Lady ‘residing her greatest life’ and ‘coronary heart and soul’ of camp

An eight-year-old woman and the director of an all-girls’ summer season camp are among the many victims of flash floods in Texas which have claimed at the least 51 lives, together with 15 youngsters.

Officers say many of the victims have been recognized. Authorities haven’t but launched any names publicly.

This is what we all know to this point in regards to the victims.

Eight-year-old Renee Smajstrla was at Camp Mystic when flooding swept via the summer season camp for women, her uncle mentioned in a Fb submit.

“Renee has been discovered and whereas not the end result we prayed for, the social media outreach probably assisted the primary responders in serving to to establish her so rapidly,” wrote Shawn Salta, of Maryland.

“We’re grateful she was along with her associates and having the time of her life, as evidenced by this image from yesterday,” he wrote. “She’s going to without end be residing her greatest life at Camp Mystic.”

Camp Mystic, the place 27 youngsters are lacking, is an almost century-old Christian summer season camp for women on the banks of the Guadalupe River close to Hunt, Texas.

Operated by generations of the identical household because the Thirties, the camp’s web site payments itself as a spot for women to develop “spiritually” in a “healthful” Christian environment “to develop excellent private qualities and vanity”.

Coronary heart O’ the Hills is one other all-girls’ camp that sits alongside the Guadalupe River and it was proper within the path of Friday’s flood.

Jane Ragsdale, described because the “coronary heart and soul” of Coronary heart O’Hills, “didn’t make it”, a press release shared on the camp’s official web site mentioned on Saturday.

Ragsdale, who began off as a camper then a counsellor, grew to become the director and co-owner of the camp in 1976.

“We’re mourning the lack of a lady who influenced numerous lives and was the definition of robust and highly effective,” the assertion mentioned.

No campers had been residing on the website when the floods hit and and most of those that had been there have been accounted for, in accordance with the assertion.

Sarah Marsh, a scholar at Cherokee Bend Elementary Faculty in Alabama, would have entered third grade in August.

She, too, was attending Camp Mystic and her grandmother, Debbie Ford Marsh, requested for prayers in a submit on Fb on Friday.

Simply hours later she shared on-line that her granddaughter was among the many ladies killed.

“We’ll all the time really feel blessed to have had this stunning spunky ray of sunshine in our lives. She’s going to dwell on in our hearts without end!” she mentioned.

In a submit on Fb, Alabama Senator Katie Britt mentioned she’s “heartbroken over the lack of Sarah Marsh, and we’re protecting her household in our ideas and prayers throughout this unimaginable time”.

9-year-old Janie Hunt from Dallas, was additionally attending Camp Mystic and died within the floods.

Her grandmother Margaret Hunt informed The New York Instances she went to the camp with six of her cousins, who’re all secure.

Margaret mentioned Janie’s mother and father needed to go to a funeral residence and establish their daughter.

Janie is a great-granddaughter of the oil baron William Herbert Hunt.

As floodwaters tore via their trailer in Ingram, Texas, Julian Ryan turned to his fiancée Christina Wilson and mentioned: “I am sorry, I am not going to make it. I like y’all” – Christina informed Houston tv station KHOU.

His physique wasn’t recovered till hours later, after waters had receded.

Julian had simply completed a late dishwashing shift at a restaurant when the Guadalupe River overflowed early Friday.

He and Christina woke to ankle-deep water that rapidly rose to their waists. She informed the station their bed room door caught shut and with water speeding in, Ryan punched via a window to get his household out. He severely minimize his arm within the course of.

Their 13-month-old and 6-year-old sons and his mom survived by floating on a mattress till assist might arrive.

“He died a hero, and that can by no means go unnoticed,” Connie Salas, Ryan’s sister, informed KHOU.

Richard “Dick” Eastland, the longtime co-owner and co-director of Camp Mystic, died whereas being flown to a Houston hospital.

His demise was confirmed by Kerr County Choose Rob Kelly, who attended Bible examine with Dick and described him as a pillar of the local people.

Dick’s spouse, Tweety, was discovered secure at their riverside residence, in accordance with Texas Public Radio.

The Eastlands had run Camp Mystic, a ladies’ summer season camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, since 1974, changing into the third technology of their household to take action.

In accordance with the Washington Submit, the couple have 11 grandchildren and far of the prolonged household is concerned in camp life.

Their eldest son, Richard, manages the camp kitchen and their youngest, Edward, and his spouse direct operations at Camp Mystic Guadalupe River.

Katheryn Eads, 52, was swept away by floodwaters within the Kerrville space of Texas, early Friday morning after she and her husband, Brian, who informed The New York Instances, fled their campervan as rising water surged round them.

One other camper had supplied them a journey they usually made it throughout the road earlier than the automobile stalled within the flood.

Moments later, each had been pulled into the present. Brian mentioned he overpassed his spouse after being struck by particles. He survived by clinging onto a tree till he reached dry land.

Katheryn’s physique was later recovered.

“God has her now,” her mom, Elizabeth Moss Grover, wrote on Fb.

Amy Hutchinson, director of Olive Department Counselling in Texas, the place Katheryn had labored, informed The Washington Submit she was “a hope and a lightweight to all who knew her… a stellar counsellor and professor.”

Two sisters from Dallas – 13-year-old Blair Harber and 11-year-old Brooke Harber – had been staying with their grandparents alongside the Guadalupe River when their cabin was washed away, CBS Information, the BBC’s US associate has reported.

Their mother and father had been in a separate cabin and weren’t harmed.

Their grandparents are nonetheless unaccounted for.

The deaths had been confirmed by St Rita Catholic Neighborhood, the place Brooke was attributable to begin sixth grade. Blair was getting ready to enter eighth grade.

“Please preserve the Harber household in your prayers throughout this time of profound grief. Could our religion, our love, and our St. Rita group be a supply of energy and luxury within the days forward,” mentioned Father Joshua J Whitfield in correspondence with church members.

9-year-old Lila Bonner, a Dallas native was discovered useless after flooding close to Camp Mystic, in accordance with NBC Information.

“Within the midst of our unimaginable grief, we ask for privateness and are unable to verify any particulars at the moment,” her household mentioned in a press release to the information outlet.

“We ache with all who liked her and are praying endlessly.”