- 13-year-old Stella Thompson described being evacuated from Camp Mystic after deadly flooding in Texas Hill Country and witnessing the wreckage
- “You’d see kayaks in trees and it was kind of horrific because we had no idea,” Stella told a local outlet
- “I think while it was going on, I sort of felt a numbness,” she said. “Saying it out loud is making me realize what actually happened and how bad it actually is”
A 13-year-old camper is opening up about escaping tragedy as deadly flooding swept through an annual summertime retreat.
Stella Thompson, from Dallas, told NBC affiliate KXAS she was attending her sixth year at Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ summer camp nestled in Texas Hill Country, when she and her fellow campers woke to the sounds of the weather outside their cabin in the early morning hours of Friday, July 4.
The teen’s group was on the Cypress Lake side, on higher ground than those staying nearer to the Guadalupe River, but she recalls her cabin dropping power sometime overnight and camp leaders telling the girls to stay indoors when they woke up, KXAS reported.
As helicopters started flying overhead, the campers realized how grave the situation had become.
“I think it’s the uncertainty that really shook up our cabin,” Stella said.
Later, they learned campers on the Guadalupe River side, out of their line of sight, had to be evacuated, she told the station.
“Eventually when we got that news we were all kind of hysterical and the whole cabin was praying a lot and terrified — but not for ourselves,” Stella said.
Hours passed and military vehicles arrived on Friday evening to evacuate them as well. The teen remembered taking in the devastation as they fled.
“You’d see kayaks in trees and it was kind of horrific because we had no idea,” she said, describing emergency workers searching the water and how “there were huge trees ripped out of the ground.”
The place she’d spent so many summers was left unrecognizable.
“It didn’t look like Camp Mystic anymore,” she told KXAS.
Since being rescued, Stell has begun to process the extent of the destruction and loss of life.
“I think while it was going on, I sort of felt a numbness,” she said. “Saying it out loud is making me realize what actually happened and how bad it actually is.”
After reuniting with her daughter, Stella’s mother, Casey, is also cycling through a mix of emotions — grateful her child was spared but aching for the families who lost their little girls in an instant while others still hold out hope.
“We are just so happy that she is safe and we have her. We are just grateful to be some of the fortunate ones,” Casey told KXAS. “So there’s a sense of relief and an equal sense of just awareness of that’s not everybody’s story and that’s just two kinds of competing emotions.”
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By the morning of Sunday, July 6, 11 girls and a counselor remained unaccounted for, according to Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha, CNN reported.
“We hope,” Casey added, “that all the folks who are still missing loved ones are feeling that outpouring of love.”
