KERRVILLE, Texas – Her children appeared lively and happy when they hopped on a large white pickup truck on the evening of July 4 outside an elementary school used as a reunification center for parents whose children were rescued from a camp

overtaken by floodwaters overnight

.

But their mother, Ms Serena Hanor Aldrich, cautioned there was no telling how they would be affected by what might be a tragedy enveloping Camp Mystic, a Christian retreat in Central Texas.

Ms Aldrich, a lawyer from San Antonio, said her two daughters, ages 9 and 12, have not said much about what they endured, and she did not want to press them just yet. But she had a few choice words for the people running the camp, where about 20 of 750 children remained missing on the night of July 4.

“They should have been watching the Texas Division of Emergency Management and Kerr County,” she said, referring to authorities who had been warning of potential flash floods. “They were posting stuff yesterday morning. They should have been on top of it.”

Ms Aldrich’s older daughter was in a section of the camp called Senior Hill, and her younger daughter in a section she called the flats, when campers and a counselor were forced to find higher ground to escape rising waters that were overtaking the campgrounds.

“They came down when the water receded,” Ms Aldrich said. “And then they made it to one of the buildings that wasn’t flooded anymore. They were up there for a couple of hours.”

The girls were eventually bused to another camp and then brought to the reunification center at an elementary school in Ingram.

Ms Aldrich said she was notified that her two daughters were accounted for earlier on July 4, but she was desperate to see them in person.

Her good news was tempered by the uncertainty around her. “There still are campers missing,” she said.

Walking away from the shelter, her older daughter told her, “All of my stuff is muddy.”

“I told her, ‘oh, I don’t care,’” Ms Aldrich said. NYTIMES

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