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A counselor from Camp Mystic recounted the heartrending scene of parents frantically searching for their children following the Texas floods, which claimed the lives of 27 campers and staff members.
The catastrophic Texas floods have resulted in at least 104 fatalities statewide as of Monday afternoon, with 75 bodies found in severely affected Kerr County alone.
During the flooding on Friday, the Guadalupe River rose to 30 feet above its normal level, leading to the tragic loss of two courageous Camp Mystic staffers who perished while attempting to rescue young girls.
Authorities are racing against the clock as they continue their urgent search for 10 missing campers and one counselor.
Camp Mystic counselor Holly Kate Hurley, 19, recalled the heartbreaking scene that followed as parents tried to reunite with their daughters.
‘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,’ she told Fox News.
Hurley said she is thankful to the Army soldiers who helped them evacuate, but will never forget the moment when the water completely flooded the dam and swept away the camp’s waterfront cabins with campers still inside.
‘I was with my campers in the middle of the night, it was about 1.30 in the morning. And rain just kind of started coming through our 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.
Camp Mystic counselor Holly Kate Hurley (right), 19, described how the cabins were ‘wiped away’ by the raging Texas floods that killed her beloved director Dick Eastland (left)
Ten girls and one counselor are missing from Camp Mystic after the rushing waters destroyed the all-girls private Christian summer camp and killed 27 campers and counselors
Hurley recalled the traumatizing scenes of parents running to their children and looking for those unaccounted-for after the massive floods
She added: ‘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.
‘And we went back to our cabins and tried to keep up good spirits with these young girls. I think I was just in shock.’
The National Weather Service has extended a flash flood watch for the Texas Hill Country, where an additional one to three inches of rain is expected to fall Monday, until 7pm local time.
Officials have come under scrutiny as to why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner, but White House leaders have insisted there were no errors.
Hurley was a regular at Camp Mystic, having attended as a camper from the age of ten before joining the staff as a counselor.
A heartbreaking photo showed an entire cabin of Camp Mystic girls and counselors who were washed away in the horrific Texas floods.
The 13 girls and two counselors were staying in Camp Mystic’s Bubble Inn cabin, which, alongside the Twins cabin, housed the youngest of the girls, aged 8 to 10.
The cabins were less than 500 feet from the river and thus took in water from two directions – the Guadalupe river and a creek nearby, making the girls’ escape particularly challenging.
The raging floodwaters destroyed Camp Mystic cabins, leaving them caked in mud and in complete disarray
Roughly 750 children were likely asleep while the devastating flooding sent a wall of water through the century-old Camp Mystic
The 13 girls and two counselors were staying in Camp Mystic’s Bubble Inn cabin (pictured) when the catastrophic floods hit on Friday morning
The bodies of nine of the girls and counselor Chloe Childress, 18, have been found as of Monday morning, while counselor Katherine Ferruzzo and four campers remain missing.
Those confirmed dead are: Janie Hunt, Margaret Bellows, Lila Bonner, Lainey Landry, Sarah Marsh, Linnie McCown, Winne Naylor, Eloise Peck, Renee Smajstrla and Mary Stevens.
Camp Mystic father-figure and owner, Richard ‘Dick’ Eastland, 70, died while trying to save the young girls.
Crews are trudging through debris and wading into swollen riverbanks in search for victims.
Joyce Boden’s father Ty found another dead child while frantically hunting for his daughter.
Ty Badon was scouring the epicenter of the carnage for his 21-year-old daughter when he stumbled across a little boy, who is one of at least 89 people killed by the inundation.
Joyce’s mother Kellye Badon broke the terrible news on Facebook Monday afternoon that she did not survive.
With more rain on the way, the risk of more flooding is still high in saturated parts of central Texas.
Authorities have launched a massive search and rescue mission to locate the missing campers who are still unaccounted-for
As of Monday morning, the bodies of nine girls and a counselor were located. Four campers and another counselor are still missing
Survivors of the devastating flood described the experience as a ‘pitch black wall of death.’ (Pictured: the destruction at Camp Mystic after the tragedy)
Survivors have described the floods as a ‘pitch black wall of death’ and said they received no emergency warnings.
Officials have come under scrutiny as to why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner about the severe weather or told to evacuate.
The White House has hit out the ‘depraved’ Democrats who are blaming President Donald Trump for the catastrophic floods in Texas.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed Trump’s critics for suggesting that his cuts to NOAA and FEMA contributed to the devastation.
‘Unfortunately, in the wake of this once-in-a-generation natural disaster, we have seen many falsehoods pushed by Democrats such as Senator Chuck Schumer and some members of the media,’ she said.
‘Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning.’
