among those assigned to two sets of cabins, Bubble Inn and Twins<\/a>, which were not closest to the river. In fact, the cabins, which held the youngest campers, were a short walk from the recreation hall, where scores other girls were taken and survived.<\/p>\nMr. Eastland died in his Chevy Tahoe trying to rescue girls from Bubble Inn. His son, Edward Eastland, was swept away from Twins \u2014 a pair of attached cabins \u2014 and survived by grabbing onto a tree down river, where he was found with several girls, Mr. Juenke said.<\/p>\n
Not far from those two cabins, Mr. Juenke rode out the storm with the girls of Wiggle Inn.<\/p>\n
Mr. Juenke, who spent 25 years as a Houston police officer before serving briefly as the police chief in the town of Ingram, Texas, began working nighttime security at Camp Mystic in the summer of 2022. On drop-off days, he would wear a shirt with the word \u201cNightwatch\u201d and joke with parents that he would see their daughters only if they tried to sneak out.<\/p>\n
He carried a handgun, mostly for snakes, and most nights, after lights out for the campers, he drove around in a quiet electric golf cart. Nothing much happened.<\/p>\n
When Mr. Juenke arrived at work around 10 p.m. on July 3, the big issue at the camp was not the forecast of rain. Staff members had already moved up the canoes and other things that might float away if the river rose, he said. Instead, he was told about a group of young Polish workers at the camp whose van broke down during a day off in the Hill Country. A second van went out to pick them up.<\/p>\n
Mr. Juenke rode on the golf cart to survey the camp as usual, and noticed the rain starting after midnight. He said he was driving on the camp\u2019s small golf course, along the river, and did not have cell or Wi-Fi service at 1:14 a.m. when the National Weather Service sent its first flash flood warning in Kerr County.<\/p>\n
The Polish workers returned around 1:45 a.m., Mr. Juenke said, after a harrowing drive. The roads had been passable, but by then the rain had become intense.<\/p>\n
\u201cLightning and thunder, on top of each other,\u201d Mr. Juenke recalled. \u201cIt was like, \u2018boom, boom, boom, boom.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He called his wife to tell her that he would be staying through the night, past the end of his shift. He said he was in the office along with Dick Eastland and other staff members, watching local flood and rain gauges. Most of the cabins were close by.<\/p>\n
At around 2:20 a.m., he said, a counselor from the cabin closest to the river came into the office to report water coming into the windows of her cabin \u2014 the rain was blowing sideways, Mr. Juenke said, it was not the rising river.<\/p>\n
The counselor was told that the campers should get their belongings off the floor and stay put, \u201cbecause that\u2019s the plan,\u201d Mr. Juenke said.<\/p>\n
The emergency plan he was referring to called for sheltering in cabins during flooding, which was not unusual at the riverside retreat. It was posted around the campus, kept by the counselors, and it was inspected by state officials on July 2.<\/p>\n
About 10 minutes after the counselor left, around 2:30 a.m., staff members in the office decided to begin evacuating cabins. \u201cDick, Edward and I went down to the three cabins closest to the water \u2014 Bug House, Look Inn and Hangout \u2014 and we began evacuation,\u201d Mr. Juenke said. \u201cWe put them in our trucks and took them to the rec hall.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time they turned to the cabins closest to the recreation hall, Mr. Juenke decided it was too dangerous to continue driving in the rising water.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Dick and Edward said to each other, I do not know,\u201d he said. \u201cI just said, \u2018I\u2019m not taking the truck down, I can\u2019t do it.\u2019\u201d (Edward Eastland has not responded to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n
Mr. Juenke watched the elder Mr. Eastland drive his Tahoe toward Bubble Inn.<\/p>\n
After helping one more cabin of girls climb to higher ground, Mr. Juenke went on foot to Wiggle Inn.<\/p>\n
Water soon rose above the steps of the cabin. They could not make it to the recreation hall, he determined. The camp\u2019s mattresses, old and waterlogged, sank to the ground. He stood on those, he said. But many of girls brought their own inflatable mattresses. Those floated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going anywhere,\u201d he yelled above the raging water. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a new activity,\u201d he offered, \u201cpool party at the Wiggle Inn after midnight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Juenke said he tried to use his cellphone to call for help, to no avail. His radio was waterlogged and nonfunctional, he said. He said he worked to keep all the girls floating together \u2014 15 campers and two counselors, he said \u2014 in the center of the cabin.<\/p>\n
The water kept rising. A pickup truck floated by. \u201cMr. Glenn, there goes your mom\u2019s truck,\u201d he recalls one of the girls said. It crashed into a nearby telephone poll and was lodged there, its hazard lights flashing into the cabin.<\/p>\n
At one point, the water appeared to go down. Then suddenly the direction of the water changed. Mr. Juenke feared the campers could be sucked out of the cabin. He yelled for them to hold together.<\/p>\n
Then, the sound of the rain stopped. The water in the cabin receded. The first glimmers of morning light were visible, he said. When they emerged from the cabin, they saw debris covering the field around the cabins, Mr. Juenke said, broken glass, papers, computers from the office, utensils and plates from the dining hall, patio furniture from upriver homes.<\/p>\n
He learned from the other staff members that dozens of campers had gone missing, including all of Bubble Inn, many from Twins and his boss and friend, Dick Eastland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a big crier, a big crier,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m too numb to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the days and weeks that followed, Mr. Juenke tried to wave off the experience, as he had when he was a police officer. But, he said, he can\u2019t stop thinking about the campers and counselors who did not make it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve what if-ed this a lot in my mind,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat if I did go somewhere else? What if I did go to Bubble Inn first?\u201d<\/p>\n
In the months since, he has tried to piece together, for himself and in counseling, what happened in the darkness. But, he said, \u201cit\u2019s a blur. It happened so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
He now wears a trio of necklaces as a memorial to the camp and to the flood. One is a cross that once belonged to Dick Eastland, given to Mr. Juenke by his widow. The others were gifts from the families of the girls he saved, including one with an inscription.<\/p>\n
\u201cFear not for I am with you,\u201d it reads. \u201cWiggle Inn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The water rushing through Camp Mystic in the pre-dawn darkness of July 4 in Texas Hill Country had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9984,9982,9985,9986,9987,9983,4036,3058,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-11596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-camp-mystic-hunt","9":"tag-floods","10":"tag-guadalupe-river-tex","11":"tag-hunt-tex","12":"tag-kerr-county-tex","13":"tag-rescues","14":"tag-summer-camps","15":"tag-tex","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-texas-headlines","18":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}