The flash flooding on the Guadalupe river in central Texas has killed at least 59 people, including 15 children. Some two dozen girls from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp, are still missing.
Rescuers have been searching the river on Saturday, and the death toll is expected to rise. Here’s what we know about those who were killed.
Sarah Marsh
Sarah Marsh, an 8-year-old student at Cherokee Bend Elementary in Mountain Brook, Alabama, was one of the campers at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas.
RM Block
In a statement posted online, Stewart Welch, the mayor of Mountain Brook, a suburb of Birmingham, confirmed that Sarah was among those who died in the flood and said that the city was heartbroken.
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“This is an unimaginable loss for her family, her school and our entire community,” he wrote. “Sarah’s passing is a sorrow shared by all of us, and our hearts are with those who knew her and loved her.”
In a text message Saturday, Sarah’s grandmother, Debbie Ford Marsh, said that Sarah’s parents were not able to talk and declined to comment on behalf of the family.
Earlier, on Facebook, she posted: “We will always feel blessed to have had this beautiful spunky ray of light in our lives. She will live on in our hearts forever!”
Janie Hunt
Janie Hunt (9), of Dallas, died in the flash flooding, her grandmother Margaret Hunt said in an interview.
Janie was also attending Camp Mystic. It was her first time there as a camper, and she attended along with six of her cousins, who were safe, Hunt said.
Hunt said she was in Vermont when she got a call from her daughter, Anne Lindsay Hunt, telling her about the flooding. Janie’s parents drove to Ingram Elementary, the reunification centre, where they were told to visit a funeral home and identify their daughter. Janie was the eldest of three children.
Bobby and Amanda Martin
Bobby Martin (46) and his wife, Amanda (44) were among those killed, Bobby Martin’s father, John Keith Martin, told the New York Times.
The couple, from Odessa, Texas, were reportedly camping by the Guadalupe river when their RV was swept away by rising floodwaters. The elder Martin said one of his grandchildren and that grandchild’s girlfriend were with the couple and were still missing.
“He was an adventurous man, adventurous and outgoing. He had many good friends, because he was a good friend,” John Keith Martin said of his son. “He’s just incredible.”
Jane Ragsdale
Jane Ragsdale, director and co-owner of the Heart O’ the Hills summer camp in Kerr County, is among those confirmed dead in the flooding, said a statement posted to the camp’s website. No campers were residing at the site when the floods hit.
“We at the camp are stunned and deeply saddened by Jane’s death,” the statement said. “She embodied the spirit of Heart O’ the Hills and was exactly the type of strong, joyful woman that the camp aimed to develop with the girls entrusted to us each summer.”
Ragsdale, who became camp director in 1988, started as a camper and later became a counsellor. – This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
