A little over a year after the devastating floods of July 4, 2025 — and on the heels of another deadly deluge in Central Texas — a music video honoring one of the girls who died at Camp Mystic will usher in a documentary produced by local TV stations at the San Antonio Film Festival.
San Antonio, Austin TV stations screen flood documentary with ‘heartfelt’ opening
The song, “Dear Eloise,” comes from Lubbock-native country band Blackwater Draw and will play ahead of Rising Waters: When Warnings Went Silent, a documentary on the disaster from News 4 San Antonio, KABB and CBS Austin. Rising Waters debuted in January as a retrospective investigation into the failures of warning systems, what happened last July and how the hardest-hit have been rebuilding. Over 130 people died, including 25 Camp Mystic campers, two counselors and the camp’s longtime director.
Blackwater Draw singer and guitarist Cami Caldwell told MySA she was particularly affected by the death of 8-year-old camper Eloise “Lulu” Peck because she “looked almost identical to my niece, who is the same age.” The song was born of a few writing sessions in Nashville, where the band is currently based, and Caldwell said the finished product felt “absolutely heartfelt and inspired and perfect.”
“We immediately knew we had to record it and somehow get it to Eloise’s parents, and we didn’t have any aspirations of releasing it or anything. We just wanted her parents to know that Eloise had made an impact on people — strangers — in a completely different state,” she said.
Through some church connections, the band were able to send a flash drive to Peck’s parents, who told them that the song, “divinely timed,” inexplicably contained details personal to the family and their daughter. Coincidentally, they also discovered that Caldwell’s mother and Peck’s grandmother graduated a year apart at the same high school in Levelland, a “tiny town” outside of Lubbock, she said. With the Peck family’s blessing, Blackwater Draw released the song and a video, shot on the Guadalupe River and starring Caldwell’s niece, on July 7 of this year. It shows Caldwell’s niece playing joyfully along the river with a dog, Peck’s favorite animal.
All proceeds from song downloads go to the Living for Lulu Foundation, the animal and children nonprofit Peck’s parents started in her memory. KABB reporter and anchor Yami Virgin reached out to Blackwater Draw to bring the band and their song to the festival, telling MySA that when she first heard it, “I just started tearing … it just really moved me.”
“Any time that we can highlight anything positive in this that was so dark and left everyone with broken hearts and still trying to figure out what happened, why not?” Virgin said. “Why not show something positive?”