Creek by Texas camp floods after campers leave
Bruce Beaver drove across Cow Creek Bridge around 4 p.m. on Friday, July 4, after a week at Hensel Christian Youth Camp in Marble Falls, Texas. Less than 24 hours later, the bridge collapsed when Cow Creek flooded.
Beaver, youth minister for the Belton Church of Christ in Texas, was one of about 150 attendees at Hensel for Camp Koinonia Junior Week. That is the Belton church’s camp for rising fifth through eighth grade students.
The campers and staff did not experience any of the flooding while at the camp. Beaver said it rained on Thursday and Friday, but the camp schedule did not change other than moving a few activities indoors.
“When I got up Friday morning, I noticed the front wasn’t really moving,” Beaver said. “It was just hovering over central Texas. The predictions didn’t have it moving forward.”
The camp staff called the sheriff’s office multiple times Friday to ask about flash flood warnings. There were no warnings at 10 a.m. or 11:15 a.m., Beaver said, but the staff was warned in the afternoon to watch for flooding as campers prepared to leave. Beaver was the last to leave the campgrounds at 4 p.m. during a break in the rain, and he said there was no flooding when he left.
The Hensel campgrounds were not affected until the creek flooded Friday night, but Belton elder Scott Cox said he heard about the flood’s initial damage around Texas earlier in the day.
“I was starting to get reports Friday morning,” Cox said. “The magnitude of the event was really heartbreaking, even that early. It’s really just devastating.”
Hensel Christian Youth Camp is one of multiple summer camps affected by the flooding over the weekend.
“The magnitude of the event was really heartbreaking, even that early. It’s really just devastating.”
Nearly 125 miles away, campers at Camp Bandina in Bandera, Texas — also associated with Churches of Christ — were blocked from leaving the camp by floodwaters and fallen trees. Most notably, Camp Mystic — a nondenominational Christian camp in Hunt, Texas — lost over two dozen campers and counselors to the floods. Hensel is nearly 120 miles from Mystic.
“While we have lost things here, our hearts and prayers are with those who have lost loved ones and are going through unimaginable circumstances,” camp manager Dean Tomberlin said.
A search-and-rescue crew stands at the edge of Cow Creek at Hensel Christian Youth Camp while looking for flood victims.
Camp becomes ‘a safe base for rescue teams’
Cow Creek Bridge, near the entrance to the camp, was washed out on July 5.
Search-and-rescue teams were on the campgrounds July 6 and 7 looking for victims from the bridge collapse. The camp shared on Facebook on July 7 that the teams found the body of missing 17-year-old Malaya Hammond, a Marble Falls student, near the bonfire area.
“In the midst of the storm’s aftermath, our camp became a place of purpose — a safe base for rescue teams working day and night to search, serve and save,” Tomberlin said. “We are grateful to have provided a safe staging area for those on the front lines of this crisis.”
“Through the wreckage of this tragedy, camp will continue — eventually. Hensel Camp will always remain a place where lives are changed and Christ is glorified.”
Cow Creek flooded to four times its usual level on July 5.
The creek measured at 4.98 feet from June 30 to July 4, according to data from the Lower Colorado River Authority. The authority’s river gauge in Cow Creek is near the south side of the camp’s property.
The data showed the creek rose to 19.98 feet from 3:40 a.m. to 3:55 a.m. on July 5. The creek level spiked again 12 hours later, measuring 16.77 feet at 3:10 p.m. The water gradually lowered and returned to 4.98 feet.
After the flooding, Hensel shared photos on its Facebook page of the damage — including fallen trees, erosion by the fire pit and the swimming dock that had washed away. The dining hall and cabins are at a higher elevation than the creek and were not damaged.
Cox said he knew from prior experience that the dining hall and cabins are all above the floodplain. He recalled a night at Hensel years ago with heavy rain that destroyed the swimming docks but did not reach the cabins.
“The waterfront where we go swimming is very different now,” Beaver said. “That’s the main part that got damaged from floods that I could tell from the pictures. … It makes you a little sad, just all the memories that are created there, seeing that damage happen.”
Uprooted tree limbs are piled by the main entrance to Hensel Christian Youth Camp in Marble Falls, Texas.
‘Committed to rebuilding’
As rescue crews continue to search for missing people, recovery efforts are beginning on the Hensel campgrounds.
Tomberlin said the camp is accepting donations to help with the cleanup and repairs on the property.
“Through the wreckage of this tragedy, camp will continue — eventually,” Tomberlin wrote. “Hensel Camp will always remain a place where lives are changed and Christ is glorified. We are committed to rebuilding, restoring and returning stronger. … Together we will rise — not by our own strength, but by His.”
KENZIE JAMES, a senior multimedia journalism major at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., is a Christian Chronicle intern working in the main office in Oklahoma City. James grew up in Tallahassee, Fla., where she attended the Timberlane Church of Christ.
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