A 13-year-old girl is sharing her experience being evacuated from Camp Mystic following the deadly flash floods in Texas on Friday (4 July).
81 people have been confirmed dead throughout the state. In Kerr County, which is where Camp Mystic and other youth camps in the Texas Hill Country are based, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said.
Camp Mystic confirmed to NBC News that 27 people had died at the camp.
Stella Thompson arrived there last week. It was her sixth year at the Christian girls’ summer camp located in Texas Hill Country, but the trip took an unexpected turn when she and her fellow campers woke up to the sounds of the weather outside their cabin.
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The cabin Thompson was staying in was on higher ground on the Cypress Lake side of the camping ground, while other campers were sleeping closer to the Guadalupe River.
Thompson and her fellow campers noticed that the power in their cabin had dropped overnight and camp leaders told them to stay indoors. On the morning of 4 July they heard helicopters flying overhead and realised they were in a serious situation.
“I think it’s the uncertainty that really shook up our cabin,” she told NBC affiliate KXAS.
They soon learned that their fellow campers on the Guadalupe River side had to be evacuated.
“Eventually when we got that news we were all kind of hysterical and the whole cabin was praying a lot and terrified — but not for ourselves.”
Emergency vehicles arrived hours later and rescued Thompson and her campmates in the cabin. The camp where she had spent so many summers previously was left in a ‘horrific’ state after the flash flood.
“You'd see kayaks in trees and it was kind of horrific because we had no idea.”
She added: “It didn’t look like Camp Mystic anymore.”
Rescue teams are continuing the search search for 10 missing children and one counsellor from the camp, which was located on the banks of the Guadalupe River, where the waters rose 26 feet (eight metres) in just 45 minutes before daybreak on Friday, washing away homes and vehicles.
Thompson is trying to process everything that happened. “I think while it was going on, I sort of felt a numbness,” she explained. “Saying it out loud is making me realise what actually happened and how bad it actually is.”
And Thompson’s mother, Casey Thompson, is experiencing a mix of emotions.
“We are just so happy that she is safe and we have her. We are just grateful to be some of the fortunate ones," the mum told KXAS. "So there’s a sense of relief and an equal sense of just awareness of that’s not everybody’s story and that’s just two kinds of competing emotions.”
