AUSTIN, Texas (RNS) — Sandy Davis Kirk woke at 5 a.m. on July 4 to a roaring sound outside her window.
“I heard people shrieking from the waters,” said Davis Kirk, whose backyard is bordered by the Guadalupe River. “It was hard to even believe it was real.”
Like most Kerr County, Texas, residents, Davis Kirk did not receive any emergency alerts on her phone when the Guadalupe quickly spilled over its banks, leading to unexpected flash floods. Thankfully, she is an early riser.
Davis Kirk is a minister, Christian author and former president of the Christian ministry Aglow International. Originally from West Texas, it was Davis Kirk’s love of Camp Mystic that motivated her to move to Kerr County in 2023. The now-devastated Christian girls camp is just a 10-minute drive from her home.
Sandy Davis Kirk. (Courtesy photo)
“My whole character was developed there,” said Davis Kirk, who attended the camp for 14 years, starting in the late 1950s. Her twin daughters, Christi Grider and Misti Grider Webb, would go on to attend the camp, as would her granddaughter Ella Webb, whose closing ceremony at the end of a camp term inspired Davis Kirk to move to the area.
“I’m driving along, and I think, ‘This is the one place in the world that my whole family loves,’” she recalled to RNS. “I found a place that looked like a small Camp Mystic, with sprawling pecan and cypress trees along the river.”
The camp that shaped three generations of Davis Kirk’s family has, for nearly a century, welcomed hundreds of girls each summer. Founded in 1926 and nestled along the south fork of the Guadalupe River, Camp Mystic offered Christian formation alongside recreational activities. When last week’s flash floods hit, 386 campers and 64 staff members were in the cabins near the Guadalupe River. The floods devastated the camp, killing at least 27 campers and counselors. Those who survived relayed harrowing stories of narrow escapes.
Just a day after the floods struck Kerr County, M …