a similar situation, it's raining upstream and the run off all the way down is pouring into the river.

 

[Knox]

Will someone help me understand? In the desert near me flash floods happen because the water comes down off the mountains and rolls off the flatlands then pours into the washes where the flash floods occur. These washes are normally dry, so when the water comes through it rises fast and furious because it is coming from so many directions. If you know it's going to rain, even a little, you don't hang out in the washes.

I don't have a river that rises quickly like the one described here nearby. How is it that the rivers rise so fast? Is it also the runoff from somewhere? ETA: I see some of that information is in Knox's post above. I guess maybe it is surrounded by hills, then?

Yes, the area is called "Hill Country".

Texas Hill Country - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Ghostwheel]

Yes, the area is called "Hill Country".

Texas Hill Country - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Thank you. I live in a goofy place where "Hill country" can mean "Land so flat you can see for 40 miles, but we have this one hill....."

 

[Ghostwheel]

Ah, and it's limestone and granite. It's all making sense now. Thank you, sorry for the sidebar.

 

[Knox]

Camp Mystic sits on a strip known as “flash flood alley,” said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, a charitable endowment that is collecting donations to help nonprofits responding to the disaster.

“When it rains, water doesn’t soak into the soil,” Dickson said. “It rushes down the hill.”

State officials began warning of potential deadly weather a day earlier. The National Weather Service had predicted 3 to 6 inches of rain in the region, but 10 inches fell.

The Guadalupe River rose to 26 feet within about 45 minutes in the early morning hours, submerging its flood gauge, Patrick said.

Decades prior, floodwaters engulfed a bus of teenage campers from another Christian camp along the Guadalupe River during devastating summer storms in 1987. A total of 10 campers from Pot O’ Gold Christian camp drowned after their bus was unable to evacuate in time from a site near Comfort, 33 miles (53 kilometers) east of Hunt.

Texas families plead for information on at least 23 girls missing from summer camp after floods

Texas parents are frantically posting photos of their daughters and pleas for information as at least 23 campers from an all-girls summer camp remain missing after floods tore through the state’s south-central region. At least 24 people were dead Friday and dozens missing after months worth of...

www.kob.com

 

[Ghostwheel]

The poor families. It's hard for me to understand how someone wasn't keeping a watch all night at the camp with even 6 inches maybe going to fall, but maybe they were and that is why only 20 are missing. 750 kids is a lot.

 

[wildblue]

The poor families. It's hard for me to understand how someone wasn't keeping a watch all night at the camp with even 6 inches maybe going to fall, but maybe they were and that is why only 20 are missing. 750 kids is a lot.

At the last press conference, one of the rescue leaders stated that they often don’t suggest evacuations because that can pose other dangers so then they suggest going to a high spot and watching and waiting for rescue. In this case, it happened so fast, it seems no matter the choice, it was a gamble.

 

[Ghostwheel]

At the last press conference, one of the rescue leaders stated that they often don’t suggest evacuations because that can pose other dangers so then they suggest going to a high spot and watching and waiting for rescue. In this case, it happened so fast, it seems no matter the choice, it was a gamble.

It the speed that has me confounded. They said it rose to 26 feet in 45 minutes. In desert world, 45 minutes is all the time in the world, even in the middle of the night. I would think (though maybe I am just used to how it works in the desert) there would be some place for 750 kids to have a high enough spot to stand on and someone would have gotten them ALL there if it was even a possibility of happening. You know, an evacuation plan? Not living near that kind of terrain makes it hard to wrap my head around since we know 2 inches of rain in the mountains? Stay out of the washes, just in case. The concept of an entire cabin/house just picking up and moving down river is foreign to me.

 

[wildblue]

It the speed that has me confounded. They said it rose to 26 feet in 45 minutes. In desert world, 45 minutes is all the time in the world, even in the middle of the night. I would think (though maybe I am just used to how it works in the desert) there would be some place for 750 kids to have a high enough spot to stand on and someone would have gotten them ALL there if it was even a possibility of happening. You know, an evacuation plan? Not living near that kind of terrain makes it hard to wrap my head around since we know 2 inches of rain in the mountains? Stay out of the washes, just in case. The concept of an entire cabin/house just picking up and moving down river is foreign to me.

It’s so frightening that things, like a cabin floating away, quickly become debris which then take down other structures and make it almost impossible for a person to stay afloat when caught in the flood, being battered by the debris in a fast moving current.

 

[Dotta]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1941381745217085624

RIP to victims.
My sincerest condolences to families.
What a tragedy!

 

[Rolo]

I saw in one article that the older girls at the camp were at a higher elevation in an area known as Senior Hill and the youngest girls closest to the river.

“Elinor Lester, 13, said she was evacuated with her cabinmates by helicopter after wading through floodwaters. She recalled startling awake around 1:30 a.m. as thunder crackled and water pelted the cabin windows. Lester was among the older girls housed on elevated ground known as Senior Hill. Cabins housing the younger campers, who can start attending at age 8, are situated along the riverbanks and were the first to flood, she said.“
Texas families plead for information on at least 23 girls missing from summer camp after floods

I’m wondering about the rationale for housing the youngest, 8 and 9 year olds, closest to the river. I’m not trying to cast blame or aspersions, just wondering about the reasons. It seems that the youngest girls would need the most assistance in an emergency or evacuation scenario and am curious about the location of evacuation routes. Obviously, there has not been this kind of catastrophic flooding in decades, but is minor flooding a regular thing? If the camp is rebuilt, I don’t think there will be cabins near the river in the future.

This is such a horrible tragedy and my heart goes out to all the families who have lost loved ones and all the families waiting for some kind of answer. I hope at least some of the missing can be found and safely rescued.

 

[Dotta]

I saw in one article that the older girls at the camp were at a higher elevation in an area known as Senior Hill and the youngest girls closest to the river.

“Elinor Lester, 13, said she was evacuated with her cabinmates by helicopter after wading through floodwaters. She recalled startling awake around 1:30 a.m. as thunder crackled and water pelted the cabin windows. Lester was among the older girls housed on elevated ground known as Senior Hill. Cabins housing the younger campers, who can start attending at age 8, are situated along the riverbanks and were the first to flood, she said.“
Texas families plead for information on at least 23 girls missing from summer camp after floods

I’m wondering about the rationale for housing the youngest, 8 and 9 year olds, closest to the river. I’m not trying to cast blame or aspersions, just wondering about the reasons. It seems that the youngest girls would need the most assistance in an emergency or evacuation scenario and am curious about the location of evacuation routes. Obviously, there has not been this kind of catastrophic flooding in decades, but is minor flooding a regular thing? If the camp is rebuilt, I don’t think there will be cabins near the river in the future.

This is such a horrible tragedy and my heart goes out to all the families who have lost loved ones and all the families waiting for some kind of answer. I hope at least some of the missing can be found and safely rescued.

Re location of cabins

I come from a country (Europe) with regular floods,
so I am very conscious of safety hazard of such locations near rivers
A big NO!!!

 

[truthfinder2019]

I don’t understand how this type of tragedy can occur. With a monitoring system and seeing water rising as reported in a previous post, they should have evacuated everyone a day earlier even if things did not look that bad.
We had this 3 years ago in a scout camp and we had to drive in urgency in the middle of the night to pick up all the 200 kids, just because danger was anticipated. Luckily noone was hurt and the day after predictions came true in most camp sites except ours. The river wasn’t even that nearby but zero risk. Water can rise extremely fast and is incontrollable.

I pray these girls and people are found safe, what an immense tragedy.

 

[truthfinder2019]

MSN

I was up all night keeping an eye on weather alerts. 2am there was a river flood warning. The river was a good distance from our site, so we thought we would be fine," one camper, Katie, told ABC News via Instagram. "At about 5:30am, we heard banging on our RV door, yelling for us to get out now. The Guadalupe River had risen rapidly…

"The river was up to the back of our campsite when we left. The river was raging and you could hear trees and objects breaking,"

At least 80 dead in Texas following heavy rains and 'catastrophic flooding,' say officials

Dozens of people have died after heavy rain pounded Kerr County, Texas, early Friday, leading to deadly and "catastrophic" flooding.

abcnews.go.com

 

[kuromiiiilove]

Texas flooding updates: Over 130 dead as flash flood threat increases in Texas

Over 130 people have died after heavy rain pounded Kerr County, Texas, early Friday, leading to "catastrophic" flooding, the sheriff said.

abcnews.go.com

‘A Texas official said the forecast provided by the National Weather Service underestimated the amount of rain that lashed central Texas before devastating flooding.’

 

[AngTxGal]

MSN

I was up all night keeping an eye on weather alerts. 2am there was a river flood warning. The river was a good distance from our site, so we thought we would be fine," one camper, Katie, told ABC News via Instagram. "At about 5:30am, we heard banging on our RV door, yelling for us to get out now. The Guadalupe River had risen rapidly…

"The river was up to the back of our campsite when we left. The river was raging and you could hear trees and objects breaking,"

At least 80 dead in Texas following heavy rains and 'catastrophic flooding,' say officials

Dozens of people have died after heavy rain pounded Kerr County, Texas, early Friday, leading to deadly and "catastrophic" flooding.

abcnews.go.com

OMG I’m just waking up to this not having kept up with news yesterday. It is likely I know many who were impacted by these floods and children at camps near this area.
There are many children’s camps boys and girls in this area of Texas, and many campgrounds near Kerrville, Fredericksburg, New Branfels, and Bandera
Contacting family and friends now
Sick at my stomach, Prayers for all- terrifying