Officials at a Texas summer camp located just miles from Camp Mystic, where 27 young girls and counselors died in historic floods over the weekend, claimed they received “no warning” that rising waters were coming — but were able to safely evacuate dozens on their own as thWe were making our plans and changing our plans and moving people up to higher ground well in advance last night.” river swelled.
The Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, a 500-acre property that was hosting a summer camp and youth conference with “several hundred campers” at the headwater of the Guadalupe River in Hunt, had been monitoring the waters for 24 hours before it surged 26 feet in less than an hour early Friday morning.
“We were making our plans and changing our plans and moving people up to higher ground well in advance last night,” communications director Lisa Winters told KENS5 Friday.
Mo-Ranch had received no alerts or information from local authorities ahead of the deadly deluge that has claimed more than 100 lives, so camp leaders took it upon themselves to move 70 children and adults staying in a building by the river out of harm’s way, saving all of their lives, she added.
“We had no warning this was coming,” Winters reiterated Monday, adding that it would have been “devastating” had camp officials not been closely following weather reports and the rising river.
Mo-Ranch “saw it coming well in advance, and they did something about it,” she added.
“They helped them pack up. They got them up, they got them out, put them up on higher ground.”
The facilities manager at Mo-Ranch notified leaders of the potential danger around 1 a.m., and the kids and chaperones were moved sometime between 2:30 a.m. and 4 a.m., camp CEO Tim Huchton told the Wall Street Journal Monday.
Camp Mystic, another all-girls Christian summer camp just seven miles away, was caught by surprise with deadly consequences when the river suddenly surged.
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha on Tuesday was unable to answer questions about who was in charge or whether they were asleep early Friday morning when the Guadalupe River burst its banks.
At least 87 bodies — including 30 children — have been recovered in Kerr County, up from the 75 reported dead in the county on Monday.
Five girls and one counselor from Camp Mystic were still missing, officials said.
Lorena Guillen, owner of the Blue Oak RV Park and Howdy’s Restaurant, on the banks of the Guadalupe, said she called the Sheriff’s Office shortly after 2 a.m. Friday morning and asked if she had to evacuate.
She was told they had no information for her.
“It was just raining, you know, like nothing,” she told the Wall Street Journal. “We did have a warning, a flash flood warning, but this … is very, very normal for the Hill Country.”
Within an hour, she said, the water had risen 10 feet on the property, and she frantically ran and banged all 33 RV doors to wake people up.
All of the vehicles were washed away by the floodwaters.
The National Weather Service office for Austin and San Antonio issued a flash-flood warning for Kerr County with “catastrophic” potential for loss of life around 1:14 a.m.
An emergency alert was finally posted to the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office’s social media account at 3:32 am that read: “DANGEROUS FLOODING NOW on the Guadalupe River in Hunt, in western Kerr County. This flood wave will continue downstream. If you are near the water, move to higher ground immediately. Stay clear of low water crossings—turn around, don’t drown!”
The sheriff admitted Tuesday he was only informed about the flood waters ravaging his county at some time between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. that morning.
The Texas Division of Emergency Management was initially expecting between 3 to 6 inches of rain, Nim Kidd, chief of the agency, recalled in a news conference, the Journal reported.
“However, some of those models showed numbers that were higher than that,” he said, “which caused us to activate additional resources and have them in the area just in case.”
Emergency-response teams were in Kerr County by noon on Thursday.
With Post wires
