Texas Flood Washes Away Dozens Of Young Girls From Christian Camp
The close-knit camp community in the Texas Hill Country will never be the same.
Early morning on the Fourth of July, record-setting flash floods swept away 27 girls at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, and washed through campgrounds where generations of young Texans have spent their summers along the Guadalupe River.
Christians across the state and the country prayed as rescue teams navigated the flooded roads Friday and Saturday to retrieve hundreds of campers in disaster areas, which had lost power, internet, and road access when water levels rose 26 feet in 45 minutes, per state officials.
By Saturday evening, at least five of the missing girls from Camp Mystic — ages 8 and 9 —had been reported dead, as had the co-owner of the Christian girls camp, Dick Eastland. On Sunday, 10 campers and a counselor remain missing.
The death toll across the area rose to over 79 people, including 28 children, with recovery efforts ongoing. One of the young victims from the camp, Sarah Marsh, is the daughter of a professor at Samford University in Birmingham, according to the school’s president, who asked for prayer for the family.
At Camp Mystic, the cabins near the river housing the youngest campers — named Twins and Bubble Inn — took on water from both directions. Eastland rushed to rescue girls in one, and his brother Edward Eastland went to the other, directing the sleeping campers to get on the top bunks as flood levels rose higher and eventually reached the roofs.
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Kate Shellnutt is editorial director of news. She has been a religion reporter and editor for more than 15 years, previously at the Houston Chronicle. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The New York Times, and Vox and has been recognized by the Religion News Association and the Evangelical Press Association. Kate lives in Augusta, Georgia.