Through the eyes of a survivor: Breckenridge girl returns home from Camp Mystic floods

“It was really scary, but I just ended up sitting there. We were all singing and praying. It’s not going to help just to scream – so I just ended up closing my eyes, shielding my ears and just hoping for a couple of hours.”

That is Breckenridge local Milly Cate McClymond’s harrowing account of being at the epicenter of the devastating flooding at Camp Mystic in Kerr County over the Fourth of July weekend. 

The daughter of Breckenridge ISD school president Nic McClymond, the young Milly Cate remained strong despite living through such horrific events.  

This was Milly Cate’s fourth year attending the Christian girls’ summer camp located along the river. She recalled going to sleep around 10 or 11 p.m. on the evening of Thursday, July 3, before the devastating rain hit.

“We all woke up at around 1 (a.m.) to a huge thunderstorm, and Camp Mystic usually gets lots of rain, so we were just used to it,” Milly Cate said. “But, it was different rain than usual. My counselor slept right next to me so we kind of looked at each other and she was like, ‘You are all okay, you can go sit on your friend’s bed. Just don’t wake anyone else if they’re sleeping.’ So we’re just sitting there and then, all of a sudden, we see water coming in from the floors.”

At that point, Milly Cate said that they all began to look for the leak, and she said they saw it coming from the seams under the campers’ beds.

“Then a tree branch falls on one of my friend’s windows and we’re like ‘uh oh,’” she said.

Milly Cate then said that the counselors looked out the windows and saw the canoes hitting their stuff and the stairs began to flood. She said that her counselor had spoken to the other counselors and rushed to the office to inform the main directors that there was flooding in their low cabin. 

“So they come back and they’re looking at our cabins and they bring a Suburban and two or three trucks,” Milly Cate said. “So I locked my trunk and our counselor made sure that we put on shoes. I grabbed a jacket and then we ran into the trucks.”

Milly Cate recalled that for her, the water was just below her knee. She said that upon getting into a truck, they were driven up to the recreation hall, which was on higher ground. As they are sitting there with more kids coming into the hall, Milly Cate said that the water started to come in through the doors. 

“So we go to the second balcony, which is like a normal second floor, but it’s just a balcony instead,” she said. “From like 2 to 5 (a.m.) we just watched the water rise. And to that point, my dad, someone who’s taller, could put his hand down and touch the water. So it was really scary.”

After closing her eyes for a couple of hours, Milly Cate said that after the rain stopped, a window busted open and all of the water began flowing in.

“The counselors came to us and told us that it’s going to be okay. They said that we’re going to wait till about 6, till sunrise, so we can kind of look at things because it was really dark then,” Milly Cate said. “So at 6 or 6:30, they start letting everyone go down. There was mud, pillows and clothes everywhere.”

While the realization began to come in that people and campers were missing, Milly Cate said that everyone in her cabin was safe, which was about 14 to 16 campers, including her cousin, and two counselors. She said that they lined up on the tennis courts outside of the rec hall. 

“We’re looking outside, and it’s like we almost don’t even know where we are. It’s just awful,” Milly Cate said. “They bring buckets of food and water, and then we walk over to the new camp, which is not that far.”

The new camp that Milly Cate was referring to was at the sister camp of Camp Mystic, Camp Mystic Cypress Lake, where they camped out for several hours. 
She said that everyone was really nice there and they were brought new clothes, water, food and lots of crafts to help pass the time. 

After a while, they were all then escorted via a Black Hawk helicopter, eight to 10 girls/counselors at a time, to Ingram High School. For his first mission out of school, the Black Hawk helicopter Coast Guard Petty Officer Scott Ruskan saved all of their lives. 

“That guy is a hero,” Milly Cate’s mom, Courtney, said. 

According to several online sources, 26-year-old Petty Officer Ruskan received the call at 7 a.m. on July 4 after just six months of being a rescue swimmer. The Ryder University graduate joined the Coast Guard in 2022. 

In an interview with CNN, Ruskan said that it took them about four different attempts before they were able to get to the landing zone. On the fourth try, he said they were able to make it into the camp.

“We heard there were about 200 campers there and they were in need of an airlift. There was no other way to get them out,” Ruskan said in the interview. 

After internal discussions with the other crew, it was decided that the best course of action was for Ruskan to stay with boots on the ground. He acted as the triage, directing black hawks to the camp’s archery and soccer fields, being used as landing zones. 

“These camp counselors, and the kids too, were being so brave and tough,” Ruskan said. “... I’m sorry this happened to you guys, but you were being so brave and tough and it made me a better rescuer.”

From Ingram High School, they were bussed to Ingram Elementary so that parents could be reunited at the reunification point. 

While she and the other girls were driven out on the buses, they remained strong and sang in unison to bring out a powerful moment of light in a devastating time of darkness. Then, they were reunited with their parents after going through a process of getting out. 

“We were relieved, because I saw my parents in the buses, but they didn’t know where we were,” Milly Cate said. “So it was scary, but we were all relieved to be home.”

Feelings back home

Courtney described emotional moments for her and her husband as they awaited word on their daughter’s safety. At first, Courtney said that she thought some of the moms were being dramatic as she woke up to text messages July 4. 

“I was downplaying it, thinking surely, it’s fine,” Courtney said. “... when I was getting the text messages, somebody officially sent out that all campers at Camp Mystic were accounted for. I have a group chat with her cabin, and people were texting that it looks like there’s flooding at Camp Mystic, it’s not good.”

Courtney then said that she responded, saying that it seemed like all the campers were safe and accounted for, and that they had gotten them to a safe location, and were just waiting on communication for a time and place to retrieve them.

“As some of the group chat went down, one of the mothers said that, no, all campers are not accounted for,” Courtney said. “And somebody contributed that two little girls had gotten ‘swept up’ but had been caught. So all of a sudden, the thread starts changing from ‘Everyone is okay,’ to ‘This is a catastrophe.’”

She said that at that point, they waited before receiving another formal communication that said, “If you have been called, then your child is not accounted for. If you have not been called, your child is accounted for.”

“So you’re just kind of clinging to that hope,” Courtney said. “We were very worried and wanted to be with her and see her to know that she truly was safe.”

While the McClymond family and other families waited to be reunited with their children, Courtney said that they had to wait in line and all the girls had to be put in a system to get out. 

“Once you were called, then you could get in a long line and eventually show your ID and get the girls out,” Courtney said. “They were all documented before getting on the Blackhawks. They took their name, they gave them a bracelet and the whole ID situation.”

Courtney said that they were unaware that the girls had been in the Ingram school for a long time. 

“So the helpers that were in there were, I think, feeling sorry for them that they’d been in there (so long),” she said. “It was just a mess. They did a great job, but it just took a very long time, and I think those girls were ready to be reunited with their parents. There was a protocol, but it was taking a long time.”

Courtney said that it was almost sunset on Friday night, July 4, around dusk, when they picked Milly Cate up and took her home. She said that while in line, she received a phone call from Kerrville, which scared her. 

“It was a helper inside’s phone and it was Milly Cate going, ‘Mom, where are you? We’ve been in here for three hours.’ So we were able to talk to her and make sure my niece Libby was okay,” Courtney said. “I had a friend standing next to me who was picking up three daughters, and she had her youngest already with her. They were able to tell the mom that the other two were in there and safe.”

This mother, Courtney said, had a daughter in the cabin where all the girls survived on top of mattresses provided to them by a Camp Mystic worker.

“It was just a very surreal, very frightening ordeal,” Courtney said. “Very, very thankful that Milly has returned to us and obviously, there’s a profound loss of all of those who were not as fortunate.”

Her first year at Camp Mystic, Milly Cate was at Bubble Inn cabin, which saw some of the worst of the devastation. 

Milly Cate and her family went back to where the devastation occurred and were able to retrieve her trunk, which had some very important items to her. Courtney noted that she thought it was important for Milly Cate to go back and see what she had been through. 

“There’s devastation all along Hunt, but it almost looked like Camp Mystic was the epicenter of that devastation,” Courtney said. “So the fact that anyone is out of there is a miracle.”

While the trunk is molded, the family was able to salvage a lot of her personal items. Courtney said that one of the things was her prayer box from her aunt in which she had written a couple of prayers last year, including praying for protection. Another item that survived was her Bible. 

“So, we’re just praying for all the miracles and just to cover those in prayer and lift them up during this time,” Courtney said. 

One item that Milly Cate was most worried about was her Tonk T, because her counselors had signed them last year, and it was important for her to save them in memory of one of her counselors.