AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
In Texas, dozens of girls from a Christian summer camp are missing after catastrophic and deadly floods swept through the Guadalupe River valley. The 99-year-old camp called Camp Mystic is 80 miles northwest of San Antonio, and it's hosted generations of women, including the daughters of well-heeled political elites like former President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Texas Newsroom's Paul Flahive reports on the impact the camp has had on Texas women.
PAUL FLAHIVE, BYLINE: Camp Mystic, the all-girls camp, was set to celebrate 100 years next year, guiding the moral lives of Texas girls. Now, it isn't clear what is left of the camp after rains brought a 25-foot rise in the nearby Guadalupe River, sweeping away cars, trees and homes.
SHELBY PATTERSON: We don't know what will happen to it.
FLAHIVE: Shelby Patterson is a University of Virginia fundraiser who attended the camp for eight years.
PATTERSON: There is a mourning for what happened, a mourning for what we still don't know, and all the girls they still haven't found, but also an extreme mourning for the special place that, you know, may not exist past this.
FLAHIVE: Rectifying what may be the site of dozens of lost lives with the memories of foggy morning horseback rides, competitive canoe races and riverside fishing lessons has been hard, says Lauren Garcia (ph), a woman who also attended for eight years and now lives in New York City.
LAUREN GARCIA: It's my favorite place in the entire world. It really is, like, a safe haven. I've never experienced anything like it.
FLAHIVE: The idyllic camp facility spans hundreds of acres along the limestone hills and banks of the river. The valleys of Kerr County have for decades been a popular site for multiple summer camps for boys and girls, surrounded by rolling hills. For years, the camp hosted the children of some political elite, including former first lady Laura Bush, former Governor John Connally and the daughters and granddaughters of former President LBJ, whose wife would continue to attend camp functions after she left the White House.
PATTERSON: Lady Bird Johnson would come to camp closings.
FLAHIVE: The camp has been so sought after that women speak about friends signing up their daughters for the wait list as soon as they're born. Kim Barnes (ph) was a Mystic camper whose family's time there spanned seven decades from her mother to her daughter.
KIM BARNES: There's just such long history and depth and love for not just the place, but I think all that it represents.
FLAHIVE: The camp has, for nearly 100 years, offered 30-day programs to improve the spirituality and self-confidence of girls. As soon as news broke early Friday morning of the floods and associated deaths, former campers who've kept in touch for decades started texting updates and reflecting on their time there, including Barnes and her daughter.
BARNES: My daughter was sending me some pictures of her as a camper, you know, the same age as some of the little girls who are missing, and I just - it brings me to my knees.
FLAHIVE: Throughout several interviews, former campers, now adult women, related simple memories and actions that have stayed with them to this day. For Patterson, that was the absence of phones and computer screens.
PATTERSON: It was such a gift to be able to go to such a beautiful place and unplug with your best friends every year. Something I'll always hold with me.
FLAHIVE: Regardless of what's left of the camp, Patterson says it will always be a foundational piece of her life.
For NPR News, I'm Paul Flahive in San Antonio.
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