Girls as young as 7 were startled awake by flooding that devastated their beloved Camp Mystic. How the deadly tragedy unfolded

By Dalia Faheid, Pamela Brown, CNN

(CNN) — The emergency weather alert had come early Fourth of July morning: There would be life-threatening flash flooding in Kerr County, Texas.

And Camp Mystic – an all-girls Christian camp situated along the Guadalupe River – housed about 750 campers on the flood-prone site as heavy rains started pouring.

Girls as young as 7 were peacefully asleep in the cabins where, days before, their parents had dropped them off for the season’s second session, expecting their daughters would spend the summer outdoors enjoying everything from archery to yoga together.

For 10-year-old Lucy Kennedy, the sense of security that enveloped the camp was punctured when she was awakened by loud crashes of thunder.

“Settle down and go back to sleep,” Lucy said their counselors told them.

Even as the cabins shook and kept Caroline Cutrona awake, the counselor thought nothing of the storm. They regularly had bouts of thunder and lightning in her 11 summers at the camp, and it was going to be OK, she thought.

But Lucy couldn’t sleep. She had a gut feeling something was wrong.

That same feeling hit camp photographer Nancy Clement when water rose up the porch of Cozy cabin in the middle of the night.

And at Bug House cabin, counselor Laney Owens was awakened by water puddling on the floor. She ran to the camp office and notified staff the flooding was becoming dangerous – and they needed to start evacuating cabins.

That’s when Camp Mystic owner Dick Eastland and his son, Edward Eastland, one of the camp directors, told the girls at Bug House cabin to quickly grab pillows and blankets, a 12-year-old camper recounted. They would pile the group of girls into their cars and head to the recreation hall.

When 19-year-old counselors Silvana Garza Valdez and María Paula Zárate were told by other counselors flooding had engulfed part of Camp Mystic’s property, they told their campers to pack a bag with their necessities and led them to a cabin on higher ground.

Then, they wrote the girls’ names on their skin, wherever they could be visible.

At that point, the emergency alerts had become more dire: The campers needed to get to higher ground – quickly.

But Cutrona, who says she and other counselors were told to turn in their phones at work, didn’t get the alerts.

The severity of the flooding only became clear when another counselor came to Cutrona’s hilltop cabin on Cypress Lake and told the 14 campers they were going to play a fun game: They needed to hand the counselor one pair of shorts, one top and a pair of underwear as quickly as they could, Cutrona recounted.

The counselors realized they would need to do whatever it took to guide their young adventurers to safety – even if it meant navigating chest-deep gushing waters in the stark darkness of night, the counselors, campers and their parents said.

‘We need to get out of here’

As the seemingly never-ending night went on, branches and furniture from the campgrounds rushed past the cabin where Zárate, Garza Valdez and their young campers sheltered.

The girls asked what was happening, and the two teen counselors reassured them they were safe. To distract them, they played games and sang songs, waiting until they could be evacuated.

And at the Wiggle Inn, a junior cabin, security guard Glenn Juenke placed 7- to 10-year-old girls on mattresses to help them ride out the storm as the water rose, he said.

Right about then, young girls at another junior cabin were screaming and crying as floodwaters seeped through Chatterbox cabin.

Because she had a top bunk, a 9-year-old who was in the cabin with her twin sister told the other campers they could keep their “lovies” and “stuffies” there for safekeeping.

As flocks of young girls from the intermediate and senior cabins evacuated to the recreation center, Clement and fellow staff members also piled up their belongings onto their beds, figuring the water wouldn’t reach there, Clement said. Even if it did, the mattresses would float, they thought.

That’s when their cabin door snapped in half. The water suddenly burst in.

“Then we were like, ‘OK, we need to get out of here,’” Clement recounted.

Clement forcefully pried open the other cabin door as the water pulled against it.

Once they were able to exit the cabin, the college-aged staffers dispersed along the porch, holding columns to keep steady.

When the water reached their shoulders, they knew it was no longer safe there. They had to escape to higher ground.

‘Everyone was scared’

The girls from Bug House made it to the recreation hall around 3 a.m. local time, a 12-year-old camper recounted.

The next several hours were “a blur of prayer, singing, and confusion,” Owens, their counselor, said.

With only flashlights to see through the darkness, hundreds of girls spent the night on the second floor of the hall. Their belongings were left on cheer mats – with some floating away.

The recreation hall was no longer a fun performance space, where girls would put on colorful costumes and act, sing and dance.

“Everyone was scared, because there was water coming in, and the water started coming in really fast,” the 12-year-old, whose mother did not want her family to be named to protect their privacy, said.

Meanwhile, at Chatterbox cabin, her 9-year-old twin sisters saw a car they thought would be rescuing them float away. So the counselors told them to climb out of the window, one by one, the twins said.

“The water was really high, so we walked over, and the counselors were helping us get over,” one of the twins said.

When they got to a hilly area, the counselors realized three of the Chatterbox girls were missing, so they went back to search for them, the twins said.

“It was really, really scary because we didn’t know where they were. We didn’t know if they got washed away in the rapids. We didn’t know anything,” one of the twins said.

By then, Clement – using the windowsill as a foothold – hoisted herself onto the roof, clutching her phone, wallet and a soaked stuffed animal she’s had since she was 2 years old.

Then she helped pull other camp employees up, embodying the camp’s motto of “Be Ye Kind, One to Another.”

When one staffer who was trying to get on the roof got swept away and caught on a volleyball net, the others tied their shirts together to help, only to find that the staffer swam against the current and made it back, Clement said. The others went back down and helped lift her onto the roof.

Once safe, the Chatterbox children – soaked and freezing – cuddled on the hill. Counselors brought the girls water while they waited “so long” for the flooding to recede.

“Whenever we were cold, they kept giving us hugs and when we were crying, they would always comfort us,” one of the 9-year-old twins said.

The twins soon saw a rainbow, which they interpreted as “a sign from God.”

To pass the time, the girls at the recreation hall sang camp and worship songs, prayed and slept until the rain eventually stopped around 6 a.m.

When they heard the campers singing nearby, the staffers on the roof felt relieved.

“It was like a sense of hope, even though at that point, the water was still up really high,” Clement said.

The staffers took turns praying as a group, hoping the little girls made it out safely, Clement recalled.

‘This is not real’

At the recreation hall, counselors did a roll call. That’s when it hit the girls that some of their friends could be lost in the waters.

“Nobody probably would have thought that anyone would be missing,” the 12-year-old girl said. “You think maybe they’re just somewhere else, they’re probably just with another group.”

The campers’ next stop: the Cypress Lake dining hall. In their five hours there, the exhausted girls kept themselves busy by doing arts and crafts and trying to sleep on tables.

Nibbling at the pizza counselors handed out, the 12-year-old camper couldn’t help but think her cabin “was probably fully submerged underwater, like this stuff was just gone.”

Later that morning, Zárate and Garza Valdez got word they would be evacuated.

“All the girls started panicking, they all began crying because they didn’t want to leave the campgrounds, because they wanted to be with their parents,” Garza Valdez told news channel N+ FORO.

Finally, helicopters arrived to bring the hundreds of girls and their counselors to safety.

The girls were soon loaded onto buses, some barefoot with cuts on their feet after losing their shoes in the rapids. Lucy, the 10-year-old camper, had given away her Crocs to another camper whose shoes were swept away.

On one bus, the girls sang a hymn called “Pass It On.” Then there were gasps and exclamations of “oh my God” as the girls laid their eyes on the scale of the disaster.

Cars stacked up on top of each other and turned upside down. Piles upon piles of debris in place of their beloved second home. Walls ripped off of the buildings where they made their summer memories with friends turned sisters.

Now, word was starting to spread of campers still unaccounted for.

“Wake up, Caroline, wake up. This is not real. I’m in a dream,” Cutrona told herself.

Parents held their breaths, agonizingly waiting and praying the goodbyes they said to their daughters would not be their last.

Hundreds of local, state and federal crews in helicopters and on boats began the extensive search for the girls that afternoon, combing the area and picking up campers and their counselors out of trees.

The girls who made it onto the school buses arrived at Ingram Elementary, where they were reunited in tearful embraces. It had been a long day for the cold, hungry and sleep-deprived children, who were emotionally shaken and ready to head home.

Only days later would the fallout come into focus: At least 27 campers and counselors were dead.

Young and old generations of campgoers, who credit the almost century-old Camp Mystic for shaping them and teaching them essential life skills, were left to grapple with the devastation.

At a Monday vigil honoring the victims, Stacey Merchant said she received the first letter her 12-year-old daughter, Reese, sent from camp in the mailbox Monday. Her daughter was safely evacuated.

“I just realized today that some parents are gonna be getting letters, that first letter, from their daughter today,” Owens told CNN affiliate KTRK as her voice broke. “And that’s heartbreaking to even imagine.”

Mourners linked hands, singing, “From the lake, from the hills, from the sky; all is well, safely rest, God is nigh. Goodnight, Camp Mystic, we love you.”

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