Georgia student, 21, sent 'we're being washed away' text to family before Texas flood swept her away
HUNT, TEXAS: The search and rescue mission for a 21-year-old Texas woman ended on a devastating note when her body was found three days after she was swept by the catastrophic flood.
Joyce Catherine Badon, accompanied by three friends: Ella Cahill, Aidan Heartfield, and Reese Manchaca, was trapped at a house along the Guadalupe River, which burst its banks as a deadly storm dumped 12 inches of rain on the Texas Hill Country.
Joyce Catherine Badon sent a devastating final text before flood swept her away
On Monday, July 7, Joyce’s father, Ty Badon, confirmed to NBC News that his daughter, who was a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, has been found dead.
The same day, her mother, Kellye Badon, paid heartbreaking tribute to her in a Facebook post, confirming her death.
"God showed us the way we should go this morning! We found our lovely daughter who blessed us for 21 years! We pray to be able to find her three friends soon. Thanks to EVERYONE for the prayers and support. God is good!" the grief-stricken mother wrote.
Louis Deppe, the leader of a group of volunteers searching for Joyce, reported that the house where she was staying “collapsed” around 4 am local time on Friday.
He also revealed that the Georgia college student sent a devastating final text just before the deadly flood swept her away. “On her cellphone, the last message [her family] got was 'we're being washed away' and the phone went dead," Deppe told AFP.
While Joyce’s body has been found Cahill, Heartfield, and Manchaca are still missing.
Ty previously told CNN that the group was staying at a house owned by Aiden’s dad, who was on the phone with his child as the disaster struck.
"Aidan said, 'Hey I've got to go, I've got to help Ella and Reese ... they just got washed away,' and then a few seconds later the phone just went dead, and that's all we know," Ty explained.
Joyce Badon's father reveals horror of finding young boy’s body while searching for his daughter
Before receiving the devastating news of his daughter’s death, Ty revealed the horror of finding another dead child while frantically hunting for his daughter.
Ty was scouring the scene of the destruction in the remote hamlet of Hunt over the weekend when he came found a young kid.
"My son and I were walking, and what I thought was a mannequin... it was a little boy, about eight or 10 years old, and he was dead," Badon told CNN.
During the press conference on Tuesday, July 8, Texas Governor Greg Abbott reported that 110 people were confirmed dead and 161 were still missing following the flash flood that began early on the morning of the Fourth of July.
Among the dead are at least 27 young girls from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp tucked along the South Fork of the Guadalupe River, where flood risk was among the highest in the state.
