Couple recounts their three daughters' miraculous escape from Camp Mystic: 'Too much water to open door'

KERR COUNTY, TEXAS: A couple has shared the miraculous survival of their three daughters at Camp Mystic during the tragic flash flooding on Friday, July 4.

The devastating flood hit Central Texas, and at least 27 girls and their counselors from the all-girls Christian camp lost their lives when the tragic event unfolded at the campsite before daybreak on Friday.

Lisa and Nicholas Miller's three daughters survived flooding at Camp Mystic

Lisa and Nicholas Miller's three daughters - Eliza, 14, Genevieve, 12, and Birdie, 9 - miraculously survived the horrific conditions as flash floods washed away several other girls.

The couple explained that nine-year-old Birdie had the closest encounter with danger as she was in a cabin closest to the Guadalupe River along with other girls her age.

The girls' father, Nicholas, took to X and wrote a series of posts describing how things unfolded.

He wrote, "My three girls are safe with their grandparents after being evacuated by helicopter from Camp Mystic. My wife and I are in Nice, France trying to get home to Austin. Long shot but if anyone happens to be flying anywhere near ATX from Nice tmw and can spare two seats pls dm."

In a different post he mentioned, "Our girls were safe thank goodness. And in great hands. I have no doubt we will be facing trauma issues. My youngest was witness to friends floating away on mattresses and screaming coming from filled cabins. This was a freak event. It happened so fast."

He added that his daughter was woken at about 2:30 am due to the storm, and was unable to go back to sleep due to the noise. Nicholas said that when his daughter went to use the bathroom, she noticed the water.

"The evacuation began with my middle daughter’s cabin between 2 and 2:30 am. The evacuation warning from officials did not come until 4. No matter your party, please insist on funding the NWS, NOAA and FEMA. Lives can be saved with early detection and rapid response," he added in an X post.

Meanwhile, Lisa mentioned that shortly after, the counselors started waking the girls up, and asked them to move their belongings onto the bed.

She added that moments later, "There was too much water outside the door to open it."

Lisa Miller says youngest daughter was hoisted out of shoulder-high floodwaters

Lisa Miller informed People that the owner of the camp, Richard 'Dick' Eastland, arrived at the window of the cabin to rescue the girls and get them to higher ground.

She added that a counselor was forced to break a window and saw the nine-year-old Birdie waiting on the cabin porch for each of her friends to be hoisted to safety.

Lisa added that the water rose so fast that it was lapping at her daughter's shoulders by the time she was finally hoisted onto another counselor's back and whisked to safety.

Talking to the outlet, she said that how her daughters managed to escape as floodwaters inundated the camp still baffles her. She added that her eldest daughter Eliza had the most “typical” experience of a Mystic flood.

Miller added that Eliza was on “Senior Hill” and her cabin just happened to be at the "highest point".

"They were totally isolated from the rest of the camp. Their impression was it was just a very bad storm they were weathering together — at the time, it was a bit more of an adventure, or a crazy camp memory, than anything tragic. They were taking pictures and had no idea what was happening below," Lisa told the outlet.

Meanwhile, her other daughter, Genevieve, was in the last cabin in an area known as "the flats".

Lisa added that one counselor ran to the camp office around 2 am to let them know that their cabin was filling with water. 

She recalled, "Water began rising quickly, coming so close to the balcony that they could touch it, and the waves were lapping just beneath them against the balcony. The girls were scared, of course — I can't say enough about these heroic counselors who had them singing camp songs and praying to keep them calm until the water receded, which it finally did."

Lisa told the outlet that she and Nicholas were vacationing in Nice, France, when they got to know about the flash floods.