The owner of a Texas campground completely swept away in the state’s devastating floods watched RVs and cars full of terrified people float away — as she and her husband tried helplessly to save her doomed customers.
“Nobody ever remembers a flood this bad. I have friends who are 90-years-old and they don’t remember a flood that bad,” said Lorena Guillen, owner of Blue Oak RV Park on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County.
“The cabins from the RV park next door came floating and they were getting smashed against the trees. People were just screaming,” Guillen told The Post. “‘Help me. Help me,’ that was the main thing. You heard a lot of screaming, it was just too much.”
Guillen and her husband had gone to bed around 1 a.m. Friday morning after closing down a bar she operates next to the park, when torrential rain started falling across their campground.
Around 2:30 a.m. she woke and checked the river, and even though it looked “fine” she called the local sheriff’s office to ask if anybody was evacuated — and was told ‘We have no information right now, we don’t know.’”
But about an hour later, Guillen was awoken by the flash of rescue team lights, and when she and her husband raced downstairs they found the river standing about 10 feet over its banks and the campground in chaos.
“The first level of the RVs were already washing away. The river went up about 10 feet at that time. A family of five was stranded because their trailer was closest to the river. Their RV was floating away. It was pitch black, it was so dark,” she said.
Guillen’s husband tried to help a stranded family by begging the father to try tossing him their young kids — but the father wouldn’t let go of his children and the whole family, later identified as the Burgesses, was swept away and killed.
“My husband was in the water trying to ask them ‘Please throw me your baby!’ The man was holding tight to his babies and he just got swept away,” she said. “Holding two babies. His wife was holding the other girl. They were both clinging on a tree.”
Not long before, the family had been “thrilled” to be at the campground for the holiday weekend.
“When they came in, I talked to them and welcomed them. The kids were running around enjoying the park,” Guillen said. “They were so thrilled to be here. The kids were so excited to be here.”
Photos from the scene after the floodwaters receded captured the chaos — with RVs reduced to splinters, trees uprooted, wires and shredded metal lying about, personal belongings half buried in gobs of mud, and pulverized pickup trucks littering the ground.
Every single one of the 28 of the RVs that had been at the campground were swept away.
Eight bodies have been recovered from the grounds, while at least 40 people are missing between Guillen’s camp and the RV park next door.
“Every single park was full. We were just so excited that we were able to celebrate Fourth of July in a big way,” she said.
At least 109 people have been confirmed dead in the flooding, with 87 of them from Kerr County — 30 of whom are children. More than 160 people remain missing, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday afternoon.
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