Woman’s daughters were at camp in shoulder-high waters during Texas flood — camp counselor's heroic act rescued them
Trigger Warning: The article has themes of flood casualties that could be distressing for some readers.
For a parent, being away from their kids during natural disasters or calamities is worse than a nightmare. A mom had to face that when her daughters got stuck at a camp during the Texas floods. The couple was celebrating their anniversary on a beach in France when they heard that Camp Mystic, the camp her daughters were at, was one of the key areas affected by the flash floods. The woman, Lisa Miller, had been a counselor and camper before and didn't think much of the incident until further news about the brevity of the situation came in, per PEOPLE.
Miller recounted that she had spent a day being stranded on a hill because of the floodwaters and such cases were usually minor and resolved pretty quickly. Campers are also given protocols on what to do in such scenarios. But after a call from a friend, Miller knew that something worse had happened at the camp and it wasn't a usual flooding experience. The camp staff couldn't tell her anything at that time as they were busy dealing with the situation on the ground. She eventually got in touch with the camp director, Mary Liz Eastland, who told the mom that her three daughters were safe, but a lot of other children, including a whole cabin, had gone missing.
Eastland's father-in-law, who owned the camp, was also missing. His body was later recovered. The mom was quite surprised that all three of her daughters had managed to survive the disaster unharmed and was thankful for the work the camp counselors did to keep them safe. Eliza, her 14-year-old daughter, was on the "senior hill" and her cabin was at the highest point, so they were relatively unaffected by the flooding. "They were totally isolated from the rest of the camp. Their impression was it was just a very bad storm they were weathering together — at the time, it was a bit more of an adventure, or a crazy camp memory, than anything tragic." Her 12-year-old, Genevieve, was in the last cabin in the area called "the flats."
A counselor ran to the camp office at 2 AM and informed them about the flooding. They began evacuating and driving the campers to safety, but as the flooding was quick, they moved to a balcony above. "Water began rising quickly, coming so close to the balcony that they could touch it and the waves were lapping just beneath them against the balcony. The girls were scared, of course — I can't say enough about these heroic counselors who had them singing camp songs and praying to keep them calm until the water receded, which it finally did," Miller explained. Her youngest daughter, Birdie, woke up at 2:30 AM because of the storm and noticed water in the bathroom. The counselors started waking them up shortly after that.
"There was too much water outside the door to open it," the mom revealed. A counselor eventually broke the window and handed the children to the camp owner, who was there to help. The 9-year-old told her mom that she was in shoulder-deep waters as she waited on the porch to be evacuated. A counselor hoisted her on their back and took her to safety. The three girls were reunited after being rescued by a Black Hawk helicopter from the area. The mom thanked the "wonderful" counselors for saving her daughters' lives with their quick thinking and didn't know how she would repay them. She was grateful that her daughters were safe, but was heartbroken because of what happened to so many people at the camp during the floods. At the time of writing, at least 111 have been reported dead and more than 170 remain missing, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, reported CNN.