First the rain, then the flood: How Camp Mystic campers woke to devastation on July 4

By Matt Gutman & Kevin Shalvey

The thunder and lighting came to Camp Mystic first, but that was normal.

The storm and the driving rain at the Texas camp woke up some of the campers, including Georgia and Eloise Jones, at about 1 a.m. on July 4.

At first the pair thought nothing of it, they told ABC News. After all, it had been raining on and off for days.

"I mean, it rains a lot there, so we thought it was just normal," Georgia said.

Georgia and Eloise Jones, who were at Camp Mystic, in the Texas Hill Country, on July 4, 2025, talk with ABC News about the morning the devastating floods began.

But within an hour or so, the girls knew something was wrong, they said, when campers from another cabin showed up at their door, saying theirs had been flooded.

"That's when we realized something was wrong," Georgia said. "And our cabins are high up, and for them to be flooding, it's like, you know, something's wrong."

Hours later, at about 7 a.m., when they stepped out of their cabin, the sisters could see what they described as the "complete destruction" of some of the camp.

"And then we realized like we can't stay here, you know," Georgia said.

The flood claimed at least 27 lives at Mystic, according to local and camp officials.

Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images

A woman sorts through clothing and campers belongings outside cabins at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, on July 8, 2025, after severe flash flooding over the July Fourth holiday weekend.

Two days prior to the floods, the Texas Department of State Health Services signed off on the youth camp's emergency plans, according to records obtained by ABC News. The details of Camp Mystic's emergency plans were not included in the records released by the state.

The youth camp had 557 campers and 108 staffers between its Guadalupe and Cypress Lake locations at the time of the inspection.

ABC News' Laura Romero contributed to this report.