Several floods hit the center of Texas in the United States last weekend, leaving at least 82 people killed.
The number includes at least 28 children in Kerr County, where 10 girls and a Mystic camp advisor remain missing.
Disaster survivors began to share experiences, helping to rebuild the story of how tragedy unfolded.
At the La Junta camp, located in Texas, Campista Ruffin Boyett was the first to wake up in the cabin around 4 am, local time, Friday (4).
“I couldn’t sleep because of the lightning,” Ruffin told the affiliate of CNN, KSAT.
“People shouted that there was a flood,” Ruffin’s brother Piers Boyett said. “There was a lot of water.”
Another camper woke up the monitor, who in turn awakened the other cabin campers.
The Boyett brothers and the companions suddenly realized the dangerous situation they were in.
“My God, we’re floating,” Ruffin Boyett realized. The campers had to make a quick decision. “The flood started to increase,” said Piers Boyett.
“We have bunk beds in our cabin, and (the water) was going to bed from above. We had an option: we had to swim to get out of the cabins,” he added.
The campers sought a higher place and ended up having to swim to a safe place, told the father of one of them CNN.
They went to an access road, where they were rescued by the emergency team.
At Camp Mystic, a nearby girls camping, a quick reasoning security guard put the campers on mattresses to help them resist the rise of the waters.
“I witnessed firsthand the courage and faith that his daughters demonstrated during some of the most terrifying moments of his young lives,” Glenn Juenke told CNN.
“Each of those candy girls was cold, wet and scared – but they were incredibly brave. They trusted me, and we leaned on each other during a long and distressing night together in their cabin.”
