More than an hour passed between Camp Mystic receiving a severe flood warning and a decision to evacuate young campers asleep in cabins by the Guadalupe River.

Catherine Wendlandt, a freelance writer in Texas who has written stories for Chron, attended Camp Mystic as a camper from 2004 to '13, then served as a counselor from 2014 to '16. Wendlandt shared this tribute to camp counselors, some of whom lost their lives in catastrophic Guadalupe River flooding on July 4.