Clinging to rafters: How staff at all-boys camp in Texas saved hundreds from floodwaters
- - - Clinging to rafters: How staff at all-boys camp in Texas saved hundreds from floodwaters
Christopher Cann, USA TODAYJuly 9, 2025 at 5:05 AM
After a sun-filled day at Camp La Junta, 11-year-old Beau Brown was roused awake by a counselor on July 4 and led outside into the early morning darkness.
From the doorway, Beau could see floodwaters beginning to engulf cabins closer to the Guadalupe River, where the younger boys slept. With a group of other campers, he reached a high point on a nearby hillside and watched as counselors rushed into the raging floodwaters.
The torrent of water blew out the walls of at least one cabin and forced counselors to move children into the rafters above their bunk beds. When the water slowed, counselors formed a line and pulled some of the boys to safety. Several counselors slung children over their shoulders and swam them to higher ground.
Within a few hours, each of the nearly 400 children and counselors at the all-boys camp were determined safe and accounted for. Acting on their own, staff had taken decisive action, rushing the children into cabins up the hill from the racing river, which had risen over 20 feet in less than an hour. Parents who spoke with USA TODAY credit them for saving their children's lives.
"If it hadn't of been for them, it would have been a very different scenario with our boys," said Beau's mother, Georgie Brown. "They didn't have anyone telling them what to do, they just did it and saved a lot of our boys."
Beau Brown, right, poses with his friend, Elton Farr, before boarding a bus to Camp La Junta in Kerr County, Texas. The pair were among hundreds of boys and counselors who narrowly escaped raging floodwaters that tore across the camp on July 4, 2025.
At other camps the flood took lives.
About five miles down the Guadalupe, floodwaters tore through Camp Mystic, a beloved all-girls Christian summer camp, killing at least 27 children and counselors, officials said. As of Tuesday, rescue teams were desperately searching for five girls still missing after the river overwhelmed the campgrounds on the early morning hours of July 4.
And while there were no children on the grounds at Heart O' the Hills Camp, the flood killed the camp's longtime owner Jane Ragsdale, a matriarch who led summer program for decades. Other camps dotting the river's edge reported damage – some quite significant – but no loss of life.
The parents of the children rescued from Camp La Junta said while they're grateful to have their children at home, they're also overwhelmed with grief at the loss of life at Camp Mystic, where many of them know the victims and their families.
"It's unbelievable that something so terrible can happen in such a happy place," Brown said.
'They were heroes'
Kolton Taylor, 12, had only one full day at camp before screams woke him up around 4 a.m. that Friday.
When he climbed out of bed, the floodwaters were up to his knees – and soon his waist. In the dark he felt for his tennis shoes floating nearby, put them on and hurried out the door.
"He ended up on the hillside for about two hours in the rain – terrified," his mother, Janet Davis, told USA TODAY. "He said he heard sounds he won't ever forget."
Kolton Taylor, 12, poses for a photo taken during his first and only full day at Camp La Junta, an all-boys camp along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas. He was among hundreds of children and counselors who narrowly escaped raging floodwaters at the camp on July 4.
Nearby, 9-year-old Everett Higgins and several other boys sat on their beds as the flood raged outside. Water seeped into their cabin under the doors and through gaps in the walls, but the cabin was at a higher point than those closest to the river, allowing them to shelter inside.
The children in the cabins near the river's edge were told to climb onto the top bunks and then – as water poured in – the rafters. Some parents said their children were there for about an hour before counselors waded into the water and whisked the children to safety.
"They were heroes," Everett's father, Shawn Higgins said.
Shawn Higgins, 9, smiles for a photo on his bed at Camp La Junta in Kerr County, Texas. Higgins was among hundreds of children evacuated from the camp amid catastrophic floods on July 4.
All of the children were moved into several cabins a safe distance from the floodwaters, where counselors tried to keep the boys occupied, passing around a football as the sun came up. Camp leaders took head counts often and kept parents through emails, texts and social media posts.
Toward evening, trucks and buses drove the campers to First Presbyterian Church in Kerrville, where they reunited with their parents. While on the drive, the boys saw further evidence of the devastation wrought by the flood: uprooted trees, cars washed away and a field where they could several dead horses.
Janet Davis, who has generational ties to camps in the Texas Hill Country, said Kolton was traumatized.
"It's heartbreaking because it was one of my favorite places to go as a kid," she said. "Now my son never wants to go back."
Kolton Taylor, 12, jumps into the Guadalupe River on his first and only full day at Camp La Junta, an all-boys camp in Kerr County, Texas. He was among hundreds of children and counselors who narrowly escaped raging floodwaters at the camp on July 4.'A miracle'
Brown said the hours she spent waiting to hear about Beau were the longest of her life.
The children were not allowed to have phones at camp and power outages made communication with counselors nearly impossible. Until she saw her son in person, she clung to the brief emails the camp sent out reiterating that everyone had been found safe.
"I was in pure panic mode," she said.
After Beau and the hundreds of other boys were bused to Kerrville, he boarded a helicopter flight with a close friend to Monroe, Louisiana, where they live. It was close to midnight when Brown met him at the local airport.
"I held him so tight," Brown said through tears.
Everett Higgins, 9, embraced his mother, Kelley Hughes, after they were reunited following a catastrophic flood in Kerr County, Texas, on July 4. Higgins was one of hundreds of children who were evacuated from Camp La Junta.
Similar scenes unfolded at the church in Kerrville.
Everett sat in the crowded church with scores of other children waiting for their parents. When he spotted his father walking through the door, he ran up to him and nearly tackled him to the ground.
After a long hug, Higgins looked at his son and noticed he was in his pajamas, a borrowed shirt and was missing a shoe. In the days since, that image has lingered in Higgins' mind as he's tried to grapple with how close his son came to being swept away in the flood.
"What happened was a miracle," he said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A flood engulfed an all-boys camp in Texas. Staff rushed to save them.
Source: AOL General News
