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A Lost Summer Idyll

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Camp is a sacred American rite. More than 20 million children attend each summer, according to the American Camp Association. It’s a ritual of personal growth, of community building, of communing with nature. And, for the parents and grandparents and siblings of campers, it is suddenly a harrowing prospect, turned upside down by the floods in Texas that took 27 children and counselors at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas.

After this, what will it feel like to drop your children off for a spell in the woods, trusting that they will come home safe?

My daughter had recently returned from her first sleepaway camp when an editor called me early on the Fourth of July and asked me to look into reports of flash flooding along the Guadalupe River in Central Texas. (See how fast floodwaters rose here.)

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Credit...Source: Flooding data via Floodbase | Map shows areas with any level of estimated flooding. Localized flooding may be underrepresented. | By The New York Times

I remember how I felt when my daughter left. I was excited for her but also vibrating with tension, obsessively refreshing the private webpage where the camp posted photographs daily. (Here is another technological innovation that is both a blessing and a curse.) Was she happy? Would she ride a horse? Was that curly-haired seatmate a new friend? Those worries suddenly felt frivolous as I began to report.

In Texas, like so many parts of the country, everyone seems to have a summer camp story. Friends of my family have attended Camp Mystic and many other spots like it in the Texas Hill Country and beyond.