Letters penned by young campers at Camp Mystic have begun reaching their families’ homes shortly after the tragic floods that led to cabins being washed away.
More than 120 people were killed and over 150 remain missing – one week after the floods hit central Texas.
Twenty-seven campers and staff members at Camp Mystic, situated along the banks of the Guadalupe River, perished in what has been deemed the most catastrophic flooding event in Texas in over a hundred years.
The river is located in the notorious “Flash Flood Alley,” rising more than 26 feet in just 45 minutes as it burst its banks.
Little Blakely McCrory, eight, was among the children at the summer camp killed.
And, it’s emerged that she wrote her family a letter before her body was found dead.
Her grandad, Douglas McLeod, received the note in the mail, as shared on Facebook.
Blakely suffered tragedy just weeks before her death.
Douglas told ABC News that the child’s dad died of a heart attack and he said what unfolded was a “double tragedy.”
“We’re just devastated,” he said.
Blakely’s devastated mom, Lindsey, paid tribute to her daughter online.
She revealed she was comforted that her daughter was in the “arms of Jesus.”
“Eight years on this earth is far too short a stay,” she wrote.
“Still, we know that Blakely was light and life, and she brightened the day of everyone fortunate enough to cross her path.
“Our little part of the world shines brighter because Blakely was part of it. While we grieve her loss, we will choose to honor the life she lived.”
Meanwhile, families of the victims continue to search for possessions that were left behind.
Stacy Stevens’ daughter, Mary, also perished in the floods.
Stevens shared a message on social media, saying she was looking for her daughter’s monkey, per The New York Post.
She described the stuffed toy as her daughter’s “most prized possession.”
The mom later deleted her social media entry in a public Facebook group dedicated to items found on the Guadalupe River.
It was likely that the children at Mystic didn’t have their cell phones, former camper Charlotte Lauten said.
Lauten, 19, spent nine summers at Mystic during her childhood.
She also noted that as the camp is situated in such a remote location, there was high chance that there wouldn’t be cell phone signal.
The July 4 deluge was not the first time the Guadalupe River had burst its banks.
HISTORY OF FLOODING
Ten teens were killed in floods that hit another camp in 1987, as reported by The New York Times.
Floods in 1998 saw 12 fatalities and left more than 4,000 people injured.
Camp Mystic chiefs invested $5 million in a move to expand the summer camp in 2019.
But, the cabins that were most at risk of flooding were not relocated, as reported by the outlet.
Dick Eastland, the director of the camp who was also killed, didn’t believe the scale of the floods that occurred on July 4 wouldn’t happen.
“He didn’t feel that there was any way that camp could flood like this,” Lisa Miller, a former counselor, told the outlet.
Tributes were paid to Eastland over his bravery and heroism.
His grandson, George, said he died when the flood waters crashed into the walls of his cabin.
“If he wasn’t going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way—saving the girls that he so loved and cared for,” he wrote on Instagram.
Eastland and doting wife Tweety bought the camp in 1974 and were the third-generation of their family to manage it.
An investigation into the floods is underway.
But, it has since emerged that Texas officials signed off on the camp’s emergency plans just days before the floods.
Inspectors surveyed Mystic and didn’t find any outstanding issues.
Before and after pictures show the damage the flooding caused.
The camp was located in a picturesque setting, but the landscape shows cabins destroyed and surrounding grassy areas turned to mud.
