Outside an elementary school that serves as a reunification center for parents whose children were rescued from a camp overrun by floodwaters overnight, her children looked animated and joyful as they boarded a big white pickup truck on Friday night.
However, their mother, Serena Hanor Aldrich, warned that they could not predict how they would be impacted by the potential tragedy that engulfed the Christian retreat in Central Texas known as Camp Mystic.
San Antonio attorney Ms. Aldrich said she did not want to press her two girls, who are 12 and 9 years old, about what they went through because they have not spoken out much about it. However, she had some harsh things to say to the camp’s administrators, as by Friday night, almost 20 of the 750 kids were still unaccounted for.
She referred to the authorities who had been issuing warnings of possible flash floods and stated that they ought to have been keeping an eye on Kerr County and the Texas Division of Emergency Management. Yesterday morning, they were posting content. They ought to have been aware of it.
When kids and a counselor were forced to seek higher ground in order to escape the swelling waters that were engulfing the campgrounds, Ms. Aldrich’s elder daughter was in an area of the camp known as Senior Hill, and her younger daughter was in a section she called the flats.
When the water subsided, they descended, according to Ms. Aldrich. After that, they arrived at a building that was no longer flooded. They spent a couple of hours up there.
Before being sent to the reunification facility at an Ingram elementary school, the girls were finally bussed to another camp.
Ms. Aldrich said she was anxious to meet her two girls in person even though she had been informed earlier Friday that they were safe.
The uncertainty around her clouded her good news. “Campers are still missing,” she stated.
As she was leaving the shelter, her older daughter informed her, “Everything I own is muddy.”
Ms. Aldrich answered, “Oh, I don’t care,” in response to my statement.
