Quick action by one Texas summer camp led to timely evacuations ahead of flood

It was about 1 a.m. on the Fourth of July when the facilities manager at a central Texas summer camp saw water from the Guadalupe River steadily rising amid a deluge of rain.

Aroldo Barrera notified his boss, who had been monitoring reports of the storms approaching Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, a recreation destination where an intercultural youth conference had been called off early just hours earlier.

Despite an absence of warning by local authorities, camp officials acted quickly on their own, relocating about 70 children and adults staying overnight in a building near the river. With the kids safe, camp leaders including President and CEO Tim Huchton were able to avoid the catastrophe that hit at least one other camp near Hunt, where the 500-acre Mo-Ranch is located.

“They helped them pack up,” Lisa Winters, communications director for Mo-Ranch, told The Associated Press on Sunday. “They got them up, they got them out, put them up on higher ground.”

Other places fared much worse.

Flash floods that roared through Texas Hill Country before dawn on Friday decimated the landscape near the river, leaving at least 79 dead and many others unaccounted for. As of Sunday, 10 girls from nearby Camp Mystic remained missing, officials said. Rescue and recovery teams combed the area for them and others still unaccounted for days after the flood.

The decision to leave added to the mounting accounts of how camps and residents in the area say they were left to make their own decisions in the absence of warnings or notifications from the county.

Local authorities have faced heavy scrutiny and at times have deflected questions about how much warning they had or were able to provide the public, saying the reviews will come later. For now, they say they're focusing on rescues. Officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.

Mo-Ranch suffered no loss of life, said Winters, adding that the camp received no direct information from county officials about flooding that could — and did — take lives.

“We had no warning this was coming," Winters said, adding that it would have been “devastating” had camp officials not been looking at weather reports and the rising river waters.

Mo-Ranch “saw it coming well in advance and they did something about it,” she said.

By about 7 a.m. Friday, camp staff began contacting children's parents, telling them their kids were safe.

“They knew that those parents would wake up and just see all this media footage of kids lost, or the river,” Winters said. “They’re like, ‘tell your parents you’re OK’ … We made sure every single guest, every single kid, was accounted for.”

The camp, which sits on higher ground than some in the area, suffered some damage, but not as significant as others, Winters said.

“The buildings don’t matter,” she said. “I can’t imagine losing children, or people.”

She said a sturdy aluminum kayak was wrapped around a tree “like a pretzel.”

“That just shows you the sheer power of the water. I don’t know how any people could survive. We’re blessed,” she said.

The camp remained closed Sunday and Mo-Ranch was working on ways to help other camps affected by the flood.

“We’re in a difficult place because others are really suffering,” said Winters, who became emotional during an interview. “We’re a sisterhood of camps. We take care of each other.”