{"id":250872,"date":"2025-07-09T13:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T13:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/250872\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T13:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T13:38:10","slug":"texass-camp-mystic-was-a-place-of-joy-floods-turned-it-into-a-site-of-great-loss-texas-floods-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/250872\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas\u2019s Camp Mystic was \u2018a place of joy\u2019. Floods turned it into a site of great loss | Texas floods 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

The loss of 27 campers and counsellors from Camp Mystic to the Texas Hill Country flood<\/a> may serve, at a terrible cost, to expand its considerable reputation across Texas and beyond. Even as the floods claimed more lives along the valley \u2013 more than 100 confirmed dead and 160 people unaccounted for as of Tuesday \u2013 the loss of several \u201cMystic Girls\u201d has dominated the headlines.<\/p>\n

The camp, which offers two four-week terms and one two-week term over the summer, has been the go-to summer camp for daughters of Texans for nearly a century. It\u2019s so popular that fathers have been known to call the registrar to get their daughters on the list from the delivery room.<\/p>\n

The camp, which spans more than 700 acres, has been widely described as an all-girls Christian camp, lending an image of baptisms in the river, but the religious component may be overstated: the camp is known as one of dozens along the Guadalupe River that Texan families send their young to escape the brutal heat of the lowlands.<\/p>\n

Now at least one-half of Camp Mystic, which was due to celebrate its centenary next year, lies in ruins, torn apart by raging floodwaters. The sound of song and girls playing has been replaced by the sound of chainsaws and heavy equipment as 19 state agencies and thousands of volunteers work to search and clear mounds of flood debris along the river, including the muddied personal items of the campers.<\/p>\n

Five days after the flood, the task along the valley has become a search-and-recovery operation: no one has been rescued from the river alive since Friday. In addition to the lost girls, Camp Mystic\u2019s director, Richard \u201cDick\u201d Eastland, a fourth-generation owner of the camp, died while attempting to bring five girls to safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt tugs at the heart of anyone in the world that see the pictures of those little faces,\u201d said Claudia Sullivan, author of a book on the Camp Mystic experience, Heartfelt: A Memoir of Camp Mystic Inspirations. \u201cTo know that they were there, having the time of their life, that they were innocent, and then to be taken away in such a tragic event \u2013 it takes you to your knees.\u201d<\/p>\n

aerial view of before and after flooding<\/a><\/p>\n

Most alumni contacted by the Guardian indicated they were too upset to discuss the camp, or its reputation, as Texas<\/a> Monthly put it in a 2011 article, for serving \u201cas a near-flawless training ground for archetypal Texas women\u201d.<\/p>\n

It has served generations of Texas women, often from well-to-do or politically connected Texas families, including the former first lady Laura Bush, who was a counsellor, and the daughters and granddaughters of Lyndon Johnson, former secretary of state James Baker, and Texas governors Price Daniel, Dan Moody and John Connally.<\/p>\n

The camp may have been incorrectly characterized as a \u201cChristian\u201d camp. \u201cThat evokes the idea of church camp but that\u2019s not the case,\u201d said Sullivan. \u201cIt\u2019s a private camp for girls that holds Christian values. When I was there we spent a lot of time talking about being kind to one another and having compassion, and there were people from other denominations and faiths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camp Mystic is better understood, Sullivan added, as being in a place free from pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re in nature, in a beautiful setting, and really removed from the world\u201d, said Sullivan. \u201cIt\u2019s a place of joy and innocence \u2013 or was. My sense is that it will definitely be rebuilt, but it\u2019s awfully early.\u201d<\/p>\n

The outpouring of grief and rush to support the community have been striking. A church memorial service was held on Monday in San Antonio for the \u201cMystic girls\u201d who had been lost. Many dressed in the camp\u2019s green and white, together in song and prayer.<\/p>\n

A wall is missing on a building at Camp Mystic along the banks of the Guadalupe River. Photograph: Julio Cortez\/AP<\/p>\n

It was not possible to get to the camp on Tuesday, a tailback of 2.5 hours extended across the 7 miles from Hunt, the nearest hamlet, to Camp Mystic. At the season\u2019s peak in July and August, the camp hosted 750 girls aged between seven and 17 years old \u2013 that\u2019s more than half of Hunt\u2019s population of around 1,300.<\/p>\n

At Ingram, a riverbank town that also lost dozens from RV camps and homes to the flood, emergency workers and volunteers were pitching in, in many cases in the hope of recovering people still lost, and many likely hidden under large piles of river debris, shattered homes and mangled possessions.<\/p>\n

John Sheffield, owner of Ingram\u2019s Ole Ingram Grocery, said the flood had not recognized social differences and nor would the recovery effort: \u201cThis is Americans taking care of Americans. There\u2019s been such a tremendous outpouring of support and compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Down by the river, search crews were continuing to comb through debris and mud. Claud Johnson, the mayor of Ingram, was operating a digger up by Hunt. An EMS van pulled up, suggesting another body had been found. Helicopters continued to move overhead despite an incident on Monday when one was struck by a privately operated drone and was forced to make an emergency landing.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been such a tremendous outpouring of support and compassion<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John Sheffield<\/p>\n

Three baristas from the Aftersome Coffee stand in San Antonio had come up to serve recovery workers. Allyson Bebleu said she had gone to church camp and it had given her some of her fondest memories.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just for the wealthiest families, people of all types go to camp,\u201d she said. \u201cEveryone is putting themselves in the shoes of the Camp Mystic girls. It\u2019s tragic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camp Mystic was also the subject of a controversial video recently posed by Sade Perkins, a former member of Houston\u2019s Food Insecurity Board. Perkins was \u201cpermanently removed\u201d by John Whitmire, the Houston mayor, after she called Camp Mystic a \u201cwhites only\u201d conservative Christian camp without even \u201ca token Asian, they don\u2019t have a token Black person\u201d.<\/p>\n

Richard Vela, whose 13-year-old daughter Maya was evacuated from a nearby camp, Camp Honey Creek, on Friday and was still too upset to discuss it, said Perkins\u2019 comments \u201cwere not right. You don\u2019t talk about people like that. There\u2019s a lot of death going on and they still haven\u2019t found everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruce Jerome, who was manning an outreach for flood survivors in Ingram, said he had known Jane Ragsdale, the director and longtime co-owner of Heart O\u2019 the Hills Camp, in Hunt, Texas, who had died in the flooding.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was just genuinely wonderful,\u201d Jerome said.<\/p>\n

Campers\u2019 belongings sit outside one of Camp Mystic\u2019s cabins. Photograph: Eli Hartman\/AP<\/p>\n

Further down the track to the river was Josey Garcia, a Democratic representative for San Antonio in the Texas state house. She and her team were also picking through the debris, pointing out vast piles that still need to be be sifted through.<\/p>\n

Garcia, a military veteran, said it was important to come \u201cand collaborate with our neighbors here to recover those that are missing and help Kerr county clean up. We\u2019ve had folks coming from Laredo and outstate Kansas to lend assistance. It\u2019s showing the spirit of Texas \u2013 when it comes to lives being devastated its our duty to step.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garcia, too, rejected negative characterizations of Camp Mystic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been hearing a lot of the rhetoric that\u2019s been going around. This is not the time for those types of distinctions. I don\u2019t care who was at the camp. All I know is that there are parents and families that are missing their loved ones. Whether it\u2019s rich Caucasian children or any other children, we\u2019d still be there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The loss of 27 campers and counsellors from Camp Mystic to the Texas Hill Country flood may serve,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-250872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114823555436125114","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}