Three newly minted second graders, together with 8-year-old twin sisters from Dallas. A camp director who served as a surrogate father to the women beneath his care. These are just a few of the scores of victims misplaced in devastating flash floods in central Texas.
The flooding originated from the fast-moving waters of the Guadalupe River on Friday, killing greater than 100 folks. Authorities say search and rescue efforts are nonetheless underway, together with for campers lacking from a summer camp for girls.
Mary Grace Baker
Mary Grace Baker, who had not too long ago celebrated her first Holy Communion, was among the many victims at Camp Mystic from the flash meals, her faculty introduced.
“Mary Grace was a vibrant mild in our close-knit faculty household, identified for her kindness and friendship to all, her joyful spirit and her love for her religion and household,” St. Anne Catholic Faculty in Beaumont stated on its Facebook page. “Her giggle was contagious, as was her spirit.”
Mary Grace had simply accomplished second grade. The varsity’s submit described her as a “women’ lady who liked pink sparkles and bows in her signature angelic ringlet curls.” The varsity requested its neighborhood to put pink ribbons in bushes in honor of Mary Grace after she went lacking following the floods.
Joyce Badon
Joyce Catherine Badon, a 21-year-old senior on the Savannah School of Artwork and Design, died within the flooding, the college stated in an e-mail to the faculty neighborhood.
The structure pupil was from Beaumont, Texas.
“A beloved daughter, good friend, and classmate, Joyce was obsessed with utilizing her artistry and expertise to influence the world, and had not too long ago helped redesign donation facilities for Goodwill,” the college stated in an e-mail.
Badon was staying with three mates at a river residence in Hunt. All had been reported lacking.
“At 4 a.m. this morning, a flash flood got here via and washed their automobiles away,” her mom, Kellye Badon, posted on Fb on the Fourth of July. ”It occurred so rapidly with a lot water, they may not get within the attic.”
She stated one the buddies referred to as a dad or mum because it was occurring, then received washed away with two others. Kellye Badon stated her daughter Joyce Catherine was the final individual heard from on that decision earlier than the cellphone went useless.
James and Cindy Dashing
James and Cindy Dashing have been tenting alongside the Guadalupe River on the HTR TX Hill Nation Campground on the Fourth of July when the flooding struck.
“The quantity of grief my household is feeling is immeasurable,” their son, James Evan Dashing, wrote in a social media submit. “My dad and mom have been discovered, and they’re sadly gone. My coronary heart is damaged into items.”
After the flooding, their daughter, Tamra Blasius, visited their campsite and located nothing left.
“Every thing gone — their camper, their truck, their belongings — fully washed away. There was no signal that anybody had ever been there. It was completely gut-wrenching,” she wrote in a social media submit on Saturday.
On Monday, she wrote that her “worst fears have been confirmed — my dad and mom have been discovered and recognized, however tragically, they didn’t survive.”
Hanna and Rebecca Lawrence
Hanna and Rebecca Lawrence have been 8-year-old sisters from Dallas who have been among the many victims killed by the flooding at Camp Mystic.
The women had simply completed second grade, their dad and mom stated.
“Hanna and Rebecca introduced a lot pleasure to us, to their massive sister Harper, and to so many others,” John and Lacy Lawrence stated in a press release. “We’ll discover methods to maintain that pleasure, and to proceed to unfold it for them. However we’re devastated that the bond we shared with them, and that they shared with one another, is now frozen in time. “
David Lawrence, the women’ grandfather and former writer of the Miami Herald, stated “it has been an unimaginable time for all of us.” He stated the women gave their household, together with their sister, pleasure.
“They and that pleasure can by no means be forgotten,” he stated in a press release.
College Park Elementary Faculty, the place Hanna and Rebecca attended, stated on its web site that “quite a few” college students have been within the Texas Hill Nation in the course of the flooding and needed to evacuate. The varsity didn’t instantly reply to a message left Monday morning.
“We’re deeply saddened to report the lack of a number of college students, and our ideas and prayers are with the entire households deeply affected by this unimaginable tragedy,” the college stated on its website.
Reece and Paula Zunker
Reece Zunker was described as “a passionate educator and a beloved soccer coach” by Tivy Excessive Faculty in Kerrville, Texas.
“His unwavering dedication to our college students, athletes, and the Tivy neighborhood touched numerous lives and can by no means be forgotten,” the college posted on-line Sunday.
Paula Zunker was a former instructor on the faculty. “The care and influence she shared together with her college students proceed to be felt, even years later,” the submit stated.
The couple’s younger kids, Lyle and Holland, have been nonetheless lacking, the college stated.
The household had been staying at a river home in Hunt.
Dick Eastland
Among the many useless is Dick Eastland, the Camp Mystic director.
Paige Sumner, a former camper, described him in a column within the native paper, The Kerrville Each day Instances, as “the daddy determine to all of us whereas we have been away from residence.”
Sumner spent one summer time working within the camp workplace, balancing accounts for the commissary, the place campers purchased snacks and different necessities like stamps. She wrote that her desk was exterior Eastland’s workplace.
“He nonetheless put campers first in each state of affairs,” wrote Sumner, who’s now the top of philanthropy at a neighborhood heart in Kerrville. “If a problem of any sort that wanted consideration came visiting the walkie-talkie, even a camper with a minor harm or the dreaded snake within the river, he would bolt out of the workplace and leap in a golf cart to get there as quick as he may.”
Eastland’s grandson, George Eastland, wrote in an Instagram post that his grandfather confirmed him what a powerful Christian man seems to be like.
“If he wasn’t going to die of pure causes, this was the one different means, saving the women that he so liked and cared for,” he wrote.
In her column, Sumner famous that the camp had plans for rain.
“Normally,” she defined, “it means they ship a particular breakfast of candy rolls to every cabin or singing songs within the Rec Corridor. This stage of flooding was unprecedented.”
In a short phone name as she grappled with the flood’s aftermath at her personal workplace, Sumner was reluctant so as to add greater than she wrote within the column, saying the camp needed privateness for the households.
“We’re nonetheless holding out hope,” she stated. “They’re damaged; they’re in shock.”
Chloe Childress
Chloe Childress was among the many counselors at Camp Mystic who died within the devasting floods. Childress, 19, “lived a phenomenal life that saturated these round her with contagious pleasure, endless grace, and abiding religion,” her household stated in a press release.
“Returning as a counselor to the place she liked so dearly, Chloe was wanting ahead to dedicating her summer time days to loving and mentoring younger women at Camp Mystic,” her household stated.
Childress had simply graduated from the Kinkaid Faculty in Houston, which praised her as deeply invested in her neighborhood.
“Chloe had a exceptional means of constructing folks really feel seen. She was clever past her years, with a gradual compassion that settled a room,” Jonathan Eads, the top of the college, stated in a letter to the college’s neighborhood on Sunday. “Whether or not it was sharing her personal challenges to ease somebody’s burden or quietly cheering a teammate or classmate via a troublesome day, Chloe made area for others to really feel secure, valued, and courageous.”
Janie Hunt
Janie Hunt, a relative of Kansas Metropolis Chiefs proprietor Clark Hunt, was simply 9 years outdated.
Her mom, Anne Hunt, confirmed her dying to CNN, whereas her grandmother Margaret Hunt confirmed it to The Kansas City Star.
The Chiefs franchise declined to remark. However Clark Hunt’s spouse, Tavia Hunt, posted on Instagram and urged folks to depend on their religion.
“In case your coronary heart is damaged, I guarantee you God is close to,” Tavia Hunt, wrote within the submit. “He’s light together with your wounds. And He’s nonetheless worthy — even when your soul is struggling to imagine it.
Tanya Burwick
The final time Tanya Burwick’s household heard from her was a frantic cellphone name concerning the floodwaters as she headed to work at a Walmart early Friday within the San Angelo space. When Burwick didn’t present up for work, her employer filed a lacking individuals report and despatched a colleague to search for her.
Police investigating the 62-year-old’s disappearance discovered Burwick’s unoccupied SUV absolutely submerged later that day. Her physique was discovered the subsequent morning blocks from the car.
“She lit up the room and had amusing that made different folks snort,” stated Lindsey Burwick, who added that her mother was a beloved dad or mum, grandparent and colleague to many.
She and her brother Zac stated the day was particularly tough as a result of it occurred on July Fourth as they have been working at a fireworks stand that’s been within the household for generations. As phrase of Tanya Burwick’s disappearance unfold, folks from Blackwell, a small neighborhood of about 250 folks, confirmed as much as the stand that’s run out of a trailer painted orange.
“Folks got here to our assist,” Lindsey Burwick stated.
Police in San Angelo stated greater than 12,000 homes, barns and different buildings have been affected by the floods locally of roughly 100,000 folks.
“We ask that the general public proceed to maintain the Burwick household of their ideas and prayers as they navigate this heartbreaking tragedy,” the San Angelo Police Division stated in a Fb submit.
Jane Ragsdale
Jane Ragsdale, 68, devoted her life to the Coronary heart O’the Hills Camp, a summer time camp for women in Texas Hill Nation. She was a camper and counselor there herself within the Seventies earlier than changing into a co-owner. By the Nineteen Eighties, she was director of the camp in Hunt.
“She was the center of The Coronary heart,” the camp stated in a press release. “She was our guiding mild, our instance, and our secure place. She had the uncommon reward of constructing each individual really feel seen, liked, and vital.”
For the reason that camp was between periods, no kids have been staying there when the floodwaters rose. The camp’s amenities, straight within the path of the flood, have been extensively broken and entry to the positioning remained tough, in response to camp officers. The camp has been in existence for the reason that Nineteen Fifties.
Camp officers stated Ragsdale can be remembered for her energy and knowledge.
“We’re heartbroken. However above all, we’re grateful,” the camp stated. “Grateful to have identified her, to have discovered from her, and to hold her mild ahead.”
In a 2015 oral historical past for the Kerr County Historic Fee, Ragsdale, whose first title was Cynthie, however glided by her center title Jane, talked about how her father was additionally a camp director and the way a lot she loved her experiences.
“I liked each minute of camp from the primary time I stepped foot in a single,” she recalled.
Movies of Ragsdale strumming a guitar and singing to campers throughout a current session have been posted in a memorial on the camp’s Fb web page: “Life is nice at present. So maintain singing ’til we meet, once more.”
Sarah Marsh
Eight-year-old Sarah Marsh from Alabama had been attending Camp Mystic in Texas, a longtime Christian women camp in Hunt the place a number of others have been killed within the floods. As of Sunday, afternoon, 11 kids have been nonetheless lacking.
Marsh was a pupil at Cherokee Bend Elementary in suburban Birmingham.
“That is an unimaginable loss for her household, her faculty, and our whole neighborhood,” Mountain Brook Mayor Stewart Welch stated in a Fb submit. “Sarah’s passing is a sorrow shared by all of us, and our hearts are with those that knew and liked her.”
He stated the neighborhood — the place about 20,000 folks reside — would rally behind the Marsh household as they grieved.
Her dad and mom declined an interview request Sunday “as they mourn this insufferable loss,” the lady’s grandmother, Debbie Ford Marsh, informed The Related Press in an e-mail.
“We’ll at all times really feel blessed to have had this lovely spunky ray of sunshine in our lives. She’s going to reside on in our hearts eternally!” Marsh wrote on Fb. “We love you a lot, candy Sarah!”
She declined additional remark.
U.S. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama additionally famous the lady’s tragic dying.
“We proceed to hope for the victims’ family members, the survivors, those that are nonetheless lacking, and our courageous first responders as search and rescue efforts proceed in Texas,” she stated in a submit on social media platform X.
Blair and Brooke Harber
Sisters Blair and Brooke Harber, each college students at St. Rita Catholic Faculty in Dallas, had been staying alongside the Guadalupe River when their cabin was swept away, in response to the college.
Pastor Joshua J. Whitfield of St. Rita Catholic Neighborhood, which shares a campus with the college, stated the women’ dad and mom, Annie and RJ Harber, have been staying in a unique cabin and have been secure. Nevertheless, their grandparents have been unaccounted for. Annie Harber has been a longtime instructor on the faculty.
“This tragedy has touched each nook of our hearts,” the church stated in a press release Sunday.
Blair, who was enrolled in superior courses, was concerned in quite a few faculty actions from volleyball and basketball to speech and drama. Brooke was a rising sixth grader and a pupil athlete in volleyball and lacrosse, amongst different sports activities. She additionally participated in speech and drama, in response to the church.
Each have been remembered for his or her sort hearts and heat personalities.
“We’ll honor Blair and Brooke’s lives, the sunshine they shared, and the enjoyment they dropped at everybody who knew them,” Whitfield wrote in a Saturday letter to parishioners. “And we are going to encompass Annie, RJ, and their prolonged household with the energy and help of our St. Rita neighborhood.”
The church held a particular prayer service Saturday afternoon and supplied counseling.
“Please maintain the Harber household in your prayers throughout this time of profound grief,” Whitfield wrote. “Might our religion, our love, and our St. Rita neighborhood be a supply of energy and luxury within the days forward.”
___ This story corrects the part on Joyce Badon to indicate that the college’s remark got here in an e-mail, not a Fb submit.
___
DeMillo reported from Little Rock, Arkansas; Hollingsworth from Mission, Kansas; McCormack from Harmony, New Hampshire; Tareen from Chicago; and Sarah Raza contributed to this report from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
