How fast moving floods were torn through central Texas

The warning signs were already flashing, as hundreds of young people celebrated the official holiday of the fourth July at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer retreat of all the girls, nestled on the shores of the Guadalupe River in Texas.

Recently, there was no rain in the area until the pour in the river, when the river rises by 26 feet (8 m) in less than an hour, according to civil servants.

By Saturday night, at least 51 people were dead, including 15 children.

The first hint of the devastation that is to come on Thursday morning, when rain and thunderstorms soaked a number of central texas counties.

The National Meteorological Service (NWS) has issued a general warning called a flood at 13:18 this afternoon for parts of the region, including Kerr County.

In the early hours of Friday, the prospects became worse, as NWS released a series of modernized warnings. The San Saba River, the Koncho River and the Colorado River were rising.

At 04:03 NWS he sent a signal for a “particularly dangerous situation”, reserved for the most successful and potentially deadly scenarios such as Wild -Fires.

Another “particularly dangerous situation” was issued to the city of Kervil at 05:34, before dawn on Friday.

“Residents and camps have to look for a higher place now! An animal threatening flood on the river is expected,” the forecasts said.

“Automated rain gabarite shows a large and deadly flooded wave moving down the Guadalupe River. The flash flood is already happening.”

Similar signals are shared in NWS social media accounts and through broadcast news newsletters, but most people slept.

The 13 -year -old Eleanor Lester said that the younger camps in the Mystic camp were inserted into cabins closer to the river bank and these are the first to flood.

“The camp was completely destroyed,” Eleanor, who was evacuated by a helicopter, told the Associated Press. “It was really scary.”

Just beyond Kerville, the BBC met with Jonathan and Brittany Rohas when they came to see what was left of a relative’s home. Only the foundations remain.

Five people were at the house at night of the flood – the mother and her baby are still missing.

The son of teenager Leo survived after he stuck in a barbed wire, preventing him from being flowing. The boy recovers to hospital.

As the BBC interviewed the couple Rohas, a neighbor approached to present them an object rescued from the house.

It was the teenager’s money jar. The label of it reads the “Leo survival kit”.

The desperate parents of the Mistic camp have embarked on social media, looking for news for their children.

One group on Facebook – Kerrville Breaking News – has become a page for missing persons.

Since then, some parents have updated their applications on social media to say that their missing family members have not survived.

Kerr County is at the heart of the Texas Hill side, a escape destination because of its picturesque hills, countless rivers and lakes and an abundance of wineries.

But the region is also known as “Flash Flood Alley” because of the repetitive threat that has devastated local communities over the years.

Asked why the Riverside Summer Camp was not evacuated, employees said the sudden scale of the flood caught them invalid.

“Nobody knew that this kind of flood was coming,” said County Rob Kelly County Judge.