It was 1932, just six years after Camp Mystic opened, when an early July rain began falling on the Texas Hill Country around the Guadalupe River.
At first, it was a “lovely, gentle rain,” one person said at the time. But the rain intensified, and the river quickly swirled past its banks, sending churning floodwaters through the idyllic girls camp. Archived news clips from that week describe campers rushing to safety, some shedding tears as they watched some of the camp’s cabins — and their possessions — swept away.
They survived, but were left stranded without food, forced to eat fish that had been tossed up by the floodwaters. Someone flew a plane over the site the next day and dropped notes to the group to tell them that help was on the way.
The event in 1932 was one of many dire reminders over nearly a century that Camp Mystic had been built in a location that could experience devastating floods. Since its construction in 1926, the camp — which promised cabins “snugly arranged” in a “picturesque bend” in the river — repeatedly experienced flood disruptions, including evacuations or damage to structures.
Some two dozen campers died last week when the Guadalupe River roared in once again.
Here is a closer look at the history of floods at Camp Mystic:
July 1, 1932
Nobody died at Camp Mystic during the 1932 flood, but four people were reported killed along the river during that flood event. Some 200 people lost their homes.
There was a discussion at the time about whether Camp Mystic should even reopen, according to one newspaper account. Crews spent two weeks clearing debris, repairing facilities and building a dam that provided, at least during non-flood periods, a quiet pool of water for swimming and diving. Then the camp reopened.
Later that year, after the summer season was over, camp officials rebuilt some of the cabins farther away from the river. But the new sites were still placed at a relatively low elevation — “against the bottom of the towering hills,” one newspaper account said.
May 15, 1951
A torrential spring rain washed out fences and heavily damaged a highway along the Guadalupe River. The Kerrville Mountain Sun noted at the time that the “water at Camp Mystic reached a height of 10 to 12 feet,” although the newspaper did not note any damage there.
Aug. 1-4, 1978
In flooding caused by several days of rain from a tropical storm, some 33 people died in Central Texas.
Some camps in the region had to be evacuated, and local newspapers described how Camp Mystic was among those cut off from the outside world. According to a Kerr County history book, floodwaters at Camp Mystic almost reached the top of the dining hall’s stairs.
Erin Paisan, who was a camper at the time, said in an interview on the New York Times podcast “The Daily” that she had awakened in the middle of the night and could see from her cabin that floodwaters had risen to near the top of a cypress tree next to the river. The girls in her cabin were evacuated to one at a higher elevation, and Ms. Paisan recalled them watching as cars and animals were carried down the river. They didn’t have food for a couple of days, she recalled.
July 17, 1987
At a different camp along the Guadalupe River, 10 teenagers died when a bus trying to evacuate the camp during a flood stalled and many of those inside were swept down the river.
At Camp Mystic, officials activated an evacuation plan, moving girls out of two cabins and into the camp’s recreation center, according to newspaper accounts. Camp leaders spent the night watching the river.
In the wake of that flood, Camp Mystic’s owner, Dick Eastland, joined in an effort to install a new system of river gauges that could notify emergency managers of rising floodwaters.
“The river is beautiful, but you have to respect it,” he told The Austin American-Statesman at the time.
July 11, 1988
With more than nine inches of rain falling on Kerr County, two people died in a flash flood.
Some 150 girls who had been en route to Camp Mystic were forced to divert to a safer location, an auditorium in Kerrville, to wait for floodwaters to recede. Mr. Eastland told a reporter then that the river had covered a bridge, and camp officials had erected barriers on the road to prevent a tragedy like the one that had occurred the previous year.
Mr. Eastland and his wife later wrote a letter to the editor at The Kerrville Daily Times, thanking the community for helping campers through the flood event.
“Besides being so grateful for the safety of our campers, we hope the camp families all over the state of Texas and other states will realize the great measures that camps in the Hill Country as well as the Kerrville community will take to keep our children safe during flooding conditions,” they wrote.
July 4, 2025
Once again, a summer flood hit — this one more intense than many in previous years.
Floodwaters rushed into camp in the early morning hours. Some campers scrambled for higher ground. Others climbed on rooftops. Counselors talked of leading their charges barefoot through the water in the middle of the night to get to safer shelter.
Not everyone made it. The death toll at Camp Mystic currently stands at 27 people, and county officials say many others across the area are still missing. Among those killed was Mr. Eastland.
Mike Baker is a national reporter for The Times, based in Seattle.
The post Evacuations and Lost Cabins: A Century of Floods at Camp Mystic appeared first on New York Times.
