Kerrville ISD employees rescued campers and counselors stranded by deadly floods at Hill Country camps.
KERRVILLE, Texas — More than a dozen Kerrville Independent School District employees answered an emergency call to rescue hundreds of stranded campers and counselors from two Hill Country camps following devastating July 4th floods that struck the Guadalupe River area.
Officials at the summer camps, including Camp La Junta and Camp Mystic, reached out to Kerrville ISD to see if they could get their campers to reunification points. More than a dozen volunteers showed up in minutes, with the district’s transportation team mobilizing within 30 minutes of the initial call for help.
A convoy of KISD school buses then navigated severely damaged roads to reach the camps, where campers and staff were left stranded after deadly flooding hit the region. The route to get to the camps was destroyed, with parts of the road completely ripped out of place and stacks of tree branches littering bridges they had to cross.
“You said it didn’t matter what we were being called in for we just knew we needed to help,” said Amanda Henderson, describing the response from district employees.
Tivy High School Principal Rick Sralla was among the volunteers who drove buses to the affected camps. Having previously visited Camp La Junta, Sralla was familiar with the area but was struck by the extent of the damage he encountered.
“We didn’t know what we were in for. I can remember bus drivers calling, and it was hard for them to contain what they were seeing, and they picked up the microphone to the other buses and said, ‘God be with us. This is bad,'” Sralla said.
The buses communicated with each other about obstacles along the route as they made their way through the flood-damaged terrain. When they arrived at the camps, the urgency of the situation became clear.
“The sheer devastation it was very sobering. We had seen floods before… not to this magnitude,” Sralla said, describing what he witnessed during the rescue operation.
“They were in their pajamas. They were holding teddy bears. They had what they could grab with them in the middle of the night to get on the bus,” Sralla recalled of the campers they rescued.
Ken Noles, KISD’s Director of Transportation, was out of the country on a cruise when the floods hit, with no cell signal or Wi-Fi available. He could only get information from television coverage of the disaster.
Despite his absence, Noles’ team sprang into action. The rescue operation was captured in viral video footage showing campers from Camp Mystic singing Christian camp songs as they boarded the buses, even while facing the storm damage around them. Video was also taken while the buses were on the way to pick up the campers, documenting the dangerous conditions they faced.
“I’ve had the opportunity to review some of the footage and what you see is girls coming out hand in hand linked all the way onto this bus. You watch them get on to bus six. As they’re heading back into town they’re singing their Christian camp songs,” Noles said.
The emotional impact of the rescue mission has stayed with the transportation team. Noles noted that district leaders helped quickly mobilize the buses for the emergency response.
“We’ll never look at bus six the same again,” Noles said, referring to one of the buses used in the rescue.
The transportation director praised his team’s performance during the crisis, emphasizing how the bus drivers went beyond their normal duties to help those in need.
“You can no longer say I’m just a bus driver. Because that day on July 4th and the next day on July 5th you were a comforter, you were a rescuer. In my mind they’re all heroes,” Noles said.
When asked about his pride in the team’s response, Noles was emphatic: “I’ve never been so proud of a team.”
The rescue operation took place in the hours following the deadly July 4th floods that struck the Texas Hill Country, affecting the Guadalupe River area where the camps were located. The KISD “bus barn” now houses all the buses that were used in the rescue mission, including the notable Bus Six and Bus Eight that Sralla drove during the operation.