A pair of brothers who survived the flash floods in Texas recalled the harrowing moment when one of them was forced to swim to safety. Piers and Ruffin Boyett, who were attending Camp La Junta in Hunt, Texas, told ABC affiliate KSAT that their cabin started to fill with water due to the torrential downpour.
According to Piers, the boys in the cabin were forced to climb into the cabin's rafters to escape the rising water. "I couldn't sleep because of the lightning," said Ruffin to the outlet.
"People were screaming that there was a flood," added Piers. "There was a lot of water."
Ruffin told the outlet that he was the first one to wake in his cabin around 4 a.m. Friday morning. It was reported that another camper awoke with him and rushed off to wake the counselor, who in turn woke up the rest of the campers in the cabin.
After emerging from the fogginess of sleep, the campers realized their danger. "Oh my God, we're floating," Ruffin Boyett recalled.
According to the boys, it was then that they were forced to make a decision. "The flood started getting bigger," Piers recalled. "We have bunk beds in our cabin, and it (the water) was going to the top bunk. We had one choice, and we had to swim out of our cabins."
It was then that the campers and the Boyett brothers managed to swim their way to safety and huddled in a cabin located on higher ground before they were put on a bus and driven away from the Guadalupe River. As of Saturday, there have been 43 deaths in relation to the flood.
Elsewhere in Hunt, the families of four missing Camp Mystic campers have announced that their children were killed as a result of the flood. Their deaths come amid devastating flooding in Kerr County, Texas, where more than 20 campers are still missing.
The campers, nine-year-olds Janie Hunt, Renee Smajstrla, Sarah Marsh, and Lila Bonner, are the first to be located and identified publicly. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Friday that more than 20 children were still unaccounted for at the all-girls private Christian summer camp, which hosts about 750 kids. More than 850 Kerr County residents have been evacuated.
"Renee has been found, and while it was not the outcome we prayed for, the social media outreach likely assisted the first responders in helping to identify her so quickly," the girl's uncle Shawn posted on Facebook. "We are thankful she was with her friends and having the time of her life, as evidenced by this picture from yesterday."
Mother Anne Hunt told CNN on Friday that she and her family were praying for news about her daughter and that they had not heard anything about her whereabouts. "In the midst of our unimaginable grief, we ask for privacy and are unable to confirm any details at this time," the Bonner family said in a statement. "We ache with all who loved her and are praying endlessly for others to be spared from this tragic loss."
