Camp Mystic counselor recounts reunion of survivors with their parents: 'I don’t think I’ll ever forget'
KERR COUNTY, TEXAS: A Camp Mystic counselor has described the devastating aftermath of the Texas floods that killed 27 of her fellow campers and staff.
The tragedy unfolded as flash floods swept through the all-girls Christian camp in Hunt, Texas, early on the morning of July 4, sending the Guadalupe River surging over 30 feet and wiping out riverside cabins with children inside.
"Seeing little girls run to their parents and just hug them and cry, and also just seeing some parents who were looking for their little girls, and they weren’t there. But, that’s just a sight I don’t think I’ll ever forget," 19-year-old counselor Holly Kate Hurley told Fox News.
Camp Mystic counselor describes night of chaos and loss
Holly Kate Hurley recalled waking up at 1:30 am as rain began pouring through the cabin windows.
"I woke my girls up, told them to close the windows and then the power just went out, all the fans turned off, running water didn’t work," she said. By morning, counselors were told that two cabins housing seven-year-olds, Bubble Inn and Twins, had been swept away.
“In the morning, they gathered all the counselors that were at Cyprus Lake and they told us that two of the cabins with the seven-year-old girls were wiped away and all these girls were missing,” Hurley added. “I think I was just in shock.”
Roughly 750 campers were likely asleep when the floods struck. The riverside cabins, located less than 500 feet from both the Guadalupe River and a nearby creek, were inundated from two directions, leaving little time for escape.
Camp Mystic confirms identities of victims as Texas flood tragedy deepens
The bodies of campers Janie Hunt, Margaret Bellows, Lila Bonner, Lainey Landry, Sarah Marsh, Linnie McCown, Winne Naylor, Eloise Peck, Renee Smajstrla, and Mary Stevens have been identified.
Camp Mystic’s 70-year-old owner and director, Richard "Dick" Eastland, was also killed while trying to save the girls. Hurley, who has attended Camp Mystic since she was 10, shared her grief over losing Eastland.
Search crews continue to comb through wreckage and swollen riverbanks in hopes of finding the remaining missing. A grieving father discovered the body of another drowned child while searching for his 21-year-old daughter, Joyce Badon. Badon’s mother later confirmed on Facebook that her daughter did not survive.
With additional rainfall in the forecast, the National Weather Service extended a flash flood watch for the Texas Hill Country through July 7, warning of one to three more inches of rain.
Survivors described the event as a “pitch black wall of death,” with many claiming they received no emergency warnings before the water hit.
Officials under fire as delayed flood warnings spark outrage
As search and recovery operations continue, victims are expressing growing fury toward local officials over delayed emergency warnings in Texas, with mounting criticism directed at the National Weather Service (NWS) for issuing life-saving alerts too late.
Many victims reported that floodwaters were already rising before any warnings reached them. According to official records, the NWS issued a flood watch at 1:18 pm on July 3, forecasting up to seven inches of rain. A flash flood warning followed at 1:14 am on July 4, and a more urgent evacuation alert was issued at 4:03 am, after flooding had already begun.
Texas Emergency Management Chief W Nim Kidd said the sheer intensity of the rainfall was unexpected. “The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts,” he stated during a press briefing.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly voiced similar concerns, admitting he was not aware of what kind of alert system had been in place at Camp Mystic, where multiple children and staff were caught in the flooding.
