A faint drizzle falls in Camp Mystic, an area of camps devastated Friday by the sudden flood of the Guadalupe River, in the center-south of Texas. After raising debris, Michael reaches a cabin invaded by the lodazal. “My daughter was here,” he says.
The stone wall booth looks intact on the outside, but has the glasses burst, apparently by force with which the water entered after the heavy rains and the flood of the river, which came to cover trees in some sectors of this region of the United States.
Closer to the tributary, a much larger wood construction, where the dining room worked, has one of its walls. On the ground are disposable dishes, syrup bottles for wafles and cholula sauce bottles, common at the Texan tables.
Michael, 40 and who asks not to reveal his last name, lives in Austin and sent his daughter to this summer Christian camp in Texas.
On Friday morning he received a message in which it was reported that his 8 -year -old daughter was among the group of 27 girls who had not been located after the powerful water wave that hit the area that morning.
The authorities have counted at least 27 victims: 18 adults and 9 minors, while looking for missing girls. Hundreds of people have been evacuated.
Michael wears high boots, a bucket and tongs to cut metal. He dries the tears with the neck of his shirt and enters the place where his daughter slept when the tragedy occurred.
Recognize a towel with your name. He also lifts a teddy toy, a bracelet, a family photo and a bag of the friend who slept with her daughter, who says, “she was already declared deceased.
That night, about 750 minors slept in Camp Mystic. Apparently, the majority managed to evacuate the place on time, but Michael believes that the water directly hit the cabins where girls of 8 and 9 years slept.
“They were in these two cabins,” he says as he points out one that has puddled mattresses, teddy bears, suitcases and trunks for clothing at the entrance. Flood water has already descended and shows chaos.
One every 100 years
Throughout the river everything is devastation. There are collapsed trees and dozens of cars appear turned or destroyed by the fierceness of the waters. In the middle of the rubble, rescue equipment on foot, in vans, helicopters and drones they comb the area in search of survivors or victims.
The tributary came to enter several meters within the city of Kent. He even knocked down and damaged homes. A fuel post disappeared. The damage also reached the neighboring city of Kerville, where the river rose to almost 10 meters and terrified the neighbors.
“There is a saying here that says there is a flood every hundred years. We had it. We had never seen something like that, and hopefully we did not see it again,” says Gerardo Martínez, 61, owner of a restaurant in Kerville, while watching the river from a viewpoint.
“I told my wife: we see these things on TV. You do not imagine that they spend so close, especially in your city. Seeing it seems unreal,” says David Amorr, 35, a resident of Kerville who reached the riverbank of the river, previously used as a pedestrian walk and cycle, now covered with mud.
“We can only think that we also have our two daughters. They could have been there, in the camps, missing. So we sympathized with those families,” adds Amorr.
Meanwhile, in Camp Mystic, Michael pauses, breathes deep and continues to inspect the surroundings. “I hope a miracle, absolutely.” Camp Mystic,