The Guadalupe River had returned to calm by Saturday evening and was beginning to give up its grim secrets, as 70 people – many of them children – were recovered from what just a day earlier was a terrifying flash flood that had turned land into water, taken homes and retreated to leave miles of terrible devastation along its banks.
At Camp Mystic, on a bend in the river flanked by cliffs that sped the torrent as if through a chicane, 700 young girls had five days earlier gathered for a month-long summer camp of fun and spiritual growth, the evening brought a strange calm to Texas Hill country.